Derrick Peterman has posted the roundup for The Session #67, which he asked us to answer the questin, “How many breweries will exist in 2017?”
He’s nicely organized it from the most optimistic to the least.
More than 5,000?
Only two breweries? One?
I’m sticking with 2,620.
For The Session #67, host Derrick Peterman has asked us to predict how many American breweries will be operating in 2017 (presumably at this time of the year).
2,620.
I used a proprietary formula, but you don’t care about the details anyway. I find it amusing that the figure happens to land smack dab in the middle of what one book reports as the number of operating breweries in the United States in 1879 and what was published in another.
History of the Brewing Industry and Brewing Science in America has a list of the number of breweries in operation for each year from 1863 through 1920. This is the source used most often when comparisons are made between the number of breweries now and in the past, and where the peak of 4,131 is reported (1873). By 1879, the number was shrinking, to 2,719.
Beer, Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage provides a look at only two years, 1878 and 1879 (it was published in 1880), but in more depth. It lists every brewery in operation and, in most cases, how much it brewed. There are 2,520 breweries on the list.
Makes me go hmmmm and reaffirms my thought there are better things to focus on than the number of breweries. Stuff like access, diversity, quality. The numbers in Beer, Its History don’t really address such matters, but they do illustrate how much more local/regional beer once was.
George Ehret’s Hell Gate Brewery was the biggest brewery in the country, selling 180,152 barrels (about 1.5% of U.S. production). Only seven breweries sold more than 100,000 (31-gallon) barrels. In 2011, more than 30 did. Of course, the U.S. is a little bigger today.
In 1879, 150 breweries sold more than 15,000 barrels, but in 2011 only a little over 100.
Two hundred and seventeen breweries sold between 5,000 and 15,000 then, compared to 71 in 2011. Seems to be room for growth there. Or are the bigger breweries squeezing them on one side, the smaller ones on the other?
This sort of data mining tells us little about the future. Maybe Amazon is a better indicator. I see that a book titled, A Brewer’s Guide to Opening a Nano Brewery: Your $10,000 Brewery Consultant for $15 (Volume 1) is selling pretty well (better than mine). Are the people who buy it like arm-chair travelers, content to read and dream?
Or what will happen when dreams meet reality?
Oscar Blues founder Dale Katechis addressed that in an online interview last week:
“To me, it’s overwhelming to see how many people are getting into the segment. I can’t even keep track of even the ones in Colorado alone that are opening. It’s a little scary because I guess we’ve learned a little bit along the way and we’ve learned that draft beer doesn’t make you any money. The entire industry knows that. Then I hear of a guy that is a home brewer and is going to cash in his 401k and open a little craft brewery and start delivering kegs around town. Well, it’s not my place to call him and say, ‘you’re crazy,’ but there is going to be some fallout.”
Before 2017, after 2017, or at all?
Make it this one from Ska Brewing:
DURANGO, Colo., (Sept. 6, 2012) — Ska Brewing has been awarded five medals out of six entries at the recent Colorado State Fair Craft Beer Competition, and now believes it to be one of North America’s most important beer competitions.
Ska won a Gold medal for its Pinstripe Red Ale, three Silver medals for Steel Toe Stout, Buster Nut Brown and Special ESB, and a Bronze in the German and Rye category for its GABF Pro-Am winning recipe “On The Sly Again,” which will be released later this fall as #21 in the brewery’s (locally) popular Local Series.
“This is obviously an important competition,” said Ska President and co-founder Dave Thibodeau. “Having won five medals this year, it’s clear to us that this is an event with expert judges who are beyond qualified to determine who makes the best beer.”
Pressed further, Thibodeau acknowledged, “When we win a lot of medals, we feel like beer competitions are not only legitimate, but critical to the industry. I’m actually not sure if the industry could function without them.” He added, “Of course, that could change next year.”
There was more, but four paragraphs of laughing out loud is about all my heart can stand.
Oh, and I need to drink any beer that beats out Steel Toe Stout.
Please don’t consider this a political post, but I’m wondering why neither of the two recipes for honey beers released over the weekend by the White House includes American hops.
One calls for Kent Golding and Fuggle, the other for whatever provides enough bittering punch and Hallertau (I’m guessing Mittelfrüh, but I wish they’d been specific). Farmers in the Northwest plant a bit of Fuggle and Golding, but those varieties originated in England and that’s where most are grown. Hallertau, of course, is the largest hop growing region in Germany.
(As an aside, the recipe for White House Honey Ale specifies 1.5 ounces each of Golding and Fuggle, but in the step-by-step directions only refers to .5 of Fuggle. Am I overlooking something? I’m prepared for an embarrassing answer.)
These are honey beers, not “hop bombs.” I get it. Made with honey produced by White House bees. And there this link to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to preserve. But where are the jobs related to American beer being created these days? At small breweries. And where do about 80 percent of those hops small American breweries are using come from? American farmers. Am I the only one who sees a nicely balanced partnership?
To give you an idea of the impact of breweries that produce only 6% of the nation’s beers have on hops, a bit of math.
In 2011, American beer production shrank 4.6 million barrels. The companies the Brewers Association defines as “craft” (and referred to as craft throughout the rest of this post) made 1.3 million more barrels. Without them, production might have been down 5.9 million barrels (maybe not quite that, because people might have bought substitutes for “craft” beer). On a worldwide basis, best guess is that brewers use on average about 2 ounces of hops per barrel they brew (the math gets tricky because most brew with hop extracts, so you have to consider how much hops that takes to produce, figure in higher utilization, and so on).
According to a BA survey, American brewers use about one pound per barrel, a number that is going up as drinkers buy still more IPAs (now 18% of craft sold and close to three times more than five years ago). So craft brewers needed at least 1.3 million pounds more hops in 2011. The other brewers needed 750,000 pounds less (to brew 4.5 times more beer). Hop sales went up.
Just to be clear. Somebody at the White House brewing beer: cool. Using malt extract: fine. Honey beer: great idea. Posting a slick video: I watched to the end. Using imported hops: hey, I love them (Tettnang Tettnanger, Spalt Spalter, Saaz, Hersbrucker, Strisselspalt. I’m a fan. Golding and Fuggle, too).
But where iss the story in American beer today, what ingredient is an important part of that story, and who is growing that ingredient?
Rhetorical questions.