What's next for craft beers?

1. IPAs will continue to fractionalize. There are black IPAs featuring darker malts, white IPAs with spices, and red IPAs such as Green Flash's Hop Head Red and Samuel Adams' Tasman. Look for more takes on the red-hot (white-hot? black-hot?) IPA style.
2. Breweries will retrench. From the East Coast (Delaware's Dogfish Head) to the West (Oregon's Deschutes) are pulling back from ambitious cross-country marketing plans.
3. The rise of the hyperlocal beer. Breweries are strengthening their local ties by emphasizing uniquely local ingredients -- Abita, outside New Orleans, has a pecan beer; Lazy Magnolia in Mississippi a sweet potato beer.
4. The decline of the extreme beer. 100-plus IBUs, 20-plus percent alcohol by volume? That's so 2011. "I don't think we can get any more extreme than we've gotten already. And after awhile people are looking for something more than high ABVs and heaps of hops."
5. Europe goes its own way. "The American influence on international craft brewing cannot be over-stated." But after turning out their own versions of West Coast IPAs and pale ales, brewers in Norway, Belgium, Italy and other countries are dabbling with their own local ingredients and flavor profiles.
6. The return of the lager. For years, ale's older and fussier brother was ignored by brewers who saw it as the exclusive domain of megabreweries like Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors. But new places like Bull Jager in Portland, Me., focus exclusively on lagers, while others (like Poway's Lightning) emphasize lagers while producing some ales.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/12/whats-next-craft-beers-six-predictions/