As we recently shared, the Brewers Association released data for craft beer production per state for 2019. You can read our full review of Pennsylvania’s numbers here. The organization, which is the countries foremost independent craft beer organization, monitors and records craft beer data for every state.

In that time Pennsylvania has seen many highs. One of which is being listed as the number one craft beer producer in the country 3 out of the previous 4 years. Moving to the #2 spot in 2019, behind California.

You can see a full review of our numbers through the link we shared above. However, the one number throughout the years that is most notable has been production in barrels. Since 2016 Pennsylvania has seen a steady decline in how much beer is being made.

The numbers by year:

2016: 3,905,620
2017: 3,724,010
2018: 3,719,475
2019: 3,606,444

A four-year consecutive drop is not ideal, and what is a bit more alarming is that Pennsylvania is going against current industry trends for craft beer. As mentioned above, the Brewers Association tracks craft production for the entire country. In their most recent industry report, they found that craft beer as a whole is trending up.

“Overall U.S. beer volume sales were down 2% in 2019, whereas craft brewer sales continued to grow at a rate of 4% by volume, reaching 13.6% of the U.S. beer market by volume. Craft production grew the most for taprooms.” Read the full report here.

For comparison, Pennsylvania has continuously battled California for the top spot in the rankings. In 2019, whereas PA saw a drop in over 110,00 barrels, California saw an increase in over 200,000 barrels.

The data collected is based on craft brewery numbers. You can see how the Brewers Association defines craft breweries here. This is important to know because production data can see a serious impact when breweries are purchased by mass producers (AB InBev, MillerCoors, etc). When a brewery is acquired by a macro beer company their numbers no longer count towards a state’s production.

However, in the four years being tracked, we saw no major acquisitions in Pennsylvania that would impact these numbers. In fact, we saw the opposite. As you will see in the chart below, the number of craft breweries has grown over the four years. Which means the dip in production is occurring naturally.

The chart above, while trending up, does not paint the full picture. If you visit the grand openings section of our site, you will notice that most of the breweries opening are no larger than 10 barrel production facilities, which is on the smaller side compared to most producers. Which means the state is gaining more breweries, but not producing that much more beer.

So what is causing the impact? It’s difficult to say. More competition is entering the market in the form of seltzers, macro breweries buying craft brands, and reports of younger generations moving away from craft beer. We can tell you, Pennsylvania tourism isn’t doing much to support the industry.

It’s hard to pinpoint one specific reason. However the numbers do tell the story of where we are currently. One thing we can all do to help the industry? Support local as much as possible.