How and why did craft breweries ‘revolutionise’ the beer market? The case of Poland

Abstract

Since 2011, when the Pinta Brewery brewed the first AIPA-style beer in Poland, dynamic growth of the craft beer market has been observed. While there were 70 breweries in 2010, in 2019 there were already about 420, most of them small. The number of new beers on the market also increased rapidly each year in the analysed period, from around 80 in 2013 to about 2,500 in 2019. Similar changes were noted in other countries, including the USA, where it was accepted to call this phenomenon ‘the craft beer revolution’. The aim of this paper is to indicate the reasons for the emergence and development of this process, using Poland as a case study. Based on statistical data and content analyses, as well as studying the modern history of the beer market, the distribution of craft beer pubs and the names of craft breweries, this work provides evidence that the proliferation of microbreweries in Poland can be confirmed by concepts such as a resource-partitioning model, neolocalism, path dependence, and the diffusion of innovations.