The thought just came into my mind as i came across this list of largest craft breweries in USA by sales volume. The list surprised me a lot. There were a lot of names (on top) that i have not had anything from yet (I am a beginner, novice what you want to call me). I then decided to see how popular a brewery's beers really are in the craft world (one measure is the beers reviewed - it is flawed but it does provide a lot of food for thought). A lot of surprises here as well. I knew, though, that Dogfish Head will be somewhere on top - and it come right at number 1. Phenomenal stuff Sam. Even when i had not heard this word called 'Craft Beer' i did hear these names Dogfish Head, 60 Minute, 120 minute etc. Got the list from here (I am not sure how authentic this is - but i found this on Stone's wikipedia listing): http://www.brewersassociation.org/p...ociation-releases-2010-top-50-breweries-lists Please (BA veterans) let me know your thoughts on the list and how do you experienced BAs see the data. Include some breweries that are not in the original top 50 sales volume list 2010. I have included few that are a surprise exclusion to me - Founders, FFF etc. For a better view of data: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9mwxAdTmjfSRkV6LTliMkdXSzA Sales Volume Rank (2010) Brewing Company City State BA Total Beer Reviews BA Review Volume Rank (As of 1/1/2013) 1 Boston Beer Co. Boston MA 32,767 1 11 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE 32,767 2 2 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA 27,437 3 14 Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA 26,218 4 8 Bell's Brewery, Inc. Galesburg MI 23,916 5 25 Rogue Ales Newport OR 22,751 6 29 Victory Brewing Co. Downingtown PA 19,447 7 17 Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA 16,449 8 16 Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn NY 13,773 9 3 New Belgium Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO 13,369 10 28 Flying Dog Brewery Frederick MD 11,627 11 22 Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cleveland OH 11,425 12 5 Deschutes Brewery Bend OR 10,645 13 40 North Coast Brewing Co. Inc. Fort Bragg CA 10,304 14 7 Matt Brewing Co. Utica NY 9,306 15 10 Boulevard Brewing Co. Kansas City MO 8,385 16 21 New Glarus Brewing Co. New Glarus WI 8,090 17 36 Oskar Blues Brewery Longmont CO 8,089 18 43 Bear Republic Brewing Co. Cloverdale CA 8,055 19 23 Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA 7,466 20 9 Harpoon Brewery Boston MA 6,920 21 26 Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Paso Robles CA 6,028 22 15 Abita Brewing Co. Abita Springs LA 5,194 23 18 Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR 4,900 24 42 The Saint Louis Brewery, Inc. Maplewood MO 4,494 25 19 Shipyard Brewing Co. Portland ME 4,325 26 45 Breckenridge Brewery Denver CO 4,255 27 33 Odell Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO 3,998 28 4 Spoetzl Brewery* Shiner TX 3,590 29 12 Alaskan Brewing and Bottling Co. Juneau AK 3,547 30 13 Long Trail Brewing Co. Bridgewater Corners VT 3,546 31 27 Sweetwater Brewing Co. Atlanta GA 3,262 32 39 Big Sky Brewing Co. Missoula MT 2,835 33 37 Blue Point Brewing Co. Patchogue NY 2,596 34 20 Summit Brewing Co. St. Paul MN 2,573 35 38 Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe Eureka CA 2,517 36 49 Real Ale Brewing Co. Blanco TX 2,118 37 48 Saint Arnold Brewing Co. Houston TX 2,080 38 34 BridgePort Brewing Co.* Portland OR 1,822 39 46 Utah Brewers Cooperative Salt Lake City UT 1,581 40 32 Stevens Point Brewery Co. Stevens Point WI 1,535 41 35 Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants Louisville CO 1,491 42 50 Ninkasi Brewing Co. Eugene OR 1,481 43 30 Gordon Biersch Brewing Co. San Jose CA 1,196 44 47 Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants Chattanooga TN 1,196 45 44 Karl Strauss Brewing Co. San Diego CA 894 46 31 BJ's Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc. Huntington Beach CA 285 47 41 Mac and Jack's Brewery Redmond WA 140 48 6 Independent Brewers United (IBU)* Burlington VT 49 24 Kona Brewery LLC* Kailua-Kona HI 50 Some obvious Omissions NA Founders Brewing Company Grand Rapids MI 20,217 Would enter at 7th NA Three Floyds Munster IN 14,164 Would enter at 7th NA Hill Farmstead Greensboro Bend VT 2,804 NA Alpine Beer Company Alpine CA 3,140
Keep in mind two breweries could sell the same amount of beer, but one could have a lot more reviews due to broader distribution. Some breweries go broad and others are content to stay within a more narrow range of cities/states.
