Bottling Success: An Exploration of Craft Beer and the Brewing Business

This research paper tests for factors that correlate with brewery success, generates growth projections for distinct industry sectors, implements Porter’s Five-Forces framework, and establishes general considerations for opening a craft brewery. There were no significant findings when testing for factors that correlate with brewery success. This reveals that breweries can successfully operate in a diverse range of environments, and that success is highly attributable to entrepreneurial ability and other difficult-to-measure forces. Growth in volume production is projected to be positive for microbreweries, brewpubs, and regional breweries until at least 2015. Contract breweries will suffer negative growth. Porter\u27s analysis reveals an industry described by low-to-moderate threat of entrants, moderate internal rivalry, low threat of substitute goods, moderate-to-high bargaining power of consumers, and moderate bargaining power of suppliers