The Brewers Association's Numbers and Quandaries

The annual Brewers Association list of top breweries is out. As always, it contains no numbers, rendering it it nearly, but not totally, useless. Numbers matter quite a bit. They point out that the distance between one and five is greater than the distance between six and fifty (or whatever--without the numbers, we don't know). They also tell us whether breweries are growing, standing pat, or shrinking, never mind what their relative position is. (Rogue, which fell two spots, may have increased barrelage, which is certainly more important to the brewery than whether they were passed by Gordon Biersch in the rankings.) Aside from whipping up some brief news, in fact, relative positions don't tell us a whole hell of a lot. That said, since we don't have those numbers and do have this list, I guess we go with the list.

First is the more interesting of two lists--the full list of breweries, along with Jay Brooks' helpful annotations about movement. You can see the whole list here; I'll reprint the Northwest breweries below:

17. Craft Brewers Alliance; Widmer moved up 4 & Redhook 5 as a combined company
11. Pyramid Breweries; Up 2 spots, their 2nd two spot jump in a row
12. Deschutes Brewery; Up 4 from #16 last year
17. Full Sail Brewing; Up 2 from #19 last year
36. Rogue Ales; Down 2 from #34, canceling being up 2 the year before
44. BridgePort Brewing; Same as last year
49. Mac and Jack’s Brewery; Not in Top 50 last year

Two observations present themselves: the forward movement among NW breweries is at the top of the list. Also, the relative balance between Oregon and Washington is growing wider. Mac and Jack's is the only Washington independent on the list (and it's only barely on the list). This trend is even more obvious in the list of craft breweries, where five of six independents are from Oregon, and six of eight are (nominally, anyway) from Oregon:

NR. Craft Brewers Alliance; Portland OR
x5. Pyramid Breweries; Seattle WA
x6. Deschutes Brewery; Bend OR
x9. Full Sail Brewing; Hood River OR
25. Rogue Ales; Newport OR
33. Bridgeport Brewing; Portland OR
36. Mac and Jack’s Brewery; Redmond WA
48. McMenamins; Portland OR

Ah, but what about that first entry? Well, it turns out the Brewers Association, for reasons obscure to me, omitted the Craft Brewers Alliance:

Changes from last year's list include breweries moving up or down in the rankings based on volume sales. There was one new entrant into the Top 50 Craft list, The Saint Louis Brewery, and two craft brewers have claimed spots in the Top 50 Overall list—Big Sky Brewing Co. and Mac & Jack's Brewery. Consolidation of MillerCoors, last year's number 2 and 3 brewers, opened up a slot, and the merger of Widmer Brothers and Redhook into the company now named Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc. opened up another slot filled by emerging small and independent craft brewers.

This raises a thorny issue for the Brewers Association. Long an advocacy group created "promote and protect small and independent American brewers, their craft beers and the community of brewing enthusiasts." That was all well and good when they could neatly tuck craft breweries into a tidy box: "An American craft brewer is small, independent, and traditional." Craft breweries and macros were qualitatively and quantitatively different categories even a decade ago.

Now the categories are less tidy. As a market matures, you inevitably see consolidation, buy-outs, and now even the macros are making beer indistinguishable from micros (albeit not the best micros). Breweries like Boston Beer Company, by virtue of their success at selling great beer, will one day exceed 2 million barrels. What then? BridgePort, on the list for craft breweries, is owned by Gambrinus, a Corona importer that owns five breweries. Mendocino, a founding craft brewery that still produces the same beer it always has, is owned by UB Group, and international conglomerate of breweries--and is not. The Pyramid/MacTarnahans company is, the Redhook/Widmer company is not. I'm certain this accords with the ever-more-byzantine rules that guide membership in the Brewers Association, but those definitions are increasingly arbitrary.

It's only going to get worse. Eventually, the Brewers Association is going to have to make some hard choices, limiting the pool of brewers to those that fit a neat, clear definition. It's hard to imagine that any guild could both represent Hair of the Dog (annual capacity: +/- 1000 barrels) and Boston Beer (over a million barrels). If they don't, a competing guild will naturally arise to serve the very different needs of these segments of the market.