Community Survey · Open Now
The Madison-area beer community has never been asked what it wants.
I’m asking.
Best-of ballots ask you to crown a winner. Nobody asks what’s missing. The Madison Beer Census is a ten-minute, anonymous survey of craft beer drinkers across Madison, Middleton, Verona, Fitchburg, Monona, Sun Prairie, Waunakee, McFarland, Stoughton, and Oregon. Free public report this fall, open to everyone.
No email required
~10 minutes
Free public report
No winners crowned
Why this exists
The Madison-area beer scene has grown up a lot. It’s time the community was asked what it thinks.
New taprooms have opened. Long-running favorites have evolved. The styles people drink have shifted hard. And in all of that, the Madison-area beer community hasn’t been asked, in any structured way, what it thinks of any of it.
I’m asking. The Madison Beer Census 2026 is a short, anonymous survey aimed at engaged Madison-area beer drinkers: what you’re drinking, what styles you want more of, what feels overdone, where you go, what makes you choose one beer spot over another, and what you wish existed in the area but doesn’t.
The results will be published as a free public report this fall, for drinkers, for breweries, for bars and bottle shops, for media writing about the scene. No paywall. No email gate. No “premium edition.” Just the Madison-area beer community in its own words, with some good charts.
A taste of what’s in the survey
A few questions you’ll be answering.
A mix of quick selects and short answers, plus a couple of write-ins. Most takes a sentence, none takes forever. Skip the Beer Geek Zone at the end if you don’t care enough to argue about saison sub-styles.
01
What feels like a fair price for a pint of craft beer in Madison right now?
02
What styles do you wish you could find more of in the Madison area?
03
What styles do you feel are overdone right now?
04
Name one Madison-area beer experience you’d send a visiting friend to.
05
Name one Madison-area beer experience that doesn’t exist yet, but should.
06
Madison’s beer scene needs more __________ and less __________.
How this works
A few promises about how I’m running this.
- AnonymousNo names, no IPs, no personal info. The optional demographic questions at the end are skippable.
- No email, no gate, free foreverThe survey never asks for your email. If you want the report emailed to you, that happens on a separate, optional form after you submit. Your answers never touch it. The published report is free and public on this page either way.
- No 1-through-5 rankingsFavorites are reported as a “Top 5 most-mentioned” group per category: the five places that got the most mentions, listed together alphabetically without an internal rank shown. Highlighting the most-loved, without crowning a single winner.
- No negative namingCriticisms in open-end responses are themed, not pointed at specific places.
- Your story stays yoursThere’s a short open-ended question near the end where you can share a Madison-area beer moment. If you write one, we’ll only publish it in the final report with your explicit permission, anonymously, no name attached, ever. A consent question right after makes it explicit: nothing gets published without your yes.
Ten minutes. Anonymous. Free report this fall.
The bigger the sample, the more useful the report. If you drink craft beer in the Madison area, your ten minutes count for a lot.
Questions you might have
FAQ
Is this anonymous?
Yes. No names, no IPs, no personally identifying information. The demographic questions at the end are optional and skippable. The survey itself never asks for your email. If you want the report emailed to you, there’s a separate, optional one-question form after you submit, completely disconnected from your survey answers.
How long does the survey take?
About ten minutes for an engaged respondent. Less if you skip the Beer Geek Zone at the end. Most questions are quick selects.
What counts as the “Madison area”?
Madison plus the surrounding communities: Middleton, Verona, Fitchburg, Monona, Sun Prairie, Waunakee, McFarland, Stoughton, Oregon, and everywhere else in the orbit.
How are favorites reported in the final report?
As a “Top 5 most-mentioned” group per category: the five most-mentioned Madison-area breweries, the five most-mentioned beer bars, the five most-mentioned bottle shops. Each group is listed together alphabetically, without an internal 1-through-5 rank shown. I want to highlight the most-loved places without crowning a single winner.
What about places that don’t make the Top 5?
Places outside the Top 5 aren’t named in that section, but they show up elsewhere, in themed analyses and in respondent quotes. The report’s job isn’t to rank the scene; it’s to surface what people want and where the gaps are.
How will my responses be used?
Aggregated and published as charts and themed analyses in the report. No individual response will be quoted in a way that could identify you. Open-end criticisms get summarized as themes, never named-and-shamed.
Is this a marketing thing for Garth’s Brew Bar?
I run Garth’s Brew Bar and I wanted to read this report. Nobody else was going to write it. The report is free, no email gate, no paywall, and I’m not pushing my bar throughout. Garth’s is named once as the organizer. If Garth’s lands in the Top 5 beer-bar list, it gets the same alphabetical treatment as the other four, no bolding, no commentary. The bar benefits from doing something useful for the community. That’s honest. But the project isn’t built around that.
What if I miss the survey window?
The survey is open through July 31, 2026. After it closes, you can still read the report when it drops in September. Bookmark this page or drop your email on the report notification form to be notified.
What are the limits of this kind of survey?
It’s self-selected. People who take ten minutes to fill out an online survey about beer skew toward engaged craft beer drinkers. I’ll say so on the methodology page of the report. The report is framed as a snapshot of what engaged Madison-area drinkers want, not a representative poll of all adults. That’s a real limit and I’m not going to pretend it isn’t.
If you take it, send it to two more people.
The survey is anonymous. A good sample isn’t. Forward the link to two people in the Madison-area beer scene who you’d want represented.
Who’s behind this
Organized by Garth’s Brew Bar.
The Madison Beer Census 2026 is organized by Garth’s Brew Bar, a craft beer bar at 1726 Monroe Street, Madison. The bar was named CraftBeer.com’s “Best Craft Beer Bar in Wisconsin” in March 2020, three months after opening. I’m Garth Beyer, the owner, a Certified Cicerone who’s spent the last decade in Madison’s craft beer scene as a journalist, marketer, and bar owner.
This is a community-first project and the results will be free for everyone. I sign every section of the report; the data is the data, and the interpretation is mine.
Questions, suggestions, or feedback: heythere@garthsbrewbar.com.
Garth