Too lazy to go through the whole thing, but I find DFH's numbers interesting. I just typed a two paragraph hypothesis about this deviation, but it didn't look as clear as it did in my brain. Anyone care to explain?
Not sure where you got the numbers for total reviews, but those two are off. 32767 is the max value of a signed 16-bit integer, and both breweries have a total number of reviews exceeding that.
Of course i know that.. but how do you explain Dogfish topping SN and Sam Adams (with probably better distribution) and SAM Adams having a huge line up of beers?
Because DFH appeals to the geeks here more, who actually do geeky things like review a beer online, and because Sam Adams is mainstream craft. The mainstream craft consumer is very different than the active person here on Beer Advocate.
Also, other totals seem to be off. Sierra Nevada beers have a total of 32,468 reviews...where did you get those figures? Edit: Just saw that it's the "Beer Reviews" field on the brewery page. If you total up the number of reviews for all of their beers (copy and paste the active and archived lists into Excel and use the sum function), it's very different. Not sure how the BA code is calculating that "Beer Reviews" total, but it seems to be wrong.
Since the list was based on sales volume for the top 50, no obvious omissions, as those breweries obviously are not in the top 50. "Some obvious Omissions NA Founders Brewing Company Grand Rapids MI 20,217 Would enter at 7th NA Three Floyds Munster IN 14,164 Would enter at 7th NA Hill Farmstead Greensboro Bend VT 2,804 NA Alpine Beer Company Alpine CA 3,140 "
Very good catch.. Numbers are from each breweries profile page on BA.. yes i did go to each breweries page and collected the numbers. I guess BAs should look into the changing the properties of that field. i was wondering how on earth could numbers be the exact same... (I then thought may be a great coincidence that numbers match when i decided to pull them up.. huh) Correcting the two numbers.. 1 Boston Beer Co. Boston MA 36,328 1 11 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE 33,268 2
Yemen. You mean to tell me that some folks here on BA are just fanboys and Internet fashion followers? Heaven forbid.
May be by sales volume they are not yet in... but in 2 years may be they migt have broken into top 50, who knows.. my idea was to list the popular ones i was disappointed not to see there. I am requesting others to do the same. Founders and FFF do enter at 7th and 10th in the review list.
Possibly some self-styled connoisseurs consider themselves off-centered people, and so therefore seek out off-centered beers?
I consider myself a bit off-centered and may be you are too, according to me. To the general public most BAs enjoying craft beers are some way or the other off-centered. 'self-styled connoisseur' - for your beer bro.. i thought here at BA we respected each other
When I review the same beer 3-4 times on BA does it count towards the total # of reviews? I've reviewed some IPA's on draft, cask, bottle, and can for example. I wonder if that phenomenon skews things.
We do respect each other, AmitC. I've never seen the love expressed for each other as I have on this site, brother.
