Page 18 - Craft Beer and Independent Microbreweries in Ireland 2018

Current Performance of the Independent Microbrewery Sector

Table 2.1 presents the estimated number of new entrants in the past few years.
As may be seen, the peak year for new entrants was 2014, when 19 production
microbreweries entered the market.
Table 2.1: Estimated Number of New Production Microbreweries, 2014-2018

Year to Mid Number of New Entrants

2014 9
2015 19
2016 12
2017 10
2018 10

Source: compiled by the author

Ten new microbreweries entered the market in the year to mid-2018. However,
new entrants were partly offset by failures: it is estimated that over the last
two years, seven production microbreweries have gone out of business, with
five failures in the year to mid-2018 alone. The emergence of a significant
failure rate is a new departure and reflects changed market circumstances for
independent production microbreweries.

The high rate of new entry means that the majority of existing microbreweries
have been in existence for a few years only. Of the 75 microbreweries in
existence, 57 have entered the market in the last five years

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