Dive Brief:
- Several airlines have recently begun to serve craft beer on flights, with Southwest Airlines, AirTran, and Sun Country adding the beverages to their menus in 2014.
- Some airlines, like Delta and Virgin America, have offered craft beer to their passengers for years, but a lot more airlines have started to do so recently.
- It's not just the beers' popularity that gets them on board, it's the fact that they are now available in cans, which are a lot lighter and easier to store on planes.
Dive Insight:
The rising popularity of craft beer on the ground and in the air reflects the general American taste trend, as well as the industry's switching to cans, reported here. Southwest Airlines began selling cans of New Belgium Brewing Co.'s Fat Tire on its nearly 700 Southwest and AirTran planes earlier this year. Sam Adams, which had been flying Delta for two decades, also got on board JetBlue this past summer. Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air offer beer made in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. In February, regional carrier Sun Country partnered with Minneapolis' Surly Brewing Co. to sell craft beer from its home base.
Omar Ansari, founder of Surly Brewing Co. says: "One of the big pieces to making that all work is that we finally have enough beer. ... There's a demand for it and a lot of breweries are making a lot more beer." Jim Koch, co-founder of the Boston Beer Co., maker of Sam Adams, observes, "This is one more step for craft beer becoming a more widely accepted experience for people." .