Experts are positive: in France, beer consumption (currently 33 liters per capita per year) could go over wine consumption (36 liters) by 2024. France is therefore preparing to join the Nordic countries, as its wine industry is going through a crisis. Take an afterwork walk in any French city center and you’ll grasp the stakes. Beer is the new afternoon coffee, the real social drink, the ultimate ally when sharing moments with friends or colleagues, standing on the sidewalk or sitting on a terrace, in front of a landscape or right at the foot of a building. The number of beer bars, tap rooms and new micro breweries are proof that beer is on the side of the future. Of young city-dwellers. Of course, at this rate, beer will leave wine behind.
Admittedly, the world of wine is suffering from frost, the drop in Chinese importations due to the pandemic, the Trump taxes, high energy bills and also from the effects of global warming. Nonetheless, the fact that it is being replaced by beer is first and foremost the reflection of a generational reality, expressed by a drop in consumption that could also be called disenchantment. On the one hand, wine and its grands crus are the figureheads of France, bearers of a refined and convivial image, but difficult to access. On the other hand, beer is the ultimate proof of the globalization of tastes, a sort of Shein of the alcoholic drink, trendy, worldwide, desirable and cheap, though not necessarily low-end.
On one side, a very marketable concept. In movies and TV shows all over the world, French wines are drank in very large glasses by Emilys who are not yet in Paris. On the other side, a cool and quite recent drink that has less stories to tell than wine, but that is highly symbolic. It is the one that twenty years ago young people studying in Berlin and hipsters in Brooklyn adopted for its rallying capacity.
Twenty years is the time for a generation to develop their own habits and their desire to be closer to their peers than to their fathers. Our preferences always have a symbolic dimension.