Craft Beer Sales Up... Again!

In the previous post, I briefly mentioned the idea of Cincinnatians getting more and more into craft beers. Maybe it's just a hunch, maybe it's because I'm noticing it more and more as I get older, maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe it's because I've been making my friends only drink good beer. Whatever the case, the rest of the nation seems to be following the trend, and it looks like the trend is on the rise.

According to an article in the St. Louis business journal, craft beer sale were up 16% in 2007! An interesting fact to note is that although craft brewing sales only make up for about 4% production and 6% sales in the US, out of 1,449 breweries in the United States, 1,406 of them are considered craft breweries! Incredible. That means that only around 3% of the breweries in the US control over 94% of the sales! Can you believe it!?

However, although it doesn't seem like much, the craft beer market did grow 12% in 2006, and with the 16% increase in 2007, we also saw an increase from 7.1 million barrels to 8 million barrels sold, which means a 900,000 barrel increase at 31 gallons a barrel - roughly 279,000,000 beers (figuring a modest 10 beers per gallon). Yes you read that right, Two Hundred Seventy Nine MILLION more beers in 2007! That's a hell of a lot of beer. Here's a link to the article:

Craft Beer Sales Up 16% in 2007

Keep up the good work, folks ;)