Last year, Daniel Hemel and I co-taught a seminar on the “Law and Economics of Craft Beer.” The class was as amazing as it sounds. We drank great beer, met with people working in the industry, and learned about the bonkers three-tier system that’s been used to regulate alcohol distribution in the United States since prohibition. (We thought we were innovators starting this class; it turns out there was already a text book and blog about the law of craft beer.)

During the seminar sessions, multiple brewers told our class that a common mistake in their industry is confusing initial surges in demand for signs of a trend. When a new beer hits the market for the first time, hipsters — and law professors masquerading as hipsters — are excited to try it. This initial surge in demand can exhaust the initial supply, which makes getting to try the new beer even more exciting.

When this happens, many small breweries have made the mistake of making capital intensive investments to expand their capacity shortly after they’ve opened. But by the time the brewery has the capacity to meet a large demand, the need for the excess capacity evaporates because there is a new exciting beer to try.

Since we launched this blog one month ago, we’ve gotten 7,500 unique visitors. I’ve never had a blog before, so I’m not sure if that’s a lot or a little. And I’m also not sure if that’s all just an initial surge. But I am excited that people have been reading, and I’ll try to talk Will out of his plans to buy bigger fermentation tanks.