Breweries
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 9,700 production breweries in the US include about 155 national or international breweries producing over 6 million barrels per year. Around 260 are regional craft breweries producing between 15,000 and 6 million barrels annually. More than 2,000 microbreweries produce less than 15,000 barrels per year. An additional 3,400 brewpub restaurants and 3,800 taprooms also produce beer on-site.
Competition Among Breweries
The beer industry is highly competitive, with a proliferation of craft and large/non-craft breweries fueling competition.
Industry Highly Regulated
The beer industry is highly regulated at both the state and federal levels.
Industry size & Structure
The average brewery employs 7 workers and generates over $3 million in annual sales.
- The US brewing industry includes approximately 9,700 production breweries. About 155 are national or international breweries producing over 6 million barrels per year. Around 260 are regional craft breweries producing between 15,000 and 6 million barrels annually. More than 2,000 microbreweries produce less than 15,000 barrels per year. An additional 3,400 brewpub restaurants and 3,800 taprooms also produce beer on-site.
- The typical global brewery brews 100 million barrels annually, with revenue per barrel of approximately $125 (a barrel is 31 gallons).
- The top three global breweries – Belgium-based AB InBev, Netherlands-based Heineken, and China Resources Snow Breweries – commanded nearly half (47.5%) of the global beer market in 2022. Imports account for about 23% of the US beer market.
- Regional craft breweries include Boston Beer Company, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium. These breweries typically distribute nationally and often internationally. The 260-or-so regional breweries produce around 15 million barrels of beer annually.
- The nation's 2,035 microbreweries produced 17.5% of craft beer industry production volume in 2022.
- About 3,219 brewpubs produce 1.4 million barrels of beer each year.
- Per capita, Americans consume about 28 gallons of beer annually. North Dakota, New Hampshire and Montana lead the nation in beer consumption with more than 40 gallons per capita. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Utah consume the least with about half that amount per capita.
Industry Forecast
Breweries Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Mar 13, 2025 - Aluminum Tariffs to Raise Production Costs
- Craft breweries, whose margins are already razor thin, will have to pay more money to can their beer since 25% tariffs on aluminum imports into the US took effect on March 12. According to the Brewers Association of America, aluminum canned beer accounts for about 75% of all packaged volume and revenue in the craft beer industry with much of the aluminum for those cans coming from Canada and Mexico. Breweries that rely on distribution more than in-taproom sales will see their production costs rise and will likely have to raise prices. "What will happen is we'll raise prices, and so will everybody else and thus begins the cycle of inflation," Saint Arnold Brewing Co. founder Brock Wagner told the Houston Chronicle. Unlike soft drink makers, who can shift to using more plastic bottles, craft breweries rely on aluminum cans and glass.
- New research from Cornell University shows beer drives grocery store sales and supports the relaxation of laws to allow alcoholic beverages to be sold in grocery stores, Food Manufacturing reports. The Cornell study found that when a grocery store starts selling beer, beer-purchasing households visited a grocery store 3.6% more often and increased their grocery store expenditures by 8% per month. Moreover, shoppers increased their spending on related categories (those items likely to be purchased with beer) including snacks, cheese, deli items and soda by 17%. The research, which used nationally representative data at the store and household levels, found that the introduction of beer into grocery stores in Colorado – which began allowing grocery stores to sell full-strength beer in 2019 – can lead to fundamental changes in how people shop, where they shop, and what they buy, says Bradley J. Rickard, professor of food and agricultural economics Cornell University.
- According to USDA data, the price of hops – one of four main ingredients in beer along with grain, yeast, and water – has been falling: from $6.10 in 2022, to $5.40 in 2023, to $5.12 last year. The recent decline follows nearly a decade of rising prices that led to a surplus of hops, followed by a massive decrease in planted acreage, writes Douglas MacKinnon in the MacKinnon Report. In 2024, US hop production totaled 87.1 million pounds, down 16% from 2023, while area harvested fell 18%, per the USDA. MacKinnon says in the past, acreage decreases preceded hops prices hitting their low point. The losses brewers might realize by selling expensive contract hops at lower current market prices are unattractive. Instead, he explains, brewers are incentivized to use them instead, producing more beer at a time when US consumption is at its lowest level since the 1990s.
- The producer price index for breweries, which measures prices brewers receive for their products, rose 1.2% in January compared to a year ago after rising 0.8% in the previous January-versus-January annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Industry producer prices are at record highs amid rising production costs despite static sales. Employment by breweries, wineries, and distilleries grew 5.6%year over year in December, according to the BLS.
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