America's Best-Selling Craft Beers
Think your favorite craft beer made the list? The Brewers Association has just released its list of the best-selling breweries of 2012, and found that of the top 50 brewing companies, 39 craft breweries made the cut.
Said the Brewers Association director, Paul Gatza, in a release, "In 2012, craft surpassed 6 percent of the total U.S. beer market, with volume and dollar sales reaching record levels... Increasingly, beer lovers are turning to craft brewed beer from small and independent producers to satisfy their thirst for bold, innovative and flavor-forward beers." So even though 6 percent doesn't seem like much, it's a big number from our craft breweries.
Here are the top 10 craft breweries by total sales in 2012:
1. Boston Beer Co. (Boston)
2. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Chico, Calif.)
3. New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colo.)
4. The Gambrinus Co. (San Antonio, Texas)
5. Deschutes Brewery (Bend, Ore.)
6. Lagunitas Brewing Co. (Petaluma, Calif.)
7. Bell's Brewery, Inc. (Galesburg, Mich.)
8. Matt Brewing Co. (Utica, N.Y.)
9. Harpoon Brewery (Boston)
10. Stone Brewing Co. (Escondido, Calif.)
And the top "overall" brewing companies in the U.S., by total sales:
1. Anheuser-Busch Inc. (St. Louis)
2. MillerCoors (Chicago)
3. Pabst Brewing Co. (Los Angeles)
4. D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc. (Pottsville, Penn.)
5. Boston Beer Co. (Boston)
6. North American Breweries (Rochester, N.Y.)
7. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Chico, Calif.)
8. New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colo.)
9. Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. (Portland, Ore.)
10. The Gambrinus Co. (San Antonio, Texas)