Top 50 Craft Brewers in America | Sloshspot Blog

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Top 50 Craft Brewers in America
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The popularity of craft beers stateside has grown tremendously over the past few years, giving rise to some great new breweries all around the nation. The definition of a craft brewer, according to the Brewers Association, is as follows,

An American craft brewer is small, independent, and traditional.

Small: Annual production of beer less than 2 million barrels. Beer production is attributed to a brewer according to the rules of alternating proprietorships. Flavored malt beverages are not considered beer for purposes of this definition.

Independent: Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.

Traditional: A brewer who has either an all malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers brands) or has at least 50% of it’s volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.


We have mapped the top 50 craft brewers in America based on beer sales volume.

(Click to enlarge)

Tags:

  • vk3 March 29, 2009 at 1:53pm
    A truly epic wrap up of ever possible spot.

    Good work SloshSpot.com!

    - Julie, Free Credit Report Consultant/Avid Beer Guzzler
  • buckfarak077 March 29, 2009 at 2:59pm
    Why Spoetzl but not Saint Arnold? Shiner's hefeweizen is decent but not much else is fit to drink. Everything Saint Arnold brews is so much better than Shiner's swill. I recommend the Ellisa IPA.
  • buckfarak077 March 29, 2009 at 3:05pm
    nm... I see it is based on sales...
  • jayof9s March 29, 2009 at 4:11pm
    Kind of disappointing you just ranked them by sales; that's not really a good way to rank craft beers in my opinion (or in my experience with quite a few of those that made the list). Still a decent list so I can look for some of those different brands on my travels to the different regions of the US.
  • leetcheese March 29, 2009 at 4:12pm
    No Three Floyds Brewery?
  • syntaxerr661810 March 29, 2009 at 10:42pm
    Boston Beer Company != Craft Brewery. Sales numbers don't mean a craft brewery is on of the top.
  • donovanblaylock March 30, 2009 at 8:40am
    Nimbus is an excellent craft brewery that is a must everytime I'm in Tucson
  • joshweaver23 March 30, 2009 at 11:06am
    This list is BS! How can you possibly rank craft breweries by sales? That's the exact opposite of what craft brewing is all about. You missed some of the best IMO, and gave credit to some of the worst (e.g. Gordon Biersch, Kona, Rock Bottom).
  • markweee September 24, 2009 at 6:12am
    I felt slightly ashamed of my minimal knowledge of the spirit and set out to learn a bit about what differentiates each type of whiskey. What I found was that there are endless ways to categorize the beverage, from ingredients and distilling processes to country and region. Master degrees AND MBA degrees
  • markweee September 24, 2009 at 6:12am
    Sloshspot isn't just a blog! Sloshspot is a new site growing to be the largest community on the web dedicated to bars, clubs, and pubs. Online degree AND Bachelor degree AND foundation degrees

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