In late March, 2018, the Brewers Association reported overall craft beer industry growth around 5 percent overall for the 2017 calendar year. While the rate of growth was slower in 2017 than it was in the past few years, it was still faster than that of the overall beer industry, which witnessed declining sales overall.
Smaller breweries represent the greatest potential for growth and today, the Brewers Association released its inaugural ranking of the 50 fastest growing craft breweries for 2017, based on percentage change in output from the previous year. These Top 50 breweries witnessed median growth of 216 percent from 2016 to 2017 and the median size of the breweries in the Top 50 rankings increased from 284 barrels to 963 barrels.
Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson says his organization published this Top 50 list to recognize the small breweries that are helping to push the craft industry to new heights.
“With 5 percent growth overall for small and independent brewers in 2017 and microbreweries and brewpubs delivering the majority of that, we wanted to spotlight some of the breweries driving that growth,” said Watson. “As the growth base for craft becomes more diffuse, these fast growing brewing companies illustrate that a diverse set of success stories still exist.”
To qualify for the Top 50 rankings, a brewery had to have opened on 12/31/15 or earlier and had to have at least three years of available data. In addition, the listing includes only small and independent breweries that have all of their production at their own facilities and it includes only those small/independent breweries that reported to the Brewers Associations annual Beer Industry Production Survey.
So, based on year- over- year production, here are America’s Top 50 Fastest Growing Breweries from 2016 to 2017:
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