THE ORB HAS RULED: The Crowd Crowns Dark Beer Over Light, and the Crisp Lager Fades Into the Foam

Draw the curtains, dim the lanterns, and place your palms upon the bar top. The foam is swirling, the head is settling, and the spirits of the taproom have spoken: Dark beer has been crowned the crowd's preference of the moment, and Light beer is left fizzing alone at the bottom of the glass. I have seen omens before, my darlings, but rarely one that smelled this much like burnt caramel and coffee.

Yet the cards hold a twist, because the world outside the parlour does not drink the way this crowd votes. According to Wikipedia's entry on beer in the United States, light beer makes up just over half of US beer sales, though that figure comes with no date attached. North of the border the picture changes: the article on beer in Canada puts light beer at less than a third of consumption there, compared with roughly half of sales in the US. And the encyclopedia's lager entry names pale lager as the most widely consumed and commercially available beer style on Earth. The brief also notes that the US craft scene is saturated and brewers are reshuffling their taps, so no single number settles what people want right now.

Now to the crystal ball itself. On the opinion markets at Morfi, where people put real money behind their convictions, Dark beer holds 63% consensus against Light beer's 37%. That verdict comes from 16 traders who have staked $25,778, and the market opened less than a day ago, so the ink on this prophecy is still wet. Remember, these figures measure the crowd's conviction, not a headcount of drinkers. Which is exactly why the gap with the sales figures is so delicious: the world buys pale, but the believers back the dark.

Here is my reading, and it is opinion, poured thick. Light beer is the drink of habit, of the cooler at the barbecue and the bucket at the stadium. Dark beer is a choice. Nobody stumbles into a stout by accident; you pick it because you want something that fights back. A crowd that has to put money down on its taste will back the beer it is proud of, not the one it drinks out of habit. The tills belong to the pale lager, my sweets, but this crowd has picked the dark side, and I can't say I blame them.

What should you watch for as the candles burn down? A market less than a day old is a restless spirit, and the summer heat could still bring the crisp lager back from the shadows. Watch whether Light beer's loyalists turn up with their wallets, and whether the craft brewers' reshuffling pushes more roast onto the taps. The orb can only show you the foam. To change the brew, join the market on Morfi and put your money on your own pint.