The Slow Decline of Drinking Draft Beer at Bars

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Jason Pratt can recall a sip of beer he took a decade ago. It’s one of his most formative beer memories, and it took place during what he refers to as “a pilgrimage” to Santa Rosa, California’s Russian River Brewing Company for a rare taste of Pliny the Younger. This coveted, intensely citrus-fruity triple IPA is released only at the brewery, only once a year. Today, Pratt is the president of the Cicerone Program, which trains and certifies beer professionals. He’s put back more than a few pints in his career, but that first, fresh swallow of Pliny the Younger on tap remains unbeaten.

“You’re creating memorable experiences with draft beer a lot of the time, in a lot of different ways. There’s a camaraderie that comes with it,” Pratt says. “It’s part of being away from home, because it’s something people can’t recreate.”

That draft beer experience, though, is in peril. Last year only 9% of beer sold in the US was packaged in kegs. The rest was sipped from bottles or cans, the de facto mode of beer drinking in the US.

For Gen Zers who turned 21 during the pandemic’s shutdowns, staying home became the default social mode.

The decline in draft beer is a decades-long story, though COVID-19’s temporary closure of bars and restaurants accelerated the pace of those losses. On a national scale, data company Draftline Technologies estimates between 7 and 13% of all draft lines are empty—installed and ready, but not dispensing any beer. If trends continue, draft beer could become a novelty, or perhaps, a relic.

As one of only 28 people in the world to attain the rank of Master Cicerone, the highest title the program offers, Pratt appreciates draft beer as a multisensory experience. Like varied wine glasses, different beer glassware can trap and enhance beer’s aromas. The particular gas used to force beer out of the keg—with nitrogen gas or carbon dioxide—can create a silkier or crisper texture. And the way the bartender pours the beer, via a standard faucet or the increasingly trendy side-pull, can change the density and creaminess of its head.

All can radically enhance the experience of drinking that beer—to say nothing of the visual appeal of a beautifully colored, properly poured pint. (Or the kitschy fun of glitter beer.) To aficionados, “there’s the theater of the pour that can help to draw people in,” says Pratt.

It’s also an important part of American drinking culture: More than a century ago, as the US teetered on the brink of Prohibition, Americans encountered beer primarily on draft. Bottles were expensive and heavy, and home refrigerators functionally didn’t exist. Almost all beer was served at bars, taverns, and saloons from wood casks belted by iron hoops. Our modern draught systems of steel kegs and forced carbon dioxide would come later, but at the turn of the 20th century, the US was firmly a draft beer culture.

Today, it’s entirely the opposite. The reasons for this are manifold, like Americans’ increasing preference for socializing at home, shifting sales priorities for the beer industry, the rising popularity of cocktails and spirits, and more. It’s not as though US drinkers collectively decided they don’t like draft beer anymore. Instead, a host of headwinds coalesced into one hurricane that pushed draft beer further and further downward as a portion of overall beer.

“The idea of sitting around at a bar and drinking tap beer, we’ve been losing that for decades for lots of reasons that don’t have anything to do with the virtues of tap beer in particular,” says Maureen Ogle, a historian and author of Ambitious Brew: A History of American Beer. “It’s sure as heck not going to reverse.”

Packaged beer, particularly canned beer, appears here to stay—at draft’s expense. Should the average beer drinker care? When great-tasting beer abounds in cans and bottles, even at bars and restaurants, what’s the harm in letting a freshly poured pint fall by the wayside?

From a sensory and even cultural standpoint, it turns out there’s plenty to lose.

“When you watch someone pour a Guinness, you don’t chitchat. You watch that shit pour,” says Liz Garibay, executive director of the Beer Culture Center, a nonprofit organization that shares stories of how beer has shaped humanity, past and present. “It’s a beautiful thing to look at, and I think that is something so pivotal to our experiences in bars. Any good learning experience is going to be multisensory.”

At its very essence, a keg is a vessel for serving beer to many people at the same time. A can or bottle is a single-serve, self-contained package. Draft beer exists in the context of bars, pubs, taverns, saloons, dance halls, bowling alleys, pizza joints, and other places where group memories are made. The hospitality industry talks so much about creating spaces for community, she says, and no beverage embodies that the way draft beer does.

Garibay worries what drinkers could miss out on in terms of beer’s visual and textural appeal were draft to disappear. More concerning to her, though, is what we’d lose culturally: an appreciation for a bartender’s skill in expertly pouring a pint, and a reason to get out of the house and into a public gathering space.

“Truly this product is about people enjoying it in a space together,” Garibay says.

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit