If you were to say that most American homebrewers are

  • 40 years old
  • College educated
  • Have a household income of at least $75K
  • Married
  • Started homebrewing in 20o5 or later

I would say – I resemble those remarks.

So if you have not seen it already, go check out the survey that the AHA just released.

It’s always interesting to see the results of a survey.  This one was no joke either.  They collected information from over 18,000 people.  Most surveys I see are from groups with counts in the hundreds or low thousands.

Some thoughts we had:

I wonder what the split was by gender.  Was it overwhelming male or not?  Did they decide not to publish that metric because they weren’t confident with the  data or did they not collect gender?

The Northeast needs to get their act together.  The percentage split was way too small.  We need to get our numbers up.  The South had a bigger slice of the pie and a few of that region’s states just legalized homebrewing.  Come on, Northeast.  Let’s get organized.

The three online shops bit – Does that mean the average homebrewer uses three different online shops a year or does it mean that three online shops see the most online shoppers a year?

I like that our tribe is 1.2 million people strong. I think that number has been growing steadily year over year. How much will it grow? Could it be 10 million people in 10 years?

Homebrewers, on average, spend 800 dollars a year on the hobby. I have been having some thoughts on this subject. Is it better to throw a whole bunch of money into a hobby right up front or spend it over time as your fondness and abilities grow?

Overall, the data satisfied a few needs I had. It did quantify the audience for our blogging exploits, which is nice to know. Also, it set a starting point in which to gauge future survey results to see if the hobby is growing or declining.

Brew on.

*** I received some more information about the survey:

“94% of survey respondents were male, though 30% indicated that they brew with a spouse or domestic partner, which would indicate that the actual number of women participating in the hobby is much higher than 6%.”

“Also, the stat on homebrewing shops mean that average homebrewer uses three different online shops a year, not that three online shops are the most visited.”