Since it’s a statistics kind of week, I thought I’d share this other list recently released by the Brewers Association. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s Breweries Per Capita, essentially the number of breweries in each state, divided by the population. Since it makes no difference what size the brewery is, a single brewpub producing 10,000 barrels a year is counted the same as one making 10,000,000 barrels. Still, it’s interesting to look at it this way, too, even though it’s doesn’t mean that much. I doubt there will be dancing in the streets of towns throughout Vermont over this news.
California, with more than twice the breweries of the next nearest state, is ranked only 21st. Colorado, who recently overtook California for total barrels brewed by a single state, is ranked 5th.
Breweries Per Capita
The first figure is the number of breweries and the last is the per brewery population based on the US Census Bureau estimates.
- 19 Vermont 32,698
- 27 Montana 35,831
- 93 Oregon 40,753
- 31 Maine 42,466
- 103 Colorado 47,956
- 14 Alaska 49,021
- 10 Wyoming 53,267
- 100 Washington 65,492
- 7 Delaware 84,548
- 66 Wisconsin 85,272
- 15 New Hampshire 87,721
- 16 Idaho 95,239
- 15 Nebraska 118,895
- 16 New Mexico 124,022
- 70 Michigan 142,906
- 5 South Dakota 160,839
- 8 Hawaii 161,025
- 16 Nevada 162,510
- 17 Kansas 164,831
- 75 Pennsylvania 165,977
- 221 California 166,320
- 18 Iowa 166,809
- 38 Massachusetts 170,999
- 14 Utah 195,459
- 29 Missouri 203,848
- 5 Rhode Island 210,158
- 16 Connecticut 218,828
- 28 Indiana 227,743
- 22 Minnesota 237,291
- 32 Virginia 242,784
- 26 Arizona 250,007
- 21 Maryland 268,267
- 42 Ohio 273,474
- 33 North Carolina 279,467
- 3 DC 291,031
- 6 West Virginia 302,411
- 41 Illinois 314,672
- 14 South Carolina 319,986
- 56 New York 348,041
- 14 Tennessee 443,921
- 39 Florida 469,957
- 18 New Jersey 482,370
- 7 Oklahoma 520,337
- 16 Georgia 605,359
- 7 Kentucky 609,892
- 1 North Dakota 641,481
- 36 Texas 675,749
- 4 Arkansas 713,848
- 5 Alabama 932,380
- 4 Louisiana 1,102,699
- 1 Mississippi 2,938,618