Craft Beer Industry Research Paper

Craft Beer

Craft Beer In The United States

Lets talk Craft Beer: It is on the rise. Statistics from the Brewers Association show the overall beer market in 2014 to be 101.5 billion dollars, with 19.6 billion going to the Craft Beer Market. That’s a 22% rise over 2013. In 2014 there are 3,464 craft beer breweries.

The economic impact on the US economy is staggering. The Craft Beer Industry is responsible for an increase $33.9 billion to the US economy. When you factor in the beer brewed by craft brewers as it goes through the three-tier system (breweries, wholesalers and retailers), and then the non-beer products like food and merchandise that brewpubs, restaurants and brewery taverns sell.

The Craft Beer industry also provides more than

Brewpubs: who sell 25% or more of their beer on site.

Regional craft breweries: who make between 15,000 US beer barrels and 6,000,000 US beer barrels.

Contract Brewing Companies: who hire other breweries to make their beer.

Craft beer making really started to come into its own in the U.S. when laws were changed to help the expansion of craft brewing. In 1978 President Carter created the homebrewing law allowing for small amounts of beer and wine, and in 1979 President Carter signed a bill to deregulate the brewing industry, making it smooth sailing to start new breweries. In 1979, only 89 breweries existed in the U.S. With these new laws, homebrewing became a popular hobby in the 1980s and 1990s, and by the mid-1990s, homebrewers started their own small Breweres, Brewpubs and Microbreweries.

During this period of time many significant occurrences took place that helped change the oncoming of The Craft Beer Industry.

Anchor Brewing Company was purchased by Fritz Maytag in 1965. Saving it from closure, Maytag kept the original beer traditions of that brewery, brewing unique beers during a time when all of America’s unique beers and breweries were

Before this period the idea of beer in America was that of a mass-produced product with little to no tradition, character, or culture. These new Craft Beer Breweries gained momentum because of their zealousness, passion and for there insight. Serving a taste of full-flavored beer and old world traditions, this was to become a distinctive American character. Even through the hard market environment,(constant pressure from Big Beer) these microbreweries and brewpubs of the 1980s who struggled, establish the bedrock for what was to become the rapid increase in numbers of craft beer in America. Craft Beer Brewers now known for their new measures of quality, stability and ingenuity, changing the minds of the beer customer, creating the most diversified, divergent, and mixed bag brewing society in the