Year end brewery count 2020

[omhper]

Same procedure as every year - I have compiled the number of physical breweries (no cideries/meaderies/sake producers, nor client brewers or comssioners) in each country.
Note that also contract brewers are omitted as nearly all of those are mislabelled client brewers - can’t understand why we still list contract brewers…)

I have only listed countries with 30+ breweries.
Overall there is an increase of 1783 breweries in these countries, up 7.1% in the year. The trend is falling: 2017: 14.0%, 2018: 12.9%, 2019: 8.6%.

Main contributor to this drop is declined growth in the US (down to 4.3% compared to 2017: 14.7%, 2018: 11.6%, 2019: 9.7%) and a sharp decline across Britain (England, Scotland and Wales all down by 4-6%). Elsewhere in Europe and above all Latin America the growth is healthy.

Whether these number actually reflects the number of active brewers is of course a different story…

Pos 2020	Change	Country	2020	Increase 2020	Increase 2020 %
1	0	USA	7494	306	4,26%
2	0	Germany	1860	176	10,45%
3	0	England	1564	-96	-5,78%
4	1	Canada	1174	160	15,78%
5	-1	France	1170	141	13,70%
6	0	Italy	1054	85	8,77%
7	0	Spain	884	66	8,07%
8	1	Australia	582	72	14,12%
9	-1	Switzerland	572	45	8,54%
10	1	Mexico	514	68	15,25%
11	-1	Czech Rep.	505	34	7,22%
12	0	Brazil	496	58	13,24%
13	2	Netherlands	476	59	14,15%
14	-1	Belgium	466	46	10,95%
15	-1	Russia	463	43	10,24%
16	0	Sweden	452	42	10,24%
17	0	Japan	353	18	5,37%
18	0	Poland	334	55	19,71%
19	1	Argentina	319	62	24,12%
20	-1	Austria	277	5	1,84%
21	2	Ukraine	242	42	21,00%
22	-1	China	237	18	8,22%
23	1	Denmark	213	25	13,30%
24	-2	Norway	206	-13	-5,94%
25	1	South Africa	199	37	22,84%
26	-1	Chile	189	25	15,24%
27	0	New Zealand	176	17	10,69%
28	1	Portugal	168	26	18,31%
29	1	Colombia	153	14	10,07%
30	-2	Scotland	144	-9	-5,88%
31	1	India	143	11	8,33%
32	-1	Thailand	138	2	1,47%
33	0	Finland	117	9	8,33%
34	0	Ireland	113	7	6,60%
35	0	Hungary	107	3	2,88%
36	0	Slovenia	105	3	2,94%
37	1	Peru	99	9	10,00%
38	1	Vietnam	96	9	10,34%
39	-2	Wales	94	-4	-4,08%
40	0	Slovakia	91	13	16,67%
41	0	Croatia	87	10	12,99%
42	0	South Korea	85	8	10,39%
43	0	Romania	74	4	5,71%
44	0	Greece	73	7	10,61%
46	3	Ecuador	70	12	20,69%
45	5	Phillippines	70	17	32,08%
47	1	Latvia	69	9	15,00%
48	-3	Lithuania	68	4	6,25%
49	-2	Serbia	68	6	9,68%
50	-4	Costa Rica	66	2	3,13%
51	0	Estonia	57	4	7,55%
52	0	Belarus	39	0	0,00%
53	0	Hongkong	38	2	5,56%
54	2	Bulgaria	36	4	12,50%
55	-1	Georgia	35	0	0,00%
56	1	Uruguay	35	3	9,38%
57	-2	Taiwan	34	1	3,03%
58	0	Israel	31	1	3,33%

[omhper]

And here is the list of physical breweries per million of inhabitants.
Note that I have not updated the population count since 2018, because lazy.
Quite big changes near the top. Sweden up three places to 4th, Norway down three to 7th. Wales falling from 7th 2019 (2nd 2018) to 13th 2020.

Switzerland still reigning supreme, despite lack of Bov entering breweries, so this number does not nearly reflect the true number of Swiss brewers.

