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Today, the Brewers Association released its annual lists of the top 50 craft-brewing companies and overall brewing companies in the country. The not-for-profit trade association used sales-volume figures from calendar year 2020 to calculate rankings for both lists. Of the top 50 overall brewing companies, 40 were small and independent craft breweries, and of the top 50 craft brewing companies, three were San Diego-based interests.
Escondido-based Stone Brewing ranked ninth on the list, retaining the spot it held in 2019. Kings & Convicts Brewing, which was born in the Chicagoland area but moved its operations to San Diego shortly after purchasing Miramar-based Ballast Point Brewing in 2019, ranked thirtieth. Last but not least, Point Loma-based Modern Times Beer rose five spots from the previous year to come in fortieth.
Falling off the top 50 craft brewing companies list was Pacific Beach-based Karl Strauss Brewing, which ranked fortieth on the 2019 roster and fiftieth on the overall list. On this year’s overall list, Stone ranked eighteenth, Kings & Convicts ranked thirty-ninth and Modern Times came in fiftieth.
Anheuser-Busch, MolsonCoors, Constellation Brands and Heineken USA took the top four spots on the overall list in that order, with D.G. Yuengling & Son (seventh), Boston Beer Co. (ninth) and Sierra Nevada Brewing (tenth) as the three top-ranking craft operations.
The Brewers Association defines a “craft brewer” as a small and independent brewing company producing less than six million barrels of beer per year that is less than 25 percent owned or controlled by a beverage alcohol industry member that is not itself a craft brewer.
The top five breweries on the 2020 craft brewing company list were D.G. Yuengling & Son, Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada, Duvel Moortgat and Gambrinus.