Snow & Hops & Beer 29Jan18

We are exiting Jan18 with continued significantly below average snowpack and an early Feb18 outlook which is not very snowy. Bummer. Summit's big resorts are all ~80% of average snowpack - which is actually good for the state whose southwest resorts are dry as has been the whole southern half of CO... the South Platte basin in the northeast is doing a bit better. Let's hope this improves.

The price of hops has doubled in the last 13 years and is currently on an even more accelerated increase. Root causes are several but supply & demand is obviously the core where "bigger" IPAs and higher volumes of beer are driving up use and where production has not quite kept pace. Still hops are nowhere near being one of the more profitable crops per acre like bamboo, ginseng, flowers & mushrooms. Perhaps this will force use of other ingredients or production of other styles.

But in Colorado, the brewing industry is a big economic contributor, despite our importing hops rather than growing them. Hops require lots of water but when given it, the vines grow like weeds almost... the NorthWET is a top hop-producing region as a result. We only use unseeded female buds for brewing - though males are in the fields to make the ladies happy.

In 2016 Colorado led all states in economic impact of brewing (per potential consumer) and was 6th overall in scale of the brewing industry in each state. Perhaps the impact per consumer was high due to our high recreational visitation from interstate drinkers or our central location for distribution to many western states... dunno but other "outdoors" states are high on the per capita list too.

Colorado ranks 4th as to the number of breweries currently open in the state... and that's an absolute number, not even per capita. Though in craft breweries (from a different dataset) we are 2nd with 334.

Total beer production from Colorado was 20M barrels (equivalent including kegs, cans and bottles produced for whatever outlet of consumption) in 2016 which is ranked 1st in the country, but closely followed by CA, TX and OH. This is from a tax collected perspective from the Feds and is a bit surprising but attributed to craft output surges. Perhaps though too the big brewers in Wisconsin have been under-reporting for tax purposes - some don't even crack the Top 10. Here's the choropleth map of state-wise beer production in the US in barrels - our craft beer production is just <10% of this though.

Overall alcohol consumption in CO per capita is ranked 15th - northern states are the biggest consumers. Consuming beer only (not just craft beer) we are much lower at 29th.

I conclude that beer is very important to Colorado - per capita we are a relatively low consumer, though I am doing my part, yet we produce a lot and employ a lot in the industry. While the datasets are from mixed sources again - Colorado's GDP is $322B in 2016; craft beer is 1% of this and all beer contributes about 6% I assess.

New Brewer Annual Craft Beer Report

So who are the players in Colorado? The New Brewer does an annual with lots of data - click the image above to grab the most recent full report. It's amazing the share of #1 AM InBev nationwide and as we know each is starting to buy craft brewers as that's where the growth is.

The craft segment includes Regionals, MicroBrews, BrewPubs and ContractBrewers. The Regionals have the biggest share but microbreweries are the faster growing recently.

In the mountains, Colorado dominates with its Regionals and is strong in distribution as well. I am surprised Melvyn is not on the list but I do expect them next year. Have you been to the top BrewPubs? Pikes Peak rated as a BrewPub is weird - their only food is from a Panini press or crock pot.

To see the complete lists as well as openings & closings in the past year in each category, get the report. The volume is enlightening and reinforces how important beer is to Colorado and who are the movers & shakers here. Too, it is widely acknowledged that the GABF in Denver is THE beerfest at which to be seen and to serve. I'd hope to go again sometime after seeing the scale in 2017 - mark September 21st, 2018... I'll be in Utah so I'll have to go in 2019.