From 2015-2016 new breweries in the U.S. have spiked, and are only now beginning to show signs of slowing down. Craft beer has quickly become more preferable to consumers than big box brew. Is it a thing that beer experts, like cicerones, are in higher demand as a result?
We asked the Cicerone Program on twitter about how test requests were doing. They said that cicerone exams have been consistently in demand. They have also noticed tests are being requested abroad more than usual.
One tweet doesn’t constitute as enough research to answer that question, though. (In fact some have argued the opposite).
Whether the overall necessity for wine or beer experts is shifting, one thing we can observe is that the idea of the word “cicerone” appears to be piquing interest across the U.S..
According to Google Trends, cicerone search results appear to increase over time:

Here’s what beer cicerone looks like:

Relevant links:
Craft beer has spiked
Rate of new breweries show signs of slowing down
Cicerone Program interaction on Twitter