Analysis of Worldwide Research on Craft Beer

Abstract

Beer is popular worldwide and it is considered the oldest and most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world. At the global production level, most of the market is dominated by a few multinational companies, but in recent years, craft beers have gained market share. In addition to being independent and produced on a smaller scale, the main characteristic of craft breweries is their broad differentiation capacity, attracting consumers who demand products that are more committed to sustainability and the environment, as well as being willing to pay higher prices for goods in line with their life philosophy. Their great popularity aroused the interest of researchers throughout the world, leading to the proliferation of a large number of scientific articles that address the production and consumption of craft beer. This research aims to identify and analyze the scientific production that addresses Craft Beer. A bibliometric analysis is used as the methodology to obtain the following information regarding the subject over the years: growth and coverage, article citations (quality indicator), the most relevant authors, etc., which will be useful information for researchers. The two main international databases, WoS and Scopus are used for document tracking and 137 articles are identified. The results show that this is a recent area of study, since researchers only started showing interest in the subject in 2015; 90% of the documents have been published in the last 5 years. Most of the authors are transient with a single authorship, so the production is low (productivity index 1.18). Therefore, the study area is incipient and is considered of great potential for researchers.