The Brewers Association released strong growth numbers for the first half of 2015. As of June 30th, there were 3,739 breweries in operation and 1,755 breweries in planning. The numbers also showed that craft breweries employ 115,469 full time and part time workers.
This is continued strong growth from the numbers released in January of this year. At the beginning of this year there were 3,418 total breweries. That is a 9% jump in breweries YTD. It also shows a 22% jump from the same period of 2014. This is the largest number of breweries opened over the previous year. At the beginning of this year there were also 2,052 breweries in planning. Now there are 1,755. I’d be curious to know how many of those January planned breweries became breweries and how many fell through. That means that 297 planned breweries either opened or failed to open since January. Those account for 14% of the total planned breweries from January. But we’ve seen “only” a 9% jump in brewery openings. What happened to the other 5%?
More importantly, keep in mind that below is the historical trend of craft breweries in the US. It looks like we’re on our way to having the most number of craft breweries in the US by 2016. In 1873 there were 4,131 breweries in the US. If we see continued 9% growth in the second half of 2015, we’ll be 4,075 breweries by the December 31st 2015. For more discussion head here.
