Brewery Revenue Benchmark

Average Brewery Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every brewery with paid employees, from a neighborhood craft brewery with a taproom to a large production plant, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of breweries gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$5,774,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $29.4 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 5,093 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $5,774,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Breweries, NAICS 312120. The category covers establishments brewing beer, ale, lager, malt liquor and nonalcoholic beer, from small craft breweries to large plants. Bars are counted separately as drinking places, and wineries and distilleries have their own categories. Classified separately in group 3121: 312111 Soft Drink Manufacturing; 312112 Bottled Water Manufacturing; 312113 Ice Manufacturing, and 2 further codes. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group

Beverage Manufacturing, NAICS 3121, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 68.1 to 77.2 percent. This benchmark covers Beverage Manufacturing, NAICS 3121, as a whole, and this category accounts for 5,093 of the 12,276 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Breweries, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 14.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because the category mixes large production plants, where equipment does most of the work, with small taproom breweries where staff pour much of what they brew.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes ingredients, packaging, excise taxes and distributor margins, none of which the census reports for this table.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Breweries, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 17.6 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm. That staff count reflects a category in which a few large plants employ hundreds while most craft breweries employ a handful of brewers and taproom staff, and the establishments per firm figure shows that nearly every brewery is a single-location business.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

• Top Beverage Companies List
• Bar Benchmark
• Winery Benchmark
• Distillery Benchmark
• All Business Benchmarks

Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Brewery: why the average of a craft taproom and a national plant describes neither.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Taproom sales or distribution? Beer sold over the brewery's own bar earns full retail price, while beer sold through distributors earns a fraction of the shelf price after two layers of margin. The channel mix decides the value of every barrel, and the census reports one receipts figure.
• Which state laws apply? Self-distribution, taproom licensing, sales to go and franchise rules that bind a brewery to its distributor differ by state. A brewery's options and its risks depend on where it stands, and no national average reflects that.
• How much of the price is excise tax? Federal beer excise tax is generally determined when beer is removed for consumption or sale, while state tax rules vary, and reduced federal rates may apply to qualifying smaller producers. The share of receipts that goes to tax varies with size and location.
• What does packaging cost? Cans, labels, kegs and the equipment to fill them are a large and rising cost for a brewery that packages, while a taproom-only brewery avoids most of it. Packaging spend is a major difference hidden inside similar receipts.
• Is the brewery also a restaurant? Many craft breweries earn a growing share of revenue from food, events and merchandise, which brings restaurant labor and costs with it. The revenue figure counts it all, so a brewpub-style operation and a production brewery are blended together.
• How much capacity sits idle? Tanks, brewhouse and cellar space are sized for a growth plan, and unused capacity still costs money every month. Utilization of the equipment decides whether the investment pays, and it is invisible in an annual total.