If you followed Ray Daniels’ tweets earlier today you know that a presentation by Symphony IRI to members of the Brewers Association confirmed that “craft beer” sales are kicking butt, that mainstream beer sales are in the dumps and that IPAs seem destined to rule the world. You also know that Blue Moon Belgian White [...]

Here’s what the beginning of brewery consolidation looks like. Last week I dug up a bunch of figures about the number of breweries and how much beer they made more than 100 years ago. Mike asked for a little perspective. So this chart starts in 1870 (the number of breweries peaked in 1873) and includes [...]

A couple of times recently I’ve read stories — or, yikes, tweets — that mentioned how many brewing companies remained in operation in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, then reported the current number of breweries. That’s not exactly apples to apples. Many brewing concerns operate multiple breweries, and the proper comparison would [...]

Southern Star Brewing in Texas basically doubled production from 2008 to 2009 and expects to do the same again this year, according to a story last week in the Houston Chronicle. Curiously, a the manager at a Houston bar says the founders are smart to grow the brewery “at a slow, deliberate pace.” One hundred [...]

In still another story about gloomy beer sales that focuses on the largest brewers BusinessWeek provides this eye-opening number: “One segment of the beer industry that has resisted the recession is craft breweries, increasingly popular for flavorful beers made in smaller batches. According to data from the Nielsen Co., craft or microbrew sales rose 12.4% [...]

This is my contribution to Session #36: Cask-conditioned ale that involves actual drinking of beer. Host Tom Cizauskas has the recap (plus plenty himself). I also wrote a little about cask ale in U.S. 15 or so years ago and posted an additional story (from 1997) in The Library. This seems like a good Valentine’s [...]

Last week I mentioned that when Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi wrote the business plan for Sierra Nevada Brewing their goal was to sell 3,000 barrels of beer annually. They produced 1,500 barrels the first year (1980) and the brewery passed 3,000 in its fifth year of operation. The Brewers Association classifies breweries that make [...]

Marble Brewery in Albuquerque recently installed three more fermenters (above, on the left), each holding 45 barrels (almost 1,400 gallons). Marble brews mostly ales, so running 26 batches through each fermenter over the course of a year would constitute a leisurely pace and still yield more than 3,500 barrels. Now consider this. When Ken Grossman [...]

The United States was not exactly a beer drinking nation in 1810. According to American Breweries II per capita consumption amounted to less than one gallon per man, woman and child. The number grew to about 20 gallons shortly before Prohibition and amounts to 21-plus gallons today. Or roughly 81.6 liters, compared to 157 liters [...]

PASTE magazine, cool enough to have struck a free music download deal with Oskar Blues, made “The 25 Best American Breweries of the Decade (2000-2009)” its list of the day Saturday. And Sunday they gave us “The 10 Best Fashion Designers of the Decade (2000-2009).” I won’t spoil it and tell you who top designer [...]