Craft Bier has a long way to go to catch pre-prohibition!

I've heard the oft quoted statistic that we're back up to the 1400-1500 brewery range which puts up into the pre-prohibition numbers. Funny thing about numbers they're subject to context! As Mark Twain said, 'there's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics'.

Facts:
• In 1873 there were 4,131 breweries in the US.
• In 1910 the number of breweries had dropped to 1,568. The drop in breweries was due to improved production & distribution allowing fewer breweries to produce more bier.
• In 2009 there are 1595 breweries operating in the US.

• US Population estimate in 1873 45,000,000
• US Population estimate in 1910 92,407,000
• US Population estimate in 1926 (the middle of prohibition) 117,397,000
• US Population extimate in 2010 307,000,000

I simply did the math for the year 1910, others can do the other years if they care to. I divided the current population by the population of 1910, giving me 332.2259% increase in population. I then multiplied today's number of breweries by this number. This produces a number of 5299. This means that from a brewery density to population ratio we need 5299 breweries to be equal to 1910, or pre-prohibition numbers. I couldn't resist, to reach a brewery saturation number equal to the 1873 density we'd need 10,881 breweries in 2010! That makes me happy!!!

Btw I think a more appropriate name for beer/breweries pre-prohibition would have been local or regional bier rather than craft bier. Just a thought.

Schlante,
Phillip

citation:
http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/business-tools/craft-brewing-statistics/facts
http://www.beerinfo.com/index.php/pages/beerhistory.html
http://www.demographia.com/db-uspop1900.htm

We'll likely never hit the population adjusted numbers that you calculated. The main reason there were so many breweries in the lat 1800's/early 1900's was because of lack of production and distribution capabilities. You needed at least one brewery in almost every town just to keep up with demand in the area. Nowadays, we can produce beer faster and in larger volumes, and we can ship it almost anywhere in the country within a couple of days. It takes less breweries to saturate the market with beer.

Don't fool yourself, there's never been a better time and place to be a beer lover than the United States right now. While we might not have the same quantity of breweries per capita the breweries we do have are making better beer in a wider variety of styles. Progress is a beautiful (and tasty) thing.

+1

2345678

I belive that if you calculated volume per capita, we are probably brewing a lot more now than we were then.

what if you count home brewers? (or home brew clubs) as 'regional brewers'?

n 1873 there were 4,131 breweries in the US.
.
.
US Population estimate in 1873 45,000,000

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By my rough calculations that's just over 1 brewery for every 11,000 people. That 11,000 includes kids, right?

There is no way that will happen again unless there's some kind of apocalypse that destroys the entire infrastructure.

I'm not disputing discussions about the quality, selection, or even quantity of bier from 'then vs now'. I think the point is more so that brewing was done more locally. I would love to know the amount drank during the 1800s vs today by Americans. Heck I'd love to know what the numbers are for Europeans during the 1600s. Very curious as to how important it was for life within cities.

It's timely that weirdboy breaks down the 1873 number to 11,000 people per brewery. That's a similar number to what I think is an ideal ratio. I figure it'd be great if every municipality of 50K people has 5-10 breweries. Perhaps 1-2 micros and the rest being brew-pubs. This number would of course serve the 50k town and it's surrounding area. I think this type of density would provide a great local bier culture.

Schlante,
Phillip

This is interesting, there's only one calculation you're missing. Average number of gallons per brewery. If you figure in the big names in brewing, they are probably brewing more beer in 1 brewery than all of those 1910 breweries combined.

Do your current figures include small brewpubs with little to no distribution?

I've a table showing the number of breweries per head of population for most of the major beer-producing countries for 1910 and 2006 here:

http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/austintr.htm

MVKTR2 said:

Funny thing about numbers they're subject to context! As Mark Twain said, 'there's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics'.

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Interesting thoughts, Philip. One important context is that in the 1800s people walked down to the local pub and brought their beer home in a bucket. And breweries delivered beer to wagons pulled/pushed by people or horses.

MVKTR2 said:

I'm not disputing discussions about the quality, selection, or even quantity of bier from 'then vs now'. I think the point is more so that brewing was done more locally. I would love to know the amount drank during the 1800s vs today by Americans. Heck I'd love to know what the numbers are for Europeans during the 1600s. Very curious as to how important it was for life within cities.

It's timely that weirdboy breaks down the 1873 number to 11,000 people per brewery. That's a similar number to what I think is an ideal ratio. I figure it'd be great if every municipality of 50K people has 5-10 breweries. Perhaps 1-2 micros and the rest being brew-pubs. This number would of course serve the 50k town and it's surrounding area. I think this type of density would provide a great local bier culture.

Schlante,
Phillip

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But, is that economically sustainable?