Pos	Country	Breweries per milion
1	Switzerland	67,08
2	Slovenia	50,72
3	Czech Rep.	47,52
4	Sweden	44,25
5	Estonia	43,21
6	Belgium	40,70
7	Norway	38,69
8	Denmark	36,69
9	Latvia	35,91
10	New Zealand	35,70
11	Canada	31,46
12	Austria	31,27
13	Wales	30,08
14	England	28,12
15	Netherlands	27,53
16	Scotland	26,54
17	Lithuania	24,34
18	Ireland	23,27
19	Australia	23,09
20	USA	22,82
21	Germany	22,44
22	Croatia	21,19
23	Finland	21,19
24	Spain	18,92
25	Italy	17,45
26	France	17,37
27	Slovakia	16,71
28	Portugal	16,32
29	Costa Rica	13,19
30	Hungary	10,95
31	Chile	10,08
32	Uruguay	9,95
33	Serbia	9,71
34	Georgia	9,38
35	Poland	8,69
36	Argentina	7,17
37	Greece	6,78
38	Ukraine	5,43
39	Bulgaria	5,11
40	Hongkong	5,10
41	Belarus	4,12
42	Mexico	4,10
43	Ecuador	4,08
44	Romania	3,79
45	Israel	3,70
46	South Africa	3,45
47	Russia	3,20
48	Colombia	3,09
49	Peru	3,08
50	Japan	2,79
51	Brazil	2,36
52	Thailand	1,99
53	South Korea	1,65
54	Taiwan	1,44
55	Vietnam	1,01
56	Phillippines	0,65
57	China	0,17
58	India	0,11

[imdownthepub]

We are pretty much on top of the closed real breweries in the UK, the tricky ones are the commissioners / clients, but you are not counting those, so that’s okay. Covid has had an effect and will continue to do so with virtually all our pubs shut.

[omhper]

My fear is that, the reason why figures for Britain (and Norway) is worse than elsewhere, is that admins are more on top of closures there then elsewhere…

[BeardedAvenger]

Back during lockdown #1 I went through all the English breweries and then asked for a number of breweries to be closed. Most closed prior to 2020. Suspect that it’s a similar situation for other breweries that have been closed during 2020.

I was surprised at the minus figure because I am regularly adding on new breweries… a couple a month… however this perhaps reflects the trend for client breweries and comissioners.

[Mr_Pink_152]

Great to see these stats agin.

Adds weight to the argument (if one was needed) to break down other European countries into regions…

Also agree, England probably reflects active admins and raters.

Can’t wait to see what 2021 brings.

[omhper]

Thanks!
As for breakdown, yes there are several countries with serious clutter in bad need of splitting.
RB is falling behind competition here. For instance brewver.com has already split around 35 countries.

[AndySnow]

@omhper

RB is falling behind competition here. For instance brewver.com has already split around 35 countries.

Just get everyone to get their ratings over there and it doesn’t matter that ABInbev are slow in splitting countries. =)

[Mr_Pink_152]

Yeah but user generated databases are by nature based on user content. Not sure I have the time to add that many beers to a database. And if I do, and so do others, then we end up with duplicates.

[BeardedAvenger]

Quaffable features lists of brewery openings and closures by year. This is for the UK. I believe that it doesn’t feature client breweries, etc.

Openings:

2010 - 101

2011 - 141

2012 - 184

2013 - 194

2014 - 209

2015 - 243

2016 - 247

2017 - 219

2018 - 179

2019 - 134

2020 - 30

Closed Breweires:

2010 - 25

2011 - 31

2012 - 39

2013 - 35

2014 - 48

2015 - 84

2016 - 124

2017 - 119

2018 - 144

2019 - 105

2020 - 24

[imdownthepub]

Looks like Rick is a bit behind on 2020 closures, he does a lot of catching up from us.

[BeardedAvenger]

I reckon we’ve had 65 closures v 74 new breweries this year in England… obviously a number of these will be accounted for on Quaffable as they opened/closed in prior years.

[Martinsh]

@omhper

For instance brewver.com has already split around 35 countries.

Had a quick look at that site, and it seems to have serious problems. For example seaching for “Latvia” brought up Slaterr’s Maravilla from Stafford, England as one of the top hits ! [ Looked at the reviews of the beer, and couldn’t see any season for it ]

[AndySnow]

@Martinsh

Had a quick look at that site, and it seems to have serious problems. For example seaching for “Latvia” brought up Slaterr’s Maravilla from Stafford, England as one of the top hits ! [ Looked at the reviews of the beer, and couldn’t see any season for it ]

To be fair a search for Latvia on Ratebeer doesn’t bring up that many Latvian beers as the top results.

I’d say that overall search isn’t an easy thing and there are things that could improve in that area on most sites.

[martjoobolut]

@omhper

My fear is that, the reason why figures for Britain (and Norway) is worse than elsewhere, is that admins are more on top of closures there then elsewhere…

Estonia number is also correct. Only one closure (Viru Õlu: 3rd biggest brewer in Estonia, owned by Harboe). All 5 new breweries are very small (one of them does 120L batches, one of them brews only 1 type of kvass, one only brews 1 beer for one 1 bar etc.)