Brewing Beer for the Drinkers of the Future (and Why the Present Is the Only Bridge That Matters)

There’s a particular smell that creeps into British beer conversations sooner or later. It isn’t stale hops or a dirty line. It’s nostalgia — thick, comforting, and usually delivered with a lecture.

Nostalgia tells us we were right once. It tells us the world changed incorrectly. It tells us that if everyone would just behave properly again, beer would sort itself out. It’s also how industries die slowly while patting themselves on the back.

At World Famous Dive Bars Ltd and Good Chemistry Brewing, we don’t get to live in that fantasy. We run pubs. We brew beer. We watch people order drinks in real time, with real money, in a world that has moved on whether anyone likes it or not.

And if you’re serious about the future of beer, you have to talk about three groups — not one.

The past.

The present.

And the future.

Most arguments only ever talk to the first one.

The Drinkers of the Past: Loud, Loyal, and Looking Backwards

Let’s get this out of the way.

The drinkers of the past matter. They built pub culture. They kept breweries alive. They understand beer deeply and passionately. They also tend to believe that the best version of beer coincided neatly with the point in history when they were happiest, younger, and drinking more of it.

That’s human. It’s also not a business strategy.

The problem isn’t that these drinkers exist. It’s that parts of the industry have decided they are the only audience worth listening to. When that happens, beer stops being a drink and becomes a moral position. Change becomes betrayal. Evolution becomes decline.

And slowly, quietly, the room empties.

The Drinkers of the Future: Already Here, Just Not Playing the Old Game

Here’s the bit that gets missed.

The drinkers of the future aren’t imaginary. They’re not “coming someday”. They’re already walking into pubs — or walking straight past them.

They drink less, but they drink better. They move between alcohol and no-alcohol without drama. They care about flavour, not tradition. They care about vibe more than provenance. They don’t want homework with their pint, and they have no interest in being told they’re doing it wrong.

They don’t define themselves as “beer drinkers”. Beer is one option in a crowded fridge that also contains cocktails, wine, softs, coffee, and water — sometimes all in the same night.

If beer feels exclusionary, preachy, or stuck in the past, they don’t argue with it. They just don’t engage.

And once you lose them, you don’t get them back by shouting louder about how things used to be.

The Drinkers of the Present: The Only Bridge That Matters

This is the group that decides everything.

The drinkers of the present are the hinge. They still drink beer regularly. They remember how pubs used to feel. They’re open to new styles, new formats, new ways of drinking — as long as they aren’t made to feel stupid for liking what they already like.

They are the bridge between tradition and evolution.

Get them right, and you bring the past forward and carry the future with you. Get it wrong, and you lose both sides — one to bitterness, the other to indifference.

This is why the present matters more than any ideological argument about beer ever will.

Brewing for Reality, Not Reenactment

At Good Chemistry, we don’t brew beer for debates. We brew beer for pubs that are alive. Busy pubs. Loud pubs. Student pubs. Late-night pubs. Dive bars where nobody’s asking permission to have a good time.

That means clean lagers that don’t apologise. Pales that are welcoming, not intimidating. IPAs that taste like beer rather than an essay. Alcohol-free beer that sits comfortably on the bar instead of being shoved in the corner like a guilty secret.

Not because it’s fashionable. Because it reflects how people actually drink now — and how they’re going to drink next.

At World Famous Dive Bars, we see it nightly. The past drinker ordering what they’ve always ordered. The present drinker switching between a pint and something lighter. The future drinker trying beer because the space feels right, the beer feels approachable, and nobody’s making it weird.

That’s not dilution. That’s survival.

The Economics Nobody Likes, But Everyone Lives With

Here’s the reality check.

Some beer styles are romanticised well beyond their usefulness in modern pubs. They require more labour, more training, more attention, spoil faster, and create more waste — all while being expected to cost less. That isn’t noble. It’s unsustainable.

You can’t build the future of pubs on sentiment. Labour doesn’t get cheaper because something is traditional. Margins don’t widen because someone’s emotionally attached to a style. If a beer doesn’t work operationally in today’s pubs, it will vanish — no matter how loudly people complain about it online.

Breweries that ignore this aren’t protecting beer. They’re quietly strangling the places that sell it.

The Only Future Worth Brewing For

The future of beer isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about relevance.

It’s about making beer that respects where it came from without being trapped there. Beer that the drinkers of the present can enjoy without explanation, and the drinkers of the future can approach without fear.

At WFDB and Good Chemistry, we’re not interested in reenactment. We’re interested in keeping pubs full, bars busy, and beer part of people’s lives — not a history lesson.

The drinkers of the past had their moment.

The drinkers of the present are carrying the weight.

And the drinkers of the future are already voting with their feet.

The smart move is to brew for all three —

but only one of them is going to decide whether you’re still here.