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Asked to name a few of his favorites places to stop in for a drink, Joshua M. Bernstein was caught off guard.
“Man, you’re putting me on the spot,” he said. “I’ve got to think for a second on that.”
There was a lot in his memory to scan. For more than 20 years, Mr. Bernstein has been writing about beer, with a particular focus on the brewing boom in 21st century America. You are likely to know the product as craft beer.
After two decades of meteoric success, the craft brewing industry has hit an inflection point: More breweries closed than opened last year, the first time that has happened since 2005. He examined the trend in a recent article for The New York Times, where he has been a contributor since 2017.
In a phone interview from his home in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Bernstein, 46, told Times Insider about what headwinds brewers are facing and how freelance nightlife reporting morphed into a career. (And he did name a few favorite watering holes, like My Brother’s Bar in Denver and Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon in Oakland, Calif.) This conversation has been edited and condensed.
How did the craft brewing industry become your main reporting subject?
I got a degree in magazine journalism at Ohio University and ended up moving to New York in 2000 after a road trip went awry. Like a lot of people starting out, I temped, I worked at a bunch of companies as a receptionist and did whatever it took to get a toehold. As an early-20-something in New York City, there was this nightlife smorgasbord I could go investigate. I was curious about the dive bars of New York City. I got gigs for Time Out New York, New York Press and things along those lines.
Probably around 2003 or 2004, I started seeing this big wave of craft breweries opening up across the country. It felt like something was happening.
I found my niche translating what can seem arcane for a broader audience. I always tell people the beer in your hand is the end of the story. I began thinking about the beginning of the story: Who are the people that are making this beer? Who are the farmers growing the hops and the grains to make it all happen? Who are the illustrators of the labels?
And how do you translate that world for a general audience like The Times’s?
For me, writing for The Times is about being able to pinpoint trends that people may have seen around the edges and explain why these things are happening. One of the earlier stories I did for The Times was about “line culture”: people waiting overnight to buy four-packs of fresh beer at Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn. You see these people waiting in line and you’re like, “OK, that’s funny — they’re waiting for beer.” But you go a little bit deeper. What sort of cultures are surrounding this idea of waiting in line for beer? What do they do with this beer? What’s the sense of camaraderie? How do breweries that are set up to make beer manage people waiting in line outside their place?
What makes a great story is looking at the seismic shifts that people may have noticed anecdotally in their lives and giving them a national perspective.
What does the term “craft beer” mean to you?
The language we use to describe this kind of beer has changed over time. Back in the 1980s through the ’90s, people called them “microbrews.” That made sense at the time; in the computer industry “micro” was a cutting-edge term. Smaller things were the future. But as chips and the computer industry got smaller, beer got bigger. The word “micro” ceased to apply as a descriptor for what these beers were. So “craft beer” really took root in the 2000s as a point of differentiation.
Then large brewers like Anheuser-Busch InBev purchased craft breweries, and that definition started to get muddied. We don’t really have this next phrase for it yet. People were trying to make “independent beer” a thing. But if breweries are banding together, are they still independent? During the 2000s, craft beer vs. big beer was this David-versus-Goliath story. But now a lot of these smaller breweries have gotten a lot bigger. The dynamics of pitting small against big are lost. So I think we’re at the beginning of trying to find a new language to describe what these breweries are.
Let’s get into your recent reporting. Has craft beer reached its saturation point?
There are always peaks and valleys in industries. Anybody that has been drinking craft beer for the last 20 years has only seen the rise. Back in the 2010s, you could open up a brewery in a new town and, just by dint of opening your doors and providing fresh local beer, you were distinct.
What we’re seeing now is a combination of factors. People’s 10-year leases are coming up, and their rent is going up in a way that’s not sustainable. Beer is a low-margin business. In the 2010s, when people were coming and buying four-packs of hazy I.P.A. for $16, $18, $20 directly from breweries, that was a very lucrative time. But what is happening now is I think people are a little bit tighter with their dollars.
Now you have to make great beer just to have a seat at the table. What else can you do to endear yourself? If you’re a taproom business, you need to think about events. You need to think about what food you’re offering. You think about what nonalcoholic drinks you can have. What does it mean to be a brewery in 2025?
