Number of brewery openings and closures rise in 2017
A record number of breweries opened their doors last year, according to a new report from the Brewers Association (BA) published in March 2018. It estimates that 997 breweries opened in 2017, bringing the total number of US breweries to 6,372.
At the same time, the number of breweries that closed last year increased by 70 percent to 165. That’s 2.6 percent of all craft breweries.
The BA’s chief economist, Bart Watson, said he expects both figures to grow as the organisation adjusts its numbers to more accurately reflect the number of small brewing companies currently operating in the US.
Despite the rise in brewery closures – 97 shuttered in 2016 – a staggering 4,256 breweries have opened over the past five years, according to BA data. There are also about 2,500 more in planning, Mr Watson said.
During that same period, however, 483 breweries went out of business. About one-third of those companies closed in 2017 alone.
The “vast majority” of closures were due to “things that affect any small business,” Mr Watson said, mentioning rent and landlord issues as two reasons why some companies closed in 2017.
Nevertheless, 6,266 of the breweries in the US that meet the BA’s “craft brewer” definition collectively grew volume sales by five percent to reach 25.4 million barrels beer.
Together, those companies represent about 12.7 percent of all beer sold in the US and 23.4 percent of retail dollars (estimated at USD 26 billion).
Those figures would be higher, if companies like Goose Island, Lagunitas Brewing, Founders Brewing and Ballast Point and others, which were sold to larger companies and no longer meet the BA definition, were still counted in the data set.
