E-Malt.com News article: USA, TX: Local craft breweries to register an explosive growth if restrictions are eased

Craft brewing in Texas could add 52,000 jobs and mushroom into a $5.6 bln industry by 2020 if state lawmakers next year ease restrictions on breweries and restaurants that make beer on-site, a study made public on July, 23 by the Texas Craft Brewers Guild claims.

That compares with the estimated $608 mln economic impact that smaller, independently owned craft breweries made in 2011, according to the analysis.

“If you get a really vibrant industry going, with all the multiplier effects, to me it's not unrealistic,” Brock Wagner, who founded Houston's Saint Arnold Brewing Co. in 1994, said of the projected growth.

Wagner and other Brewers Guild members already have begun meeting with legislators and wholesaler groups ahead of the 2013 legislative session. They are pushing for changes to the state alcohol code that would allow shipping breweries such as Saint Arnold — which sell their product to wholesalers, who distribute it in turn to stores, bars and restaurants — to offer a limited amount of beer directly to consumers and allow brewpubs to package some of their beer for off-site retail sales the way they do in states with big brewing industries.

Wagner said the changes would encourage more Texans to open breweries, and help startups and established breweries alike by providing additional revenue that could be used to expand marketing efforts and reach new beer drinkers.

“Changing the laws will make many of these businesses much more viable,” he added. “If the law changes, we will change our staffing overnight — literally add another 50 percent.”

The numbers for the Brewers Guild report were compiled and analyzed by Scott Metzger, the owner of San Antonio-based Freetail Brewing Co. and an adjunct professor of economics at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He based the report on information provided by guild members.

Metzger did not include data from larger shipping breweries such as Spoetzl in Shiner or Anheuser-Busch in Houston. He restricted the analysis to businesses that produced less than 250,000 barrels of beer annually.

Those breweries account for 51.2 percent of the state's brewery jobs, Metzger said, and he predicted that number could surge over the next eight years in much the same way the Texas wine industry did after its laws were liberalized.

Opposition to similar efforts to relax the laws on breweries and brewpubs in the past have come from some of the major wholesaler groups — and, last year, from Anheuser-Busch.

Metzger's survey confirmed that, despite those legislative setbacks, the industry is booming in Texas. There were 78 craft breweries and brewpubs open statewide at the end of last year, up from 35 in 2007. Another 61 are in the active planning stages, he reported.

In addition, 48 percent of the guild survey respondents indicated their breweries were operating at capacity, and 92 percent said they plan expansions.

Metzger said there's plenty of room for more growth. Nationally, the volume of craft beer sales grew by 13 percent last year, while the total beer sales volume fell 1.3 percent.

His analysis shows that Texas craft brewers produce just 0.7 percent of all beer consumed in Texas and 12.3 percent of the craft beer specifically. Craft brewers in California and Oregon make 13 percent and 16 percent of all beer consumed in their respective states.

Metzger said he would like to see Texas brewers achieve comparable overall market share and boost their share of craft beer consumed in-state to perhaps 50 percent.


25 July, 2012