Alaskan Brewing Co. has lost two spots in the annual rankings of craft brewers by volume.
According to the Brewers Association, the trade group for craft brewers, Alaskan was No. 22 in the country, behind Great Lakes Brewing Co. of Cleveland, and ahead of Abita Brewing Co. in Louisiana.
“I think this has to do with an industry that’s growing very, very rapidly,” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association and the person who compiles the rankings.
Watson said the decline wasn’t because Alaskan’s production declined; it was a result of changes in the industry elsewhere.
“We stayed steady, right at 160,000 barrels for both years,” said Alaskan Brewing spokesman Andy Kline in an email. “Other breweries, notably Ballast Point and Oskar Blues, went through major expansion of territories and investment in 2015.”
The nation’s No. 1 craft brewer by volume was Yuengling of Pennsylvania. No. 2 was Boston Beer Co. of Massachusetts, best known for Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
Alaskan was No. 20 in the rankings of the biggest craft brewers in 2014.
According to the definition established by the Brewers Association, a craft brewer produces 6 million barrels or less of beer in a given year (3 percent of American production) and must be less than 25 percent owned by someone who is not a craft brewer.
When large brewers – such as Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser – are added to the rankings, Alaskan fell from No. 26 to No. 29 overall.
One of the breweries to leapfrog Alaskan in the rankings was Ballast Point of San Diego, which was bought by Constellation Brands in a deal that closed in early 2016. That deal will cause Ballast Point to be removed from the craft brewing rankings next year.
Another significant jump, by Oskar Blues Brewing Holding Co. of Colorado, was possible because it combined several brands under one company, Watson said.
Alaskan installed four new 1,400-barrel tanks at its Juneau brewery in 2015 and opened a new warehouse expansion in Lemon Creek. Those two improvements could boost production in 2016.
“It was a year of building infrastructure for us,” Kline said. “We didn’t go into new territories in 2015 and did not have a big jump in barrels produced as a result. We had a very strong year from a revenues perspective, and we are in a great position this upcoming year as a result.”
Watson agreed with that statement. “I think they’ve created a strong connection with beer-lovers, which you need to have to be on this list,” he said of Alaskan.
The rankings were compiled with data from the association’s annual operations survey, which includes responses from more than 2,000 breweries. While not every brewery responded to the survey, Watson said the data at top is “very, very good.”
The United States ended the year with 4,269 breweries, the highest figure in American history. During the year, the number grew past the old record of 4,131, set in 1873.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.
