"American breweries are currently at about half their capacity. That’s not good! But it’s actually worse that in looks because growth has been dead flat for three years. Were the industry growing, it would need headspace, so to speak, for future expansion. Here’s Bart:
“When you’re growing rapidly, excess capacity is a good thing so you can keep up with that growth. Athletic has a lot of excess capacity right now with the purchase of that former Ballast Point facility, but no one thinks that’s an issue. So the ratio in the mid-2010s was different because brewers were rapidly growing into it. As I pointed out in 2015, the 2012 and 2014 ratios look the same, but 2014 production was actually bigger than 2012 total capacity.
“So you need to understand the capacity number in the context of its time. If we were growing 18% again right now, even 51% might not be that bad (at 18% you’d use up all that excess capacity in 4 years), but at static or negative growth, it’s a lot worse, because it represents investments that aren’t being utilized.”
I don’t have a lot more to add to this, except to say that if you want to open a brewery in the next few years, you might consider starting a contract brewery or alternating proprietorship. Not only would it save you a ton of money at the outset, but you might be doing another brewery a favor in helping them fill up those tanks."
https://lnkd.in/eyaEsTDA
Lucky Floridians!