Many folks have asked us for more information on the consumer respondents to the Texas Craft Beer Survey – and although a lot of this data (and a whole lot more) can be found in the full Texas Craft Beer Report, we are happy to go into more detail:
The Texas Craft Beer Survey
The Texas Craft Beer Survey collected input from 926 craft beer consumers across Texas in September, October and November 2019. We promoted the survey through social media and paid advertising and we specifically targeting craft beer consumers across the length and breadth of Texas.
The survey consisted of 30 questions and was designed to be interesting and thought-provoking to craft beer consumers. It was purposely designed so that it could not be completed quickly in under a few minutes; and in order to complete it required respondents to stop and think about their answers. The average response time was just under 16 minutes; which we felt showed that consumers spent time considering their answers.
The survey was designed to only ask input on the things that individual consumers valued. For example, we only asked people who value live music at a brewery about which breweries they thought were best for live music. We only asked people who liked stouts and porters about the breweries producing the best stouts and porters.
Our survey targeted consumers with a wider knowledge of the Texas craft beer market. It was specifically designed to not be appealing to the general public to try and discourage any survey bias or manipulation. We were not looking to facilitate a popularity contest and we didn’t necessarily want to encourage fair-weather craft consumers – there are already enough places where you can hear from them!
Survey Completion Rate
The nature of the survey meant that a large percentage of consumers had initial interest, then started the survey but did not actually complete it. This was not necessarily a bad thing. Over 3,000 people started the survey – although this included some duplicates (for example folks who returned later once they realized it wasn’t a 2-minute completion) it mostly included consumers who dropped off and didn’t complete the survey at all.
As with any advanced survey, there were a number of reasons for consumers not completing the survey – some of which we were pleased with and some of which were disappointing. In terms of the reasons we had hoped for, we did see significantly greater drop off from consumers who felt they didn’t have enough knowledge to answer the survey. Some consumers even wrote this in the survey itself or in subsequent correspondence. These consumers felt they had been to too few breweries to be able to give qualified input or simply did not have enough experience to reference. This was positive for overall response, however in some cases it also disappointingly affected where respondents came from (and may have alienated some potential quality responders).
Where we were disappointed with the drop off of consumers is those who felt as though they had been to too few breweries not out of choice, but because of the lack of breweries in their geographical area. This meant that we failed to capture consumers in many rural or small metro areas. 92% of consumers who completed the survey resided in one of the four extended metro areas of Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. There were cities in Texas where less than 20 people completed the survey despite more than 200 starting it. Ahead of our 2020 survey we will reach out to some of those folks to understand why they started but didn’t complete the survey at a higher rate than consumers in other parts of Texas and we will make changes accordingly.
By the numbers
We were really pleased with the number of expert consumers who completed the survey and this showed in the responses.
The average consumer respondent reported visiting 29 Texas breweries, and mentioned on average 14 different Texas craft breweries in the text fields responses across the survey. 22% of consumers voted for breweries in at least 2 other major metro areas other than their own – for example someone living in Houston mentioning breweries in both San Antonio and Dallas.
Only 55% of consumers listed their overall best brewery as the same one they listed as producing the best beer. Only 20% of consumers said that they base brewery visits solely on beer, with taproom atmosphere being the most important other factor in visiting a new craft brewery.
265 breweries received at least 1 consumer mention, and in total we collected over 52,000 data points that fed into the full 40-page Texas Craft Beer Report. For our first publication we were pleased with the response from the Texas craft beer-drinking public.
Cheers!