As the craft industry grows and changes – many of the most interesting questions revolve around geography. What regions lead the curve on craft? Which are catching up? Where should we expect more breweries to pop up? With this post, I …Read More

Today, the National Beer Wholesaler’s Association (NBWA) released the list of finalists for the 2014 Craft Beer Distributor of the year award. Every year, this award highlights the close ties between wholesalers and craft brewers. [Brewers – check the BA …Read More

A recent article in the popular press suggested that the growing number of craft beer choices might not be good for beer drinkers, arguing that for consumers, more options are confusing. Although I have a number of issues with this argument (the …Read More

A recent report by NBWA Chief Economist Lester Jones states that the number of brewery permits has topped 4,500. For many, I’m sure this begs the question: what if all of those breweries open? Can the US take 4,500 breweries? As …Read More

A couple of months back, I noted that IPAs had finally caught up with seasonals in annual scan data sales. Well, here we are seven months on, and the race for 2014 doesn’t even seem close. IPAs have sold over …Read More

Pardon the sensationalist headline, but the new Gallup alcohol consumption poll numbers are out and with them I’ll bet we see a horde of news articles about how much better those numbers look in 2014 than they did in 2013. …Read More

So despite my earlier efforts to dispel the notion that the number of breweries in this country represents some sort of bubble, “are we at the saturation point?” or “is this a beer bubble?” continues to be the most popular …Read More

When do craft beer sales occur across the course of the year? Or put differently, do craft brewers sell more beer in the first six months of the year or the second six months? This topic has been on my …Read More

The American brewing industry reached another milestone at the end of June, with more than 3,000 breweries operating for all or part of the month (3,040 to be precise). Although precise numbers from the 19th century are difficult to confirm, …Read More

One common worry I hear about in the craft beer space is the ongoing proliferation of SKUs. Is there enough shelf space? Are their enough tap handles? These questions typically are based on blunt measures, like the number of SKUs …Read More