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%Notes
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%
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.
I know this is the only data we have, but some of those reports, for the smaller guys especially, may not be entirely accurate. On the wine side, the OLCC has a pretty decent delay in posting monthly reports to their website. For instance, they show us producing a little over 2000 gallons, which is what I did in half of January 2014.
ReplyDeleteAnd our line in the Beer report is off too, moving us up about 10 places. Don't trust it!
ReplyDeletere Ninkasi Brewing
ReplyDeleteAs you noted: 'This list does not reflect the beers sales by Oregon breweries in other states'.
Ninkasi have become widely available in Boulder, Colorado, beer emporiums.
Ninkasi's apparent decline may merely be reallocation.
Boneyard Beers also made a notable appearance in that market.
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Many impressive year-to-year growth numbers.
Nat, I wonder if this is an artifact of the newness of cider-tracking? I have not heard from breweries that things are so radically off. (Though I have heard there are idiosyncracies.)
ReplyDelete