Alcohol Industry: Beer

Statista dossier on the beer industry in the United States
The dossier provides statistical information about the beer industry. It starts with a short global introduction and then continues with an overview of the U.S. beer market.

Beer is believed to be the world's first alcoholic beverage. Its origins date far back into human prehistory. All beers are fermented undistilled beverages derived from grains. They are usually carbonated and have been hopped for flavor. Beer comes in a truly staggering variety of costs and styles. Within the beer section of an average market the consumer can now find an ever-increasing variety of brews ranging from inexpensive mass-produced brews to high-end craft brews, from light lagers to dark ales, and from light beers to very high-alcohol content malt liquors. The growing variety found among commercially distributed beers is the most important trend in the modern brewing industry.

Beer and ale wholesale distribution faced a number of challenges inherent to the evolving beer-industry structure in the late 2000s. Not only were major breweries consolidating and entering into joint ventures, they were attempting to streamline their delivery systems by integrating distributing into their businesses. In 2008, Belgian-Brazilian company InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch, the top beer brewer in the United States. Additionally, the second-and third-leading U.S. brewers, Miller and Coors, formed MillerCoors as a joint venture.

More than 2,200 Wholesale distributors in the United States in 2006 employed more than 106,000 people. Those distributors bought products from domestic suppliers including approximately 5,000 commercial wineries, 400 breweries, 1,400 microbreweries, and 80 liquor distillers in the late 2000s. Pennsylvania and New York were home to the most beer and ale merchant wholesalers in 2006, with 169 and 168, respectively, while 161 operated in California and 137 in Texas.