Source: http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/...

“2005 was when the first of the millennials were turning 21. They are more predisposed to take up homebrewing than any generation in recent history,” Glass says. “This is really different than homebrewing’s image. Previously, it was people in their 30s and 40s who were going out less, taking up hobbies. Now, younger people are doing it.”

There’s also no separating it from the locally sourced, organic, farm-to-table trend.

“There is, right now, a generation of people who are coming of age and entering the alcohol market, and craft beer has been around their entire life,” says Rex Halfpenny, who began publishing the Michigan Beer Guide in 1997 and is a close observer of the homebrewing world. “When I was their age, that was not the case: there were 40 breweries and they all made the same thing. Now they’re drinking craft beer from day one.”

It also makes for more women in a previously male-dominated, male-marketed industry. On the AHA website, Thomas published a three-part series on women in the beer business, which called attention to 2013 Homebrewer of the Year Annie Johnson, writer-critic Christina Perozzi of TheBeerChicks.com, and brewers at popular breweries like New Belgium. Of growth among younger AHA members, Thomas says around 20 to 30 percent of it comes from women.