Beer packs economic punch in CO

Beer is big business — across the country, in the state and in Northern Colorado.

According to the Beer Institute, Colorado is the nation’s second-largest beer-producing state just after California, with Texas following a close third. Brewing and the related wholesaling and retailing of beer accounts for 23,150 jobs and more than $750 million in wages in Colorado. Add the jobs created by suppliers and the induced impact, and the number rises to 71,800 jobs and more than $2.5 billion in wages.

The Beer Institute’s most recent study analyzes the industry’s impact all the way down to the congressional district level. In Colorado’s Fourth District — which encompasses Larimer and Weld counties as well as much of the northeast and eastern portion of the state — brewing, wholesale and retail of beer accounts for 3,310 jobs and $117 million in local wages. The induced impact boosts the numbers to nearly 10,000 jobs and more than $335 million in local wages.

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Economic development agencies rate individual industries using what’s known as a location quotient, which rates an industry’s relevance to a region in comparison to the rest of the nation.

“I don’t think there’s anything as strong as beermaking,´ said J.J. Johnston, executive director for the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp.

“Beer is very, very strong here,” Johnston said, adding that it rates a 5 on a scale where anything above 1 shows above-average impact.

Of course, in Northern Colorado Anheuser-Busch is the king of beers when it comes to economic impact. The Fort Collins brewery employs about 700 people who produced 7.5 million barrels in 2003, up from the 7.3 million produced in 2002. It is Anheuser-Busch’s eighth-largest producing brewery out of 12.

Long-term expansion plans at the brewery call for even greater capacity, reaching 11 million barrels.

A significant multiplier effect is also seen with the number of local businesses that support the industry.

“Owens Illinois would not be building a 500,000-square-foot bottle manufacturing plant and making $120 million in capital investments if it were not for Anheuser-Busch being here,” Johnston said. Set to open early next year, the Owens-Illinois plant near Windsor is expected to produce a billion 12-ounce glass bottles annually, creating about 150 jobs at an average annual salary of nearly $50,000.

Metal Container Corp., a division of Anheuser-Busch’s packaging group, employs more than 100 in Windsor, where more than a billion aluminum cans are made each year. Loveland’s American Eagle Distributing is Anheuser-Busch’s exclusive distributor in the region. While company officials declined to provide up-to-date figures, the company employed about 100 people in 2001.

Coors Brewing Co., located in nearby Golden, also plays a part in fueling the beer industry regionally.

High Country Beverage in Loveland employs 42 people, most of whom earn between $30,000 and $50,000. The distributor sold 1.6 million cases in 2003, 70 percent of it Coors products.

Coors also provides Weld County farmers with significant revenue in the form of barley crop sales. The Colorado Agricultural Statistics Services does not track barley grown specifically for beer versus feed-grade, but estimates that malting barley accounts for 90.4 percent of the total acreage of barley sown for the 2003 crop. Weld County, the third-largest barley-producing county in the state, produced 1.59 million bushels of barley in 2003 — a 45 percent increase from 2002. With an estimated sale price of $3.05 per bushel, that equates to $4.85 million for local barley growers.