Founders did debut in 2011. At 42. Along with Smuttynose Brewing - 47 Left hand brewing co. - 49 Anderson Valley and Four Peaks tied at 50th. http://www.brewersassociation.org/p...association-releases-top-50-breweries-in-2011
Hmmm...I would like to find the second section of that BA list with percentage of total sales included. Been looking for that data with no luck. Curious about how big a bite craft is really taking out of the big boys' bottom line...been looking for that kind of data, been unlucky so far. Also...contract brewing and acquisitions. Does ABI now get credit for Goose Island volume? I know Boston Beer brews and bottles for other folks, and Stevens Point packages for Capitol and others. Pretty sure Harpoon does too and was kinda surprised seeing Harpoon that far up on the lists. Who gets the volume in the case of co-manufacturing agreements and such? I think there are quite a large number of these types of agreements where a brewer can't afford capital. Might not matter that much in the bigger picture, I guess, maybe nitpicking. Be fun to see an ABI annual report if things are broken out by division, or whatever they call their acquisitions.
Thanks, beertunes. I will dig into the Association website some more. Looks like the demographics are mighty interesting as well. Six percent - higher than I would have guessed. but still not a huge market share and heavily influenced by market location. Might have another data source at work, but would have to be super careful using it...I like making money to buy beer...
This list doesn't have specific numbers, but it's an ordered list of the highest producing craft brewers. Rogue, who sells beer all over the planet, is noticeably behind New Glarus, who doesn't sell a drop outside Wisconsin: http://www.brewersassociation.org/p...association-releases-top-50-breweries-in-2011
Interesting stuff, but if we are going to make some kind of scientific inquiry the data should be obtained at the same time, not 3 years apart. Off the cuff, I would think that sales volume is a better measure of a brewery's brewing capacity and distribution ability (or desire) and that review volume is more a reflection of quality. But certainly these things are intertwined. It will be harder to make and distribute a lot of beer if it isn't quality beer (although not impossible a la MBC) and likewise it will be harder to get a lot of reviews if you have very small distribution. Perhaps a ratio of review volume to sales volume (to clarify: not ranking) would better correlate with brewery quality. However, as a brewery expands, increases distribution, and enters into the large-crafting (mainstream craft) beer realm (e.g. Sam Adams), I'm sure BA interest wanes and reviews will subsequently tail off (especially in proportion to volume). Does this mean that the quality tails off? Honestly, probably not. So, perhaps sales volume is simply more representative of general population interest/like and review volume is more representative of BA population interest/like.
The problem is figuring exactly where the lost sales went or where the gains came from. AB and MC both were down about 3% each in total barrelage from 2010 to 2011 (2012 figures are not in yet). Craft was up, but so was Crown (Corona and other imports), the Mike's FMB's and Yuengling. And AB and MC both often note that they've lost some beer drinkers to wine and spirits. AB and MC together were down 5 million barrels - yet craft's total increase only amounted to about 1.3m bbl. See right sidebar for a variety of stats at Beer Insights According to the Brewers Assoc. footnote for Anheuser-Busch: "*Top 50 U.S. Overall Brewing Companies notes: (a) includes Bass, Beck's, Busch, Goose Island, Landshark, Michelob, Rolling Rock, Shock Top and Wild Blue brands. Does not include partially owned Coastal, Kona, Red Hook and Widmer Brothers brands" Within the industry, barrelage is traditionally listed under the owner/marketer of the brand, not the "contractor" brewery (excise taxes, TTB COLA's., etc are a different matter). The big variation with barrelage figures for Boston Beer Co. are a result not of their contract brewing (they don't do very much of it at this point- now that their initial deal with Diageo to continue making their FMB's is expired) but the fact that the Brewers Association does not count BBC's own FMB's (HardCore, Twisted Tea, Angry Orchard and now that Travelers Shandy) whereas other industry sources and the BBC itself do.
jesskidden - thanks for the information. I work in R&D for a pretty big fruit and juice company and see marketing data every quarter when they share it...I am always amazed about ho convoluted it gets. And thanks for the clarification on who owns the barrelage. That varies with us depending on how we farm stuff out, so I am told anyway. Doesn't make sense to me - still our product - but if we sell the ingredients it counts differently. Yes - hard to figure if the lost volume went to craft or elsewhere.
