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Growth Continues According to 2019 Mid-Year Craft Brewing Report Card

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2019 mid-year craft brewing report card

There are 1,000 more breweries operating in the U.S. right now than there was one year ago. That’s one of the tidbits from the Brewers Association’s 2019 mid-year craft brewing report card.

The Brewers Association (BA), the trade association for small and independent U.S. brewers, as well as publishers of CraftBeer.com, released its mid-year data Tuesday, Aug. 6. The report includes the latest number of operating breweries, breweries in planning, as well as growth statistics compiled and analyzed by Bart Watson, the BA’s chief economist.

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As of June 30, the BA counts 7,480 active small and independent operating U.S. breweries. One year ago, that number was 6,464.

There are an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 additional breweries-in-planning according to active Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) licenses, according to the BA.

Craft brewer production volume grew about 4 percent during the first half of 2019. Watson says 4 percent growth demonstrates the industry continues to mature.

“Growth continues to follow a similar pattern we have seen in the past few years,” he says. “The majority of growth continues to come from microbreweries, taprooms, and brewpubs, whereas the distribution landscape remains more challenging for regional craft brewers.”

(VISIT: Find a Craft Brewery)

Long Live the IPA

In a mid-July article published on BrewersAssociation.org, Watson offered additional insight into trends he was seeing based on scan data. To no one’s surprise, beer lovers are still wild about the IPA beer style and its variants.

“The runaway IPA freight train is still barreling down the tracks,” he writes, finding that IPA variants and mix packs were up 16 percent in the first half of 2019 versus a year ago.

(GRAPHIC: Gold Medal Winning IPAs from 1989 to 2018)

We’ll say it again: Long live the IPA.

You can see the full news release and additional insight into the 2019 mid-year craft brewing report card on BrewersAssociation.org.

Jess Baker walked into a beer fest in 2010 and realized beer had come a long way from what her dad had been drinking since the 70s. She served as editor-in-chief of CraftBeer.com from spring 2016 to spring 2020, bringing you stories about the people who are the heartbeat behind U.S. craft brewing. She's a runner, a die-hard Springsteen fan, a mom who is always scouting family-friendly breweries, and always in search of a darn good porter.

CraftBeer.com is fully dedicated to small and independent U.S. breweries. We are published by the Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft brewers. Stories and opinions shared on CraftBeer.com do not imply endorsement by or positions taken by the Brewers Association or its members.