2021 Craft Beer Report - Craft Beer Looking to Rebound

In an article published in the Beverage Industry, Barbara Harfmann examines the craft beer industry's attempt at rebounding from 2020.

While  2020 saw small and independent brewers collectively produced 23.1 million barrels of beer, a 9% decline that also impacted craft’s overall beer market share, which was 12.3% by volume, down from 13.6% in 2019.

For the 52 weeks ending Sept. 5, beer sales in multi-outlets were $43.8 billion, a 3% year-over-year (YoY) increase, according to data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), Chicago. Craft beer generated dollar sales were slightly north of $5 billion, a 1.4% increase, IRI data shows.

During the same timeframe, beer and craft beer cases sales numbers were slightly down at 1.4% and 0.8%, respectively, with sales in excess of 1.6 billion for beer overall and 128.8 million for craft beer, according to IRI data.

Read more of Barbara Harfmann's analysis here.