Craft Brewers Conference: Keynote and Opening Session, 5.3.2012

Brooklyn Brewery Sorachi Ace (Saison) for the morning toast    

This morning I woke up at the ass crack of dawn* to make it to the keynote and opening speakers at the Craft Brewers Convention.  There were a handful of speakers including Mayor Jerry Sanders, Congressman Peter DeFazio, Paul Gatza (Director of the Brewers Association), and the keynote by Steve Hindy, founder of Brooklyn Brewery. Since keynotes are kinda you-had-to-be-there kinda things, I just wanna share some interesting factoids I picked up. I mean, I have to act like I earned this badge, right??

In 2011:

• Craft beer was up 1.3 million barrels
• Brewers sold 11.5 million barrels
• There were 250 new brewery openings
• There are 915 breweries in planning
• 270 breweries brew less than 100 barrels
• 174 microbreweries opened; 12 closed
• 28.4% growth in microbreweries
• There are 367 more breweries than in 2007
• 179 craftbrewers are canning 73 styles of beer
• There are 1940 total craft breweries operating. Of those, 1083 are brewpubs, 789 are micros, 88 are regional crafts
• The top three styles by sales (in order) are Seasonals, IPAs, and Pale Ale. This is the first year that IPAs outsold Pale Ales. 
• California leads in breweries with 280 followed by Washington (134), Colorado (127), Oregon (121), Michigan (102)
• Vermont leads in most breweries per capita. 

So there ya go and now you know. Now I'm off to get a more direct education about all of these fantastic brews. 

*I know 7:45 isn't the "ass crack of dawn" to most people, but when going to bed early means 3:30 a.m., it is.