With Ohio now on track to 400 craft breweries, the Buckeye State's craft industry only continues to get bigger than it's ever been.
The growing ubiquity of craft breweries has led to murmurings that the industry could be reaching its saturation point — not just in Ohio, but across the country, where there were at least 7,480 active craft breweries as of mid-2019.
Yet, while breweries may be feeling more competition in the market and jockeying for shelf and tap space, stakeholders suspect there is still plenty of room to grow.
According to current figures from the Ohio Craft Brewers Association, there are currently 328 operating, independently owned breweries in Ohio today (that excludes facilities like Budweiser's Columbus plant or anything from Platform Beer Co., which now belongs to Budweiser parent company AB InBev) plus another 72 known breweries in the planning stage.
That puts the state on track to 400 breweries for seemingly the first time in the post-prohibition era at least, if not ever.
There were approximately 297 craft breweries operating in Ohio at roughly this point last year, with 52 more in planning at the time.
Per the OCBA's count, there were 50 brewery openings and 11 closings in 2019; 55 openings and 10 closings in 2018; and 65 openings and seven closings in 2017.
The rate of openings and closings holding relatively consistent the past few years suggests that the Ohio craft industry has, indeed, yet to hit its saturation point.
The widely accepted best strategy for brewery growth is a business model focused on neighborhood taprooms, particularly in more rural areas as the bigger cities — like Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati in particular — see their own proliferation of brewers.
So when it comes to trends in Ohio's craft beer scene for 2020, OCBA spokesman Justin Hemminger said to expect established breweries to pursue expansions with new taprooms to grow revenues and gain market share. New entrants to the market may benefit from setting up shop in cities lacking local breweries versus building one where the competition is already hot.
"Competition for space on retail shelves and tap handles is already intense and breweries get much better margin on beer sold by the pint in their taprooms than they do selling at wholesale," Hemminger said.
Established Ohio breweries with expansion in the works include Cleveland's Saucy Brew Works, which is building new locations in Independence, Columbus and Detroit; Canton's Royal Docks Brewing Co., which is adding a brewpub in Plain Township and recently opened a spot at the Akron-Canton Airport; Cincinnati's Fifty West Brewing Co., which is opening a brewpub in Chillicothe and expanding its flagship taproom; and Columbus' North High Brewing, which is opening brewpubs in Marion and Dublin.
"There's still room for industry growth for small breweries and neighborhood taprooms, especially those that cater to underserved communities," Hemminger said.
As I reported last year, the Northeast region of the U.S. has seen an explosion in craft breweries in recent years, though that activity was effectively catching up with industry growth in other markets. Nonetheless, the region had seen a faster rate of brewery openings than elsewhere in the country, as illustrated by Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson, which you can read more about here.
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State of the brew-nion: Ohio presently on track for 400 craft breweries - Crain's Cleveland Business
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