We Asked 8 Brewers: Which Craft Beer Style Is Officially Dead in 2026?
Craft brewers are a nerdy bunch. They research historical practices, geek out over yeasts and hops, and make tiny tweaks to their brews to achieve the balance and flavor they’re after. So when we decided to ask brewers what style of beer has already seen its best days, we knew they would have strong opinions.
Sure, beer styles gain and lose favor with both consumers and creators, but some varieties peak and then fade into obscurity. Then again, the essence of craft beer is reviving those niche techniques that were just a blip on the radar. So while it might be the case that no craft beer style is ever truly dead, some are closer to their demise than others. From thick, unrefined sours to small-batch IPAs, here are some of the craft beer styles that brewers think have met their end.
The craft beer styles that are dead according to brewers:
Red Ale
Brut IPA
Black IPA
Slushie Sours
East Coast IPA
Milkshake IPA
None
“No craft beer style is truly ‘dead,’ some just fall in and out of favor depending on the market. Certain styles, like hazy IPAs, continue to perform strongly nationwide. Others are much more region-dependent. For example, as a downtown Denver brewery, we’ve found that red ales don’t move particularly well for us, while in more rural markets they can still be a top choice for customers. Demand is highly local. In a saturated craft beer city like Denver, customers tend to chase newer trends, ingredients, and processes. In less saturated markets, drinkers often stick with more familiar or traditional styles.” —Alyssa Hoberer and Jacob Kemple, owners, Full Frame Beer, Denver
“While I hesitate to call anything truly dead in the world of craft beer, I’d like to make the case for brut IPA, the short-lived, Champagne-like IPA that was rendered bone dry with the use of amylase enzymes to ferment out almost all the residual sugars. It was typically very light in color, often containing some adjuncts, and highly carbonated but low in bitterness. This was a style that was actually near to my heart, as I prefer hop forward beers to be crisp and (mostly) clear. It seemed to burst on to the scene around 2017, if I recall correctly, and was all but gone by 2020. I think there’s consensus that some of this was marketing. No one really knew how to ‘sell’ the style, so to speak. But also, as bruts were coming into being, a certain New England style of beer was truly exploding everywhere, and that seemed to capture the public drinkers’ fancy. However, I believe certain aspects of brut IPA do live on in what we now call cold IPA and West Coast pils (the three styles share crispness and high hop aroma with varying degrees of pine citrus and tropical notes, but the brut is noticeably lower in bittering units), but those latter two have had more time to evolve and flourish.” —JP Houchens, owner-worker and brewer, Simple Brewing Company, New York City
“We noticed fewer and fewer black IPAs out in the market. Nick [Mata, co-founder] and I grew up on black IPAs, so we knew we wanted to make one that would become a staple of our rotating draft list. I often tell customers that nothing hits quite like a well-made black IPA. The style itself is beautiful, complex, and unique. It should be more widely available. At Future Days, we’re doing our best to revive the style with Nightbird, and we plan to release a brand new black IPA in August.” —Sean McGuire, owner and brewer, Future Days Beer Company, Philadelphia
“The craft beer style that I would say is officially dead is the ‘slushie sour.’ While it enjoyed a few years in the cool kid spotlight I think that consumers’ palates are largely exhausted by thick, viscous beers and the adjunct-driven flavors of slushie sours, milkshake IPAs, and pastry stouts. While the latter two have a very short runway left, the slushie sour takes the deadest spot in my opinion for a few more reasons.
Drinkability: Slushie sours are far too thick to enjoy anything more than 8 ounces or so, and, in my opinion, beer is meant to be refreshing and drinkable. I think this is one of the hallmark reasons why lager has come back into prominence so resoundingly!
Adjuncts and business sense: While bright and shiny in their heyday, the featured adjuncts utilized in most of these sours can often include lactose, which is exclusionary for folks that cannot tolerate it, and even folks that can tolerate it often end up with bubbly bellies. Additionally, from a business perspective the aseptic purées, extracts, and flavorings that are often featured in these beers add cost to the potential profitability, making them very challenging to make money on unless you charge a pretty steep price point — also out of fashion in our current economic climate.
Traditional-style sours as competition: Finally, the proliferation of neoclassic-style American sours. I think as more and more high-quality and consistent American and global examples have become available, sour-beer-loving consumers have been able to identify more with the beauty and simplicity of blended, multi-bacterial, yeast-strain-driven sours instead of the one-noted lactic sour of the mid-and late 2010s. Much of what the slushie sour is/was built upon is dressing up the sharpness of lactic acid with adjuncts. This is such a far cry from the artistry, technical proficiency, and passion that has solidified the lambic and American sour, method lambic, gueuze, and spontaneous styles for generations in Europe and decades now in the U.S. as the height of the category. With the maturation in knowledge of beer drinkers, I think it was only a matter of time before they longed for a more nuanced and connective-style sour beer.” —Garret Conley, brewer, UnHitched Brewing and Woodshop, Canton, Ohio
“I’m thinking mostly of East Coast IPAs before hazies came along and American strong ales on the West Coast. This style was massive when I was getting into beer, back when 22-ounce bombers were king. Over time, hoppy beers have gotten lighter and brighter compared to the sweeter, piney, resinous beers of that era. You have the legacy beers like Dogfish Head 90 Minute or Sierra Nevada Celebration, but I really don’t see anyone exploring this style anymore.” —Trevor Schlam, Head Brewer, Strange Days Brewing Company, Kansas City, Mo.
“I don’t believe there are any styles that are completely dead. That’s one of the beautiful things about craft! Certainly, styles gain and lose favor from the market and brewers alike, but they are never really gone. The popular growth of light lagers in the craft environment tells me people are willing to revisit styles they may have parted ways with years ago in search of the next new IPA. I also think brewing lesser-known or less-popular styles gives us as brewers the ability to do a couple of things: Add our own flair to try and entice people to try something they otherwise would not have ordered and educate our customers on styles they may not even be aware of because of the lack of options at their local brewery or retail outlet. I know this doesn’t necessarily answer your questions of what styles are dead in craft, but hopefully an answer like this will get brewers thinking about how to reinvent an old classic or consumers to ask for an old favorite.” —Ben Mullet, partner and head brewer, Henceforth, Washington, D.C.
“In my opinion, styles may fade out of favor, but it’s the name that dies rather than the style itself. For example, I think dead style names include brut IPAs and milkshake IPAs. Plenty of breweries are going continually drier with their West Coast IPA options, and there are still hazies with lactose and fruit additions, but you aren’t going to see those labels on a menu anytime soon, if ever again, though I’m sure they’ll pop up with a shiny new name time and time again.” —Leigh Nelson, brewer, Cheluna Brewing Co., Aurora, Colo.
“To be honest, the more I’ve tried to think of something the more I disagree with the premise in the first place. The answer would be to think of some super-niche style that the masses have stopped buying or caring about or never were aware of before. That some weirdo somewhere is the only person carefully preserving the memory of a particular technique or flavor profile is the essence of craft, though. Not everything is going to appeal to every person.” —Eric Brown, head of production, Talea, NYC
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