For a number of years I have tried to compile the number of physical breweries per country. This year there are signs of stagnation in the rise of breweries.
There are several reasons why ths count is not exact. I assume the biggest flaw is that not all breweries are listed. Another could be that closed breweries have not been retired in our DB. Another flaw could be misclassification so that for instance client brewers are listed as physical breweries. (As probably 95%+ of breweries listed as “Contract Breweries” really are “Client Breweries” these have been mostly counted as non-physical breweries).
47 seems like a correct number for Estonia in 2017, but no physical brewer has closed doors here for 5+ years, so 2016 number must have been wrong. 2017 actually 2 new microbreweries started and one brewpub, so there was actually increase from 44 to 47.
(2016 wrong number was probably caused by the fact that some client brewers were marked as contract brewers. They are fixed now).
Since you presumably have this in a spreadsheet is it possible to post the first table sorted by Diff% to 2016 so it’s easier to see who the biggest growers are? From a quick glance down it seems South American and South East Asian countries have experienced a lot of growth.
Here you, table sorted by increase (in %) since last year.
A not too wild guess is that the big climbs can be associated with individual users that should be recognized for their efforts in adding info…
I try to use midnight (UCT) as cutoff, although breweries that are retired the last days of the year will still count as open. (Do not want to put too much manual labour in every year at 1:00 in Jan 1st…)
Cheers! Yeah you might be right, especially for the South American and South East Asian countries although I must admit I know next to nothing about beer in those regions, with the exception of hearing that Vietnam has a booming craft beer scene so I’m not surprised to see them appear in the top 10.
The eastern/central European ones I’m slightly more familiar with, mainly Romania as I’ve been following their scene for the past couple of years. They’re experiencing genuine growth there and it helps they have a couple of active admins so I’m pleased to see them appear in the top 10 too and hope they continue to grow, and hopefully start exporting some of their beers.
Have you been able to find Romanian non-macro brews elsewhere in Europe? I’m quite excited about what’s going on in Poland and Hungary lately, but I’d like to find a new European country to fall in love with.
If you’re into trading, you could try contacting dnicolaescu, who is based over the border in Moldova. He knows Romanian beer very well. Last time I traded with him he set me up with five very decent Romanian craft brews by Bereta and Hop Hooligans.
I’m the wrong person to ask as I’m not much of a travlr at the moment, but as far as I’m aware none of the craft breweries there export any of their beers, except perhaps to Moldova as @dnicolaescu seems to rate literally every one of them which is good to see.
I have a bunch of Romanian friends here in the UK, a couple of which are into beer so that’s why I follow the scene. I find it interesting to follow a traditional wine country that’s blossoming into a small yet quality craft beer country. I’ve also been learning the language (sort of) and although I can’t speak it I can read/write well enough to understand what the brewers are describing in social media posts and whatnot!
I currently have 5 Hop Hooligans (regarded as one of, if not the best brewer in Romania right now) beers sitting in my fridge waiting for me to enjoy over the next week, very much looking forward to them
During 2018 I intend to get some trades done to acquire many more.
Does not compute not to mention there are some here that would suggest that you spelled it wrong anyway…
Maybe I should inquire. I rarely trade, though, as I would rather just travel to said country because it means that I get a chance to visit a country like Romania on top of getting to experience their beers. I can’t always do that, of course (I’m looking at you, Mongolia), but flights from Amsterdam or Brussels remain extremely reasonable.