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
Apr 13, 2025 - Brewers Facing Tough Times
- Beer sales are falling as health-conscious consumers seek out non-alcoholic options, the market for cannabis-infused beverages grows, and new tariffs on aluminum for beer cans and other key inputs cause brewers to raise prices, The Street reports. As a result, small breweries are struggling. In April, Cotton House Craft Brewers announced it will be closing, and any combination of these factors could be a part of the reason, according to The Street. The popular family-owned brewery in Cary, North Carolina has filed for Chapter 11 and is seeking to restructure. While craft beers had a big moment starting in the 1990s that exploded into the 2000s, production and sales have slumped in recent years. Looking ahead, Sales for the US breweries industry are forecast to grow at a 1.77% compounded annual rate from 2025 to 2029, slower than the growth of the overall economy, according to the Interindustry Economic Research Fund.
- In tune with President Trump’s mission to Make America Great Again, some major league baseball (MLB) parks are making a symbolic change: For the opening weekend of the 2025 season, six home stadiums of MLB teams swapped out the word “domestic” for “American” at concession areas serving Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) beers for the new season. The switch was made after ABI’s chief executive Brendan Whitworth said in February he wanted to change the term that describes his US-made beers, which include Budweiser, Michelob Ultra and Busch Light, to “American. In a letter to distributors he wrote “The pride we take in this great country should also be properly and accurately applied to our great American beers.” The Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, and Cincinnati Reds have made the change with other unnamed teams expected to follow suit, according to ABI.
- Craft breweries, whose margins are already razor thin, are paying more 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.
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