Brewers who remember the industry’s double-digit growth last decade won’t find anything comparable in today’s reports—“headwinds,” “challenges,” and “heightened competition” are the triad that’s replaced “explosion,” “revolution,” and “boom.”
And yet… While the overall business landscape looks more difficult for small breweries than it did a decade ago, the reality is far from dire.
Two things can be true at once:
- The past few years have been as challenging as any the industry has experienced since perhaps the late 1990s.
- There are more independent American breweries than there have been at any point in history, making a wide range of beers at a high level of quality.
In fact, there are plenty of reasons to feel heartened by craft beer’s resilience right now. Especially among industry economists—specialists in analyzing the big-picture data—there’s a sense that breweries may be overlooking the good news that’s out there.
“There’s been a fair amount of growth in challenging times,” says Matt Gacioch, staff economist for the Brewers Association. “Among respondents to our midyear 2024 survey, more than half experienced some level of growth. While there is likely some response bias there, the reality is that many craft breweries are growing in a time when most of the largest beer brands are not.”