Beer, wine industries see growth

Growth is brewing in the beer and wine industries, so drink up.

Between 2007 and 2012, the number of U.S. breweries more than doubled to 869 from 398, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.

{mosads}Breweries reported $28.3 billion in shipments in 2012, an increase of 33.6 percent from 2007.

Employment also picked up pace during the five-year span, increasing to 26,077 employees in 2012 — up by 3,825, or 17.2 percent, from 22,252 in 2007.

But while overall employment grew, the average number of employees per establishment was nearly halved, to 30 in 2012 from 56 in 2007.

The average payroll for employees changed little during the period, increasing by 4.4 percent over five years.

Even beer in kegs got a boost during the five-year period — shipments in barrels and kegs rose 88.2 percent to $2.4 billion in 2012.

In 2012, kegs represented 8.6 percent of beer shipments, up from 6.1 percent in 2007.

By comparison, beer shipments in cans increased 32.1 percent between 2007 and 2012 to $14.3 billion from $10.9 billion.

Wineries are doing pretty well, too.

Employment rose to 37,602 people in 2012 from 33,390 in 2007.

Average payroll per employee was $46,482 in 2012, a 10.7 percent increase from 2007.

Wondering what is more popular, a bottle of red or a bottle of white?

Well, total product shipments of wineries was fairly evenly split between red and white wine: 31.6 percent for red and 29.2 percent for white wine. Meanwhile rose grape and other fruit and berry wines accounted for 2.6 percent of total shipments.