The Changing Landscape for Draft Beer Demands a Dialed-In Keg Fleet

Over the past decade, the dynamics of getting draft beer out to market have changed in ways that affect small breweries more than others.

Smaller breweries over-index as a proportion of draft sales. CGA by NIQ, a firm that tracks on-premise data, puts beer from craft breweries—as defined by the Brewers Association—at 33 percent of total draft sales volume in 2024, about the same as the year before.

Yet where craft breweries were once coveted stars within wholesalers’ books and able to exert influence, the power has shifted back toward the middle tier. Many wholesalers—and the on-premise accounts they service—aren’t prioritizing draft beer the way they once did, contributing to falling keg volumes.

To find growth in draft beer today, small breweries must be nimble and opportunistic, seizing tap handles when and where they can—even if that’s out of state or overseas. These shifts have implications for many aspects of brewery operations, but especially for keg-fleet management.