BMI Estimates Craft Beer Down 8% in 2020

News »  Business of Beerposted Feb 17th 03:04:53PM by Tom McCormick

Beer Marketer’s Insights estimated that total craft beer sales were down by 8.3% last year, a drop of 2.25 million barrels.

Although craft grew by 12-13% in the off-premise, it was not enough to make up for the dramatic loss in the on-premise trade which has been heavily impacted by the pandemic.

Note that BMI numbers encompass all craft beer, including those craft brands marketed and sold by large brewers, as opposed to the Brewers Association, which only tracks BA-defined craft brewers.

Of the large brewers, Anheuser-Busch craft brands were up 1.0%, MillerCoors craft down 7% and Lagunitas (Heineken) down 13.6%. A few notable exceptions to the tough year was Sierra Nevada Brewing which had a sales increase of 5.6% and New Belgium Brewing, up 11.3%.