Craft beer sales are sailing high once again

April 1, 2015

Craft beer sales are sailing high once again

he latest numbers are in everyone and — before we go any further — can we all grab hands and join in on a solid bout of, “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral” before the craft beer party gets leveled up?

This week the Brewers Association, which represents small and independent American craft brewers, unveiled its data on brew growth. From 2013 to 2014 craft brewers churned out 22.2 million barrels of booze, and saw an 18 percent change in volume and a 22 percent increase in retail dollar value.

There are now 3,464 total breweries in America, with 3,418 of those being craft and the other 46 labeled as “other” — daaaaamn Gina! That’s a 19 percent increase from the previous year. There were also 615 opened in 2014, and only 46 closed.

Which kind of begs the question: What the hell went wrong with those 46 that closed? Isn’t this kind of a “selling water in the dunes” kind of a situation? Whatever, kudos to the 615 that snagged a piece of the pie!

And if that’s far too many words for you to bother with, here’s a nice infographic taken from the Brewer’s Association website. Keep in mind these numbers are just prelims, as more specific and a breakdown of the numbers will be available sometime this summer.