Year end brewery count 2021

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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 1216 breweries (4.8%) in these countries. The trend is falling: 2017: 14.0%, 2018: 12.9%, 2019: 8.6%, 2020 7.1%

Notable is that France is climbing back ahead of Canada again, and that Brazil is rushing uo the chart well into top-10.

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

Pos 2021 Pos 2020 Country # of breweries Increase 2021 Increase 2021 %
1 1 USA 7871 377 4,79%
2 2 Germany 1781 -79 -4,44%
3 3 England 1588 24 1,51%
4 5 France 1294 124 9,58%
5 4 Canada 1222 48 3,93%
6 6 Italy 1068 14 1,31%
7 7 Spain 894 10 1,12%
8 12 Brazil 732 236 32,24%
9 8 Australia 624 42 6,73%
10 9 Switzerland 607 35 5,77%
11 10 Mexico 604 90 14,90%
12 14 Belgium 530 64 12,08%
13 11 Czech Rep. 521 16 3,07%
14 15 Russia 494 31 6,28%
15 13 Netherlands 492 16 3,25%
16 16 Sweden 461 9 1,95%
17 17 Japan 366 13 3,55%
18 19 Argentina 337 18 5,34%
19 18 Poland 322 -12 -3,73%
20 20 Austria 285 8 2,81%
21 21 Ukraine 256 14 5,47%
22 22 China 238 1 0,42%
23 23 Denmark 224 11 4,91%
24 24 Norway 213 7 3,29%
25 26 Chile 204 15 7,35%
26 25 South Africa 194 -5 -2,58%
27 28 Portugal 170 2 1,18%
28 29 Colombia 167 14 8,38%
29 27 New Zealand 166 -10 -6,02%
30 30 Scotland 152 8 5,26%
31 31 India 146 3 2,05%
32 32 Thailand 138 0 0,00%
33 33 Finland 130 13 10,00%
34 34 Ireland 109 -4 -3,67%
35 36 Slovenia 108 3 2,78%
36 35 Hungary 106 -1 -0,94%
37 40 Slovakia 97 6 6,19%
38 38 Vietnam 93 -3 -3,23%
39 41 Croatia 93 6 6,45%
40 39 Wales 92 -2 -2,17%
41 37 Peru 91 -8 -8,79%
42 42 South Korea 85 0 0,00%
43 44 Greece 78 5 6,41%
44 47 Latvia 77 8 10,39%
45 43 Romania 76 2 2,63%
46 46 Ecuador 74 4 5,41%
47 50 Costa Rica 73 7 9,59%
48 45 Phillippines 70 0 0,00%
49 48 Lithuania 70 2 2,86%
50 49 Serbia 69 1 1,45%
51 51 Estonia 60 3 5,00%
52 54 Bulgaria 46 10 21,74%
53 52 Belarus 41 2 4,88%
54 57 Taiwan 39 5 12,82%
55 53 Hongkong 38 0 0,00%
56 NEW Singapore 38 8 21,05%
57 55 Georgia 35 0 0,00%
58 56 Uruguay 33 -2 -6,06%
59 58 Israel 33 2 6,06%
60 NEW Bolivia 31 5 16,13%
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…and here is the list sorted per capita. Population figures are still 2018, because of lazy.
Switzerland still reigns supreme. :switzerland:

Pos Country Breweries per milion
1 Switzerland 71,19
2 Slovenia 52,17
3 Czech Rep. 49,02
4 Belgium 46,29
5 Estonia 45,48
6 Sweden 45,13
7 Latvia 40,08
8 Norway 40,01
9 Denmark 38,58
10 New Zealand 33,68
11 Canada 32,75
12 Austria 32,17
13 Wales 29,44
14 England 28,55
15 Netherlands 28,46
16 Scotland 28,02
17 Lithuania 25,05
18 Australia 24,76
19 USA 23,97
20 Finland 23,54
21 Croatia 22,65
22 Ireland 22,44
23 Germany 21,49
24 France 19,21
25 Spain 19,13
26 Slovakia 17,81
27 Italy 17,68
28 Portugal 16,52
29 Costa Rica 14,59
30 Chile 10,88
31 Hungary 10,85
32 Serbia 9,86
33 Georgia 9,38
34 Uruguay 9,38
35 Poland 8,38
36 Argentina 7,57
37 Greece 7,24
38 Bulgaria 6,52
39 Singapore 6,42
40 Ukraine 5,74
41 Hongkong 5,10
42 Mexico 4,82
43 Belarus 4,33
44 Ecuador 4,32
45 Israel 3,94
46 Romania 3,89
47 Brazil 3,49
48 Russia 3,42
49 Colombia 3,38
50 South Africa 3,36
51 Japan 2,90
52 Peru 2,83
53 Bolivia 2,60
54 Thailand 1,99
55 Taiwan 1,65
56 South Korea 1,65
57 Vietnam 0,98
58 Phillippines 0,65
59 China 0,17
60 India 0,11
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I suspect the number of new breweries in Canada is higher, but I suppose it goes both ways - it may have been offset by closures? This past week I checked off three new to me breweries in Ontario, but when I updated my list FIVE new ones had opened! Lots of smaller breweries that don’t get added or closed right away because people don’t necessarily notice. I assume the same is true for a lot of other countries with smaller numbers of active raters.

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Shouldn’t Iceland be on this list? For some reason not seeing it…

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I don’t know when the data was collated but I just added a new brewery near me so should potentially be one more for Englanf. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

(Been open since August only found out about them today.)

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Very interesting.

South America is fascinating notably Brazil as you say. I wonder why that is…genuine new breweries starting? More new users from the area? Better distribution? More North Americans doing road trips? A mixture?

Should we be concerned for Germany, has Covid hit their brewery industry harder than most?

This info gives more questions than answers!

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I think @solidfunk went on a brewery adding spree in Latin America…

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Nope, only 29 physical breweries at the time of counting which was some hours ago.

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Closed the year 14:00 UCT today.

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Would be interesting to know how many of those new Brazilian breweries/beers have been added by us in Europe. Over the last year (and year before) we are getting so many new Brazilian beers coming in now (via Beerdome/other EU bottleshops etc) I know that I have added a few new breweries/beers myself there.

Checking my stats have rated around 25 Brazilian beers across 23 new Brazilian breweries this year alone (did lots in 2020 as well)

Actually just checking EU bottle shops now - showing 284 Brazilian beers across 6 regions.

Imgur

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Given that Iceland has approximately 1/3 of a million people would that not equal approximately 90 breweries per million?

Edit: I see that you were counting only countries with 30 or more.

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Ya I probably added like roughly two dozen breweries at least for Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico once those countries were split, especially in regions that lacked breweries in database

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That’s how many I added overall or just in Brazil?

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He was responding to a different post of mine. I too was confused upon initial reading.

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Ahh, I get it. Ya I was in Iceland a couple years back, really not that many breweries anywhere.

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Also, I likely didn’t even dust the surface of Chile and Argentina while adding, so if anyone visits those places they’ll likely have a lot of work on their hands.

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I’d do more for other countries like Colombia but it’s just a waste of time if they aren’t split yet into regions.