10 of the Biggest Changes in Beer Over the Last Decade | Men’s Journal

Hazy IPAs? Hardly anyone had heard of them in 2013.

In 2013, when I released my second book, The Complete Beer Course, the goal was both simple and seriously ambitious: to help people navigate the confusing and expanding world of craft beer. Back then, there were just under 3,200 breweries in America—an unfathomable number, or so it seemed. The next decade saw craft brewing boom, and now we have more than 9,500 breweries and counting.

Time for a refresher course: The number of craft breweries in the U.S. is now nearing the 10,000 mark—up from a healthy 3,200 just a decade ago. 

I began updating my book in 2019 to make sense of the industry's evolution: add new beers, new pictures, and hit print. But then came the pandemic, accelerating the upheavals and market shifts. The paint job became a multi-year overhaul, tearing chapters down to their malty foundation and rewriting them in their entirety.

Over the last decade, tectonic shifts have rearranged the craft brewing landscape, from the rise of hazy IPAs and hard seltzers to the proliferation of taprooms and cans. For Men’s Journal, I looked at 10 of the biggest changes in the world of beer.