Lost Coast Brewery eyeing potential expansion up to 200k barrels
UPDATE/CORRECTION: According to the owner, 600k is just an allowance as part of the zoning. The plan calls for the brewery to eventually expand production up from 50k-60k barrels to 200k barrels.
How many craft breweries above 500k barrels can the U.S. support? Apparently a lot.
Lost Coast Brewery owner Barbara Groom is proposing to build a brewery on the site which will allow the company to produce 600,000 barrels of beer per year, 10 times the amount the brewery produced in 2011. Lost Coast Brewery’s current restaurant will remain on Fourth Street in Eureka. The commission approved a conditional use permit for the project and adopted a California Environmental Quality Act document.
Breweries: Lost Coast Brewery
“How many craft breweries above 500k barrels can the U.S. support? ”
‘One Pint at a Time’…chipping away at AB InBev & SAB Miller-Coors does add up over time and… let’s not lose historical perspective on the number of breweries in America.
In the pre-prohibition, ‘no women allowed’ saloons of America in 1910, there were about 1800 breweries for 75 million US residents (remember, half the population couldn’t even VOTE, let alone go to bars) and… NO retail outlets for brewskis.
100 years later (after declining to fifty something operating breweries just prior to Saint Jimmie’s legalization of home brewing in the 70’s) we’re ‘back’ to ~ 1800 breweries in 2010 for 300 million population where BOTH men and women can/do drink beer.
So, the ‘math’ (happy National π Day, btw 3.14) tells us that we’ve got a LOT of room to grow just to get back to pre-prohibition ‘access’ to local, fresh, beer. 300/75 = 4 x 1800 = 7200 – 1800 = 5400
We are, conservatively, 5,400 breweries shy of 1910 ‘availability’ (not counting refrigerated sales outlets, transport, convenience stores, handy packaging, Intl export et al). More like 10,000 shy if you 2X for female population so…
There is LOTS of room for all kinds of breweries/brew pubs, nano/pico brewers to be ‘born’ and grow and chip, chip, chip, away at that 92-95% factory beer (including 12-15% imports)…
‘One Pint at a Time’
I know there were a lot more distilleries back then, too. How about wineries?
> “How many craft breweries above 500k barrels can the U.S. support?”
Well, the US brewing industry peaked in the 1960’s as far as breweries with over 500,000 bbl./yr production at 35, from #1 A-B 9m bbl. (10% market share) down to Rainier with 512,811 bbl. sold in 1962. Altho’ traditionally the magic number in US brewing was also the million barrel breweries, which total around 24 as late as 1970 (compared to just 4 today – A-B, M-C, BBC and Yuengling. 5 if one counts “virtual brewer” Pabst).
As for craft brewers today, there’s still only 3 actually selling (vs. capacity) over 500k a year -BBC, SN, NB and CBA makes 4 if one doesn’t use B.A.’s definition.
> Ken Tucker “(remember, half the population couldn’t even VOTE,
> let alone go to bars) and… NO retail outlets for [beer]”.
Though the majority of pre-Prohibition beer in the US was sold in kegs at saloons, bottled beer was also sold in bars, hotels, grocery stores, department stores, liquor stores and even by mail order firms (which shipped to “dry” states and areas). The large “shipping” brewers which first reached 1m bbl in the pre-Pro era (A-B, Pabst, Schlitz) all had large bottling operations and independent bottlers sold local beers they bottled themselves from kegs.
In addition, tho’ women did not usually drink in saloons, due to both the cultural norms of the day and saloon rules, there was a large “bucket trade” especially in urban areas. The popular press of the day often noted that women of all social classes drank beer purchased in both growlers and in bottles. Many saloons had “family entrances” where women and children were welcome to purchase beer “to go” in growlers of metal pails and pottery pitchers.
Probably a better way of comparing the pre-Pro and current beer markets is in per capita consumption. It took until the 1960’s-1970’s (stats vary based on total population or just legal age pop.) for US consumption to reach and pass pre-Pro levels, but since peaking in the early 1980’s it’s actually been going down – over 22 gallons in 1994 to just over 20 in 2010 (see the Beer Institute’s Brewers Almanac).
The 600,000 bbl. number was for the zoning process. The brewery doesn’t actually plan to make that much beer. The plans call for a brewery that could make up to 200,000 bbls.