Seasonal trends for onsite brewery sales have remained relatively consistent since January 2021, but “in real terms” – i.e. accounting for inflation – onsite sales continue to decline, according to Brewers Association (BA) staff economist Matt Gacioch, citing data from Arryved.
Craft beer has entered “no to negative growth territory,” Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson said during a year-end webinar last week. “We were in double-digit growth as recently as 2014, 2015, and then we moved into kind of a more developed, slow, single-digit growth rate,” Watson said. “COVID hit, and we had the worst year in craft history in 2020 with a partial bounce back in 2021.
Homebrew Con, the American Homebrewers Association’s (AHA) annual gathering of homebrewers, is on hiatus.
Chief economists Bart Watson (Brewers Association) and Lester Jones (National Beer Wholesalers Association) spent much of the past couple years staving off fears of a recession and preaching about how beer is “economically resilient.”
More than 260 breweries were awarded medals Saturday in Denver at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). The Brewers Association (BA) gave out 303 medals to 263 breweries in the 37th year of the competition and 41st year of the festival, according to a press release.
