2024 Overview
2024 was a challenging year for craft brewers, but adaptability kept small decreases from being substantially larger. However, this might be craft’s new environment
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It can be easy to forget that every brewery is also a business that requires strong leadership, a positive company culture, stable finances, and more. This section is for everything beyond the brewhouse, including regulation and government affairs; promotion of diversity and inclusion in the craft beer industry; establishment of best practices for human resources, management and leadership in breweries; maintaining healthy finance and accounting practices; and understanding the statistics and trends that are affecting the indsutry overall.
2024 was a challenging year for craft brewers, but adaptability kept small decreases from being substantially larger. However, this might be craft’s new environment
Despite difficult conditions, the brewpub business model still presents a wealth of opportunities unavailable to production breweries and even satellite sampling spaces.
In 2024, microbreweries learned to embrace a new definition of success. The segment was the hardest hit among all craft brewing categories, decreasing 7.5%.
Taprooms, down 4.1 percent by volume in 2024, are going back to the basics—focusing on customer service, refining business strategies, and expanding offerings.
U.S. beer shipments declined 1.6% to 193 million barrels in 2024 vs. 2023. That puts volume down 10% in the last three years, shedding over 21 million barrels since 2021.
Regionals, defined as breweries that produce more than 15,000 barrels a year, lost 3.1% in volume over 2024, performing better than craft as a whole.
For the May/June 2025 The New Brewer, we present our annual Industry Review issue. The issue provides an overview of the performance of craft breweries in 2024, which saw the overall segment down 4%. It includes in-depth analysis of each segment including brewpubs, taprooms, microbreweries, regional breweries, and large breweries/imports. Read More
This issue is brought to you by Pentair Haffmans
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