The Brewers Association, a non- profit organization that represents America’s independent craft breweries, has released it annual list of the Top 50 Breweries in the United States, measured by beer sales volume. The listing is one of the Brewers Association’s most anticipated of the year since it indicates the movers and shakers in the craft beer world, showing who is performing best with consumers.
One of the most useful aspects of this annual listing is to identify the breweries that have made the greatest strides compared to last year; or, on the flip side, the breweries that have fallen the most from the prior year. And comparing 2020 to 2019 reveals that little has changed near the top, but there is a good deal of movement toward the bottom, which is expected.
In the top 10, nine of last years positions stayed exactly the same. Deschutes dropped from 10 to 11, replaced in the 10th position by Artisanal Brewing Ventures. The other members of the elite top ten remained as before.
Breweries that made significant gains in the Top 50 include Georgetown Brewing and Three Floyds, both of which moved up 8 places; Lost Coast Brewing, which moved up 6 places; and Gordon Biersch, which gain 5 places. The biggest losers include Shipyard Brewing, which dropped 13 places; Long Trail Brewing, which fell 6 positions; and North Coast Brewing, which slipped 4 positions to number 50. If things don’t improve for North Coast in 2020, it could very well drop from the rankings.
The only new brewery in the Top 50 this year is Connecticut’s Two Roads, which debuts at 47. And if there is a new brewery in the ranks, then one had to drop completely from the list. That distinction belongs to Uinta Brewing, which was ranked at 42 last year and is no longer in the Top 50.
Dogfish Head is still in the Top 50 for 2019, but as everyone knows, the company was acquired by Boston Beer in 2019 and that means it will no longer rank in the Top 50 when next year’s rankings are released. It will be interesting to see if the merger of these two beer giants will be enough to propel Boston Beer Company to the top spot.
Here is a full listing of the Top 50 Craft Breweries of 2019:
Leave a Reply