State of the Craft Beer Union

Yesterday, Bart Watson presented the Top 50 Breweries in the US for 2022 along with answering questions about other items of craft beer economic import. Y’all probably saw the shares and re-tweets of the list but below are my take-aways from the press conference.

  • overall production was static at around 24+ Million barrels
  • total retail dollars grew due to higher beer prices and a shift back to on premise drinking
  • 9,552 active breweries in 2022 (though some may not have finished the year as active)
  • openings still outpace closings 549 to 319
  • no correlation between higher beer prices and slower growth
  • taproom only models are skewing younger in years and perform better in general
  • leases tend to be the main drivers in closings

I will dip into the Top 50 from a California perspective but this year saw the exit of Bell’s from the list since they do not meet the ownership criteria for craft and Stone will exit next year due to their sale to Sapporo. Also Yuengling is numero uno this year.

Here are the CA breweries in the Top 10

#3 Sierra Nevada

#4 Duvel US (which includes Firestone Walker)

# 7 Stone

Others include both Coasts, Lost and North, Pizza Port, Gordon Biersch and Craft Ohana which is the Maui Brewing / Modern Times group.