Oregon Beer Sales, 2014

Each month, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission releases details for the amount of Oregon-brewed beer sold in Oregon.  They are all fairly interesting if you're into sales data, but the biggie comes out in late February, when the year-end totals are released.  You can view them here in pdf.  Here are the topline numbers.  In 2013, Oregon breweries sold 490,000 barrels of beer in Oregon.  They added over 70,000 barrels in 2014 (a 14.4% increase) and sold 566,000 barrels.  According to the way the OLCC calculates these things, there are 189 breweries currently operating in Oregon.

Of course, the share of the sales goes to a very small group of breweries.  Deschutes and the Craft Brewers Alliance (Widmer, Redhook, and Kona) account for a third of all the Oregon-brewed beer sold in Oregon.  The five best-selling breweries account for half.  The top ten account for two-thirds, the bottom 179 the final third.

Below are the top 20 best-selling breweries in Oregon.  Keep in mind that this is beer sales by Oregon breweries in Oregon.  This list does not reflect the beers sales by Oregon breweries in other states, nor the sales in Oregon of beer by out-of-state breweries.  The second number (in parentheses) is the brewery's position on the 2013 list; the third number is the actual barrels sold in Oregon; and the final number is the growth or decline over 2013.  I have highlighted sharp growth in bold and decline in red.

1 (2) Redhook/Widmer/Kona - 94,731, 17.1%
2 (1) Deschutes Brewing - 89,778, 2.1%
3 (3) Ninkasi Brewing - 43,118, -6.4%
4 (4) Portland Brewing - 31,309, 8.2%
5 (7) 10 Barrel Brewing - 25,848, 60.5%
6 (5) Full Sail Brewing - 24,520, 0.7%
7 (6) Bridgeport Brewing - 21,227, -10.6%
8 (13) Hop Valley Brewing - 18,504, 175.1%
9 (8) Rogue Ales Brewery - 15,294, 5.5%
10 (9) Boneyard Beer - 14,536, 14.6%
11 (11) Hopworks Urban Brewery - 9,579, 20.6%
12 (14) Fort George Brewery - 8,744, 47.7%
13 (10) Oakshire Brewing - 7,786, -2.1%
14 (22) Worthy Brewing - 7,783, 177.0%
15 (12) Double Mountain Brewery - 7,671, 1.3%
16 (18) Caldera Brewing - 6,283, 41.6%
17 (15) Cascade Lakes Brewing - 5,968, 10.0%
18 (20) Breakside Brewery - 5,646, 77.7%
19 (17) Edgefield Brewery - 4,881, 3.9%
20 (16) Laurelwood Public House - 4,833, -8.8%

Notes
It's worth noting that CBA is a troika of three essentially separate breweries, so its appearance at the top of the list should include a mental asterisk.  Most breweries sold more beer in Oregon in 2014 than they did in 2013, but some actually fell in position on the list (Deschutes, Full Sail, Rogue, Boneyard, Double Mountain, Cascade Lakes, and Edgefield)--a result of not growing as fast as neighbors on the list.  I personally don't read much into sales declines without knowing a brewery's strategy.  If they were making moves into other markets, they may well have sold more beer in 2014.  That said, Ninkasi, BridgePort, and Laurelwood saw decent declines and can't be happy about that.  Finally, just as a random note: Portland Brewing is quietly putting up very large numbers.  They're now selling 6,000 barrels more a year in Oregon than they were two years ago.