Before Christmas, Bart Watson, the economics guru for the Brewers Association talked about craft beer in 2022 as well as a dip into what he thinks maybe in store for 2023.
Here are some of the numbers nuggets from his talk….
- breweries with direct sales are close to 2019 pre-pandemic sales
- check-ins from Untappd data shows an uptick in ticks from a brewery
- channel shift due to the pandemic is reverting back
- around 9,500 breweries in the U.S. now
- more openings than closings by a 2 to 1 ratio
- Imperial IPA, Hazy IPA, low to no alcohol beers doing well
- 2023 openings will probably be lowest in years
- 2023 distributed craft only breweries won’t grow
- 2023 some inflation price hikes might hit early in the year
It looks like some tough sledding next year but as the world clicks closer to normal, more opportunities might show themselves.