Yuengling is now America’s biggest brewer…and they have Ohio to thank for it.
If you had to guess who the largest beer brewer in the United States was, you might quickly throw out Miller or Andheuser-Busch. But you’d be wrong.
It’s actually Pennsylvania based Yuengling & Son…who just passed Boston Beer Co., (owners of the Sam Adams brand), for the #1 spot.
Why not the “Big Beer” companies??? They are, in fact, foreign owned.
According to new estimates from Beer Marketer's Insights, Yuengling surged last year with shipments up 16.9% to 2.5 million barrels, placing it eighth in overall U.S. market share, at 1.2%. That was good enough to nose by Boston, which grew by 8% to 2.4 million barrels, dropping to ninth place.
Beer Marketer's stressed to Advertising Age that the numbers are estimates and that Boston Beer hasn't yet reported its own fourth-quarter figures. But "we felt reasonably comfortable," in the rankings, said Eric Shepard, executive editor of the trade pub. "It's possible that [Boston] had a huge December, but I don't expect it."
"It just floors me that so much of our beer industry is owned by foreign concerns," fifth-generation owner Dick Yuengling told his local newspaper, The Morning Call, of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. "We were not in any race to be the largest domestically owned brewer, but it's a tremendous honor for us."
According to Ad Age, Yuengling's growth -- which was fueled by a huge launch in Ohio last year -- is remarkable considering that the overall beer industry remains in a funk.
Total beer shipments fell by 1.4%, according to Beer Marketer's Insights, continuing a multi-year slump.
Have you tried Yuengling? How do you think it compares to "Big Beer" offerings like Bud and Miller? Are you surprised that Yuengling is actually America's #1 brewer?
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