By Andy Young and Deborah Jackson
Craft beer retailer Beer Cartel is currently undertaking a survey to understand the trends and attitudes towards craft beer in Australia.
Although primarily aimed at consumers, the retailer is also looking for the trade to put its views across and the results of the survey will be made freely available to everyone.
The Beer Cartel’s Richard Kelsey told TheShout that he hopes the survey, and the results, will be a way of creating talking points about craft beer.
“The idea behind it is to create some talking points about the industry and get talking about a whole raft of things,” Kelsey said.
“We're a craft beer bottleshop and we've been going for about seven years and before that, in my previous life, I was in market research and always wanted to do a study into the craft beer industry and so from that, I thought this year I would actually get around and do something about it.
“It takes about 10 minutes max to complete. It looks at a whole lot of different things, such as who is your favourite brewery, which state has the best brewery, and there's stuff on how people feel about beer at concerts and sporting events. It's to create a talking point and to promote the industry, so what we're going to do is make the findings available to everyone and promote the industry from there.
“It's largely targeted at the consumer but also to have the trade share their viewpoint because not only are they trade but they are also consumers as well, so getting them to share their thoughts as well is definitely important.”
Kelsey added: “I think there's good benefits, so one is we can use it to just talk about and help create the conversation around craft beer and get it into mainstream media, and the other is getting a better understanding on who craft beer consumers are, what do they look like, how old are they, where are they, heaps of different stuff. Are they consuming at craft beer bars or at festivals and a whole heap of stuff.”
So far more than 4500 people have completed the survey; it is scheduled to close on 3 July and you can take part via the Survey Monkey website.