2023 was a challenging year for beer

Small and independent brewers still sell about one out of eight beers in the country, with consumers spending one in four of their beer dollars with those breweries.Irmelamela - stock.adobe.com

There’s good and bad news from the Brewers Association concerning the state of small and independent breweries in 2023.

Describing the market as “mature and competitive,” a report from craft beer’s not-for-profit trade association this week reveals that 385 breweries closed across the country in 2023. While that number is offset by 420 brewery openings, the totality represents slowing growth, with production being down across the board.

“Outside of a unique 2020, this will be the first time that independent brewers have seen such a decline,” says Bart Watson, the Brewers Association’s chief economist. “The primary culprits are slowing demand growth, competition from across alcohol, and a changing retail environment.”

Put another way: fewer consumers are seeking out craft beer, for a variety of reasons. One is the growth of other alcoholic beverage options such as hard seltzers, canned cocktails, and spirits. Another, also cited in the report, is a changing environment that includes higher ingredient costs, rising rents, and increased competition. It’s important to note that despite a slowdown in brewery openings, there are more breweries in business now than ever before, and they’re taking business from each other. Nationally, small and independent breweries number around 10,000. There are more than 200 breweries in Massachusetts alone.

The data is something that makes intuitive sense if you’ve spent any amount of time in taprooms or liquor stores looking to buy craft beer lately. There’s a lot of craft beer at all of my local package stores, but outside of a few brands, no one brand is there consistently. Instead of meeting friends at destination breweries 40 or 50 minutes away like we might have in years past, we’re more likely to go to one in a nearby town. I don’t know if saturation is the right word, but good local beer certainly no longer feels scarce.

John Lincecum and Nick Walther of Turtle Swamp Brewing outside of their business in Jamaica Plain in July. Turtle Swamp closed this year. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

The list of Massachusetts breweries that closed in 2023 includes Turtle Swamp in Jamaica Plain, Fitchburg’s River Styx, and Milk Room Brewing in Rutland. This follows major shifts in 2022, which saw the closings of Spencer Brewery, the only Trappist brewery in the United States, and Brighton’s Brato Brewhouse and Kitchen, along with Night Shift Brewing moving the majority of its production out of Everett.

Watson, from the Brewers Association, points out that small and independent brewers still sell about one out of eight beers in the country, with consumers spending one in four of their beer dollars with those breweries (which, frankly, says a lot about the price of these beers and brewery experiences). He also suggests that breweries fundamentally alter the way in which they do business.

“Many of craft’s current challenges will require new strategies to reach new and existing customers with new flavors and innovations,” says Watson. “Small brewers can continue to work to share growth within the same pie, or to grow the pie in new ways.”