9-24 FB Low Beer Drinking

 99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer…these days malt barley producers will tell you that if you knock one down, it may not be replaced. I’m David Sparks and I’ll have that story for you in a minute. The old saying that economic times don’t affect alcohol sales…you know, when times are good we click glasses to celebrate, when they’re bad, we drink more cause we’re depressed…that saying may not be true according to analyst Eric Shepard of Beer Marketer’s Insights Inc. who claims beer hasn’t been recession-proof. He notes that the industry is down somewhere between 3 and 4 percent, depending on what dates you use, this year versus last year. That, in turn is bad for barley growers. Here’s Idaho Barley Commission Administrator Kelly Olson: “I’m not sure the old axiom probably fits the new economic model. I think what we’ve seen are a number of factors that have weighed on domestic beer consumption, the largest being a consistently high unemployment rate which hits blue collar workers more than white collar…that tends to be a larger portion of the beer consuming public and if they’re not pulling down a wage then they can’t afford to buy beer.”