New List Ranks Delaware Brewery 2nd Best In The Country
New List Ranks Delaware Brewery 2nd Best In The Country
The internet just keeps telling us what we already know! Delaware has some of the best brews in the entire United States.
The Boston Beer Company was ranked 2nd overall in the The Top 50 Craft Breweries of 2022 list.
Yay Delaware? Or yay Boston? Yay beer?
If you are a casual consumer of suds you may have forgotten that The Boston Beer Company purchased Dogfish Head Brewery.
“On May 9, 2019, Boston Beer Company acquired Delaware-based Dogfish Head Brewery for $300 million. As part of the merger, Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione and his wife, Mariah, became the second biggest non-institutional owners of Boston Beer Company” according to Wikipedia.
The Brewers Association compiles a list each year of the top performing craft breweries in the country. This year Dogfish Head Brewery finished second to D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc. who make the famous Yuengling lager amongst other products in Pottsville, PA.
The Brewers Association also let us in on how the craft beer industry is still booming:
Some 550 new craft breweries opened last year, as the nationwide number of craft breweries hit a record high of 9,552, including 2,035 microbreweries, 3,418 brewpubs, 2,828 taproom breweries, and 261 regional craft breweries. That said, some 320 locations closed in 2022, and the number of brewery openings shrank for the second year in a row. At a 3 percent closure rate, the Brewers Association notes that this loss was fairly modest.
Other local and drivable breweries appeared on the list. Artisanal Brewing Ventures, which includes Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown, finished in 6th, Troegs Brewing Co. in Hershey finished 25th, Pittsburgh Brewing Co. was 31st, and Flying Dog Brewery in Maryland finished 34th.
You can find the full Top 50 Craft Breweries of 2022 list here.
The internet just keeps telling us what we already know! Delaware has some of the best brews in the entire United States.
New List Ranks Delaware Brewery 2nd Best In The Country
Highest Rated Beers In Delaware
If you drink beer—any beer—you’ve likely heard of the craft beer revolution, and you likely fall into one of two camps: IPA warrior or lager loyalist. The great thing about a beer-related revolution is that there is no wrong side. Whatever your preference, cheers to you.
The burgeoning brewery business is indeed a revolution by many counts. According to the Brewers Association, the number of breweries in the United States grew 390% from 2010 to 2020—all while beer consumption, on average, was declining. As of 2019, more than 90% of California’s population lived within 10 miles of a craft brewery.
Like all revolutions, this, too, began as a desire for change—as an overthrow of the old and the monopolistic. In 2010, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Molson Coors (formerly MillerCoors), two of the largest beer companies in the world, comprised roughly 77% of total beer sales in the U.S. In 2020, that share was 60%, with smaller brewers claiming a larger share toward the end of the decade.
With a taste of the innovations and variety coming out of craft breweries, consumers are demanding a higher quality product, and are willing to pay more for it. Over the last decade, beer prices have increased by 33%.
The increase in the number of microbreweries, taprooms, brewpubs, and craft breweries, the sector has also led to enormous job growth over roughly the same period, with a 55% increase in the number of brewery employees. The industry was hit especially hard by the shutdowns and social distancing restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic. On-premise spending accounted for 50% of the craft beer industry’s total sales in 2019. In 2020, the industry took roughly a $6 billion hit and eliminated more than 22,000 jobs.
Another important byproduct of the explosion of the craft beer industry is the sense of community it has fostered. Supporting small businesses like local breweries and taprooms is a way for people to connect over and about beer, to appreciate the renaissance of the millennia-old tradition of brewing.
If you’ve ever been curious about which beers are most popular in your home state, we have the answer. Stacker compiled a list of the highest rated beer in Delaware using ratings from BeerAdvocate. 9 of the 10 beers on the list are made by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.
