Professional publications (books, magazines, journals) are good sources for researching industry trends, technologies, production, and demographics from the historical and modern eras. The library and archives at OSU has a robust periodical collection, including popular magazines such as All About Beer and Zymurgy, academic journals such as Wallerstein Laboratory Communications and Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing, conference proceedings from the American Society of Brewing Chemists, and important issue based publications such as the Anti-saloon League year book (1908-1931) and texts about alcohol produced during Prohibition. 

Useful library databases for general industry research are: 

• Business (Gale OneFile): Provides coverage of all business disciplines, including accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management and strategy, as well as business theory and practice. Users will understand the activities of companies and industries worldwide through business and trade publications, complemented by a selection of international, U.S., and regional news publications.
• Business Insights: Global (Gale): Detailed company and industry profiles including SWOT reports, market share reports, and financial reports. Thousands of company histories and industry essays from Gale's core business collection. Case studies, scholarly journals, and business news for deep research coverage of global economies. Also includes Thomson Reuters company financial reports providing interactive balance sheets and cash flow statements, as well as market conditions for publicly traded U.S. companies.
• Business Source Premier (EBSCOhost) Coverage: 1886 - present: Business Source Premier provides full text for nearly 3,300 scholarly business journals, including full text for more than 1000 peer-reviewed business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business. This database provides full text (PDF) for more than 300 of the top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1886. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost.

Helpful for technological aspects:

• Hough, J. S, Briggs, D. E, Stevens, R, and Young, T. W. Malting and Brewing Science. Second ed. Boston, MA: Springer US, 1982.

Links to search results pages

• United States Court of Appeals brewing company - HathiTrust

Library databases with government and legal information

• Nexis Uni features more than 15,000 news, business, and legal sources from LexisNexis (including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790). 
• ProQuest Congressional is a comprehensive online collection of primary source congressional publications and legislative research materials covering topics, including government, current events, politics, economics, business, science and technology, international relations, social issues, finance, insurance, and medicine. Finding aid for congressional hearings (published and unpublished), committee prints, committee reports and documents from 1824-present, and the daily Congressional Record from 1985-present. Compiled legislative histories from 1969-present. Full text access to the U.S. Statutes at Large, which is the official compilation of all public and private laws and resolutions passed by Congress, listed in order by date of enactment from 1789-present.

Alcohol Law Review is a moderated discussion board with information about pertinent developments in alcohol regulation and litigation. It is intended to facilitate a dialog about current alcohol law cases, legal challenges, and issues around the country. It is moderated by the Vice President for Industry Affairs and General Counsel for the National Beer Wholesalers Association, and features guest columns from experts in alcohol law.

Things to know

• There are renowned beer economists at OSU. 
  • Carol Tremblay OSU page and Google Scholar 
  • Victor Tremblay OSU page and Google Scholar
  • Patrick Emerson OSU page. Emerson doesn't write academic publications about beer economics, but he tweets about it @Beeronomics and co-hosts the Beervana podcast with Jeff Alworth.
• The Beeronomics Society is an international non-profit association of scholars and professionals analyzing the economics of beer and brewing. Their site has links to conference events and publications. 
• The U.S. Census office produces economic censuses which gives you information about production, workers, and export. For example, this manufacturing census for 1997.  

Recommended publications

• Persons, Warren M. 1938. Beer and brewing in America: an economic study. [New York]: United Brewers Industrial Foundation.
• Swinnen, Johan F. M. 2011. The economics of beer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Tremblay, Victor J., and Carol Horton Tremblay. 2007. Industry and firm studies. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.
  • See chapter 3 Brewing: games firms play
• Tremblay, Victor J., and Carol Horton Tremblay. 2009. The U.S. brewing industry: data and economic analysis. Cambridge, Mass: MIT.

Do your own searching in the library catalog and Google Scholar.

• 1Search@OSU - Beer industry 

• 1Search@OSU - Beer -- Economic aspects 

• historical review of the beer economy - Google Scholar​

• beer economics history - Google Scholar​

Things to know

• Published annually by the Federal Government since 1878, Statistical Abstract of the United States is the best-known statistical reference publication in the world. It is a comprehensive collection of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. 
  • Learn more about the Statistical Abstract on Wikipedia.
• Data.gov is the home of the U.S. Government’s open data. You will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, and design data visualizations. Datasets found for "beer." 
• The Brewers Association, described in the Professional Organizations box below, also tracks statistics and data. 
• To find state data, contact your state's liquor control commission. They are the agency that would track production, sales, and taxes. 
  • E.g. the Oregon Liquor Control Commission

Recommended publications

• The Brewers Almanac is housed in OHBA collections (1955-1982) and in the main library collections. It contains information on topics such as Production and Withdrawal data, Statistical Analysis (e.g., tax information), Consumption of Agricultural Products, Containers for packaged Beer and· Ale, Statistics of Brewing Industry from U.S. Census of Manufactures (e.g., size, quantity, inventories, and shipments), Financial Statistics (e.g., profit, loss, value), Employment, Consumption, Foreign Trade (e.g., imports, exports, ingredients), and State data.
  • The Tables of Contents for the years 1955-1982 are keyword searchable.  
  • The catalog record for the library collections (1949-1998) is online.
• The Yearbook of the United States Brewers' Association has tax information and is available online for the pre-Prohibition era. 
• Persons, Warren M. 1938. Beer and brewing in America: an economic study. [New York]: United Brewers Industrial Foundation.
• Weeks, Morris. 1949. Beer and brewing in America. New York: United States Brewers Foundation.
• The Economics and Demographics That Drive the US Beer Industry was presented by Lester Jones, Chief Economist National Beer Wholesalers Association, at the 2019 Hop Growers of America conference. He includes data from 2008 - 2018 on topics such as consumption, demographics, and sales. 

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is an international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations. Among other things, ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields. They also archive and disseminate census data. 

• Search ICPSR for data related to "beer"

WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources is an Internet directory of over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language sources of information and analysis in many international and global studies topics. Sites are carefully selected for their long-term value, favoring those with cost-free, authoritative information and analysis online.

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistics Division has an online central repository of country profiles of statistical systems. Country profiles include a brief history of the country's statistical system, legal basis, and the statistical program.

UNdata brings international statistical databases together. Users can search and download a variety of statistical resources compiled by the United Nations (UN) statistical system and other international agencies. The numerous databases or tables collectively known as "datamarts" contain over 60 million data points and cover a wide range of statistical themes including agriculture, crime, communication, development assistance, education, energy, environment, finance, gender, health, labour market, manufacturing, national accounts, population and migration, science and technology, tourism, transport and trade.

• Search UNdata for data related to "beer" (results dates 1961-2016).

Country Statistical Yearbooks: provides links to country statistical yearbooks or similar collections (census, "facts and figures," etc.) for 154 countries worldwide. (Guide from University of Wisconsin Madison Libraries)

Vanderbilt University guide to International Business Data and Statistics

Relevant NAICS and SIC codes for this industry: 

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy. You can look up additional codes at https://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/. 

• 445310 Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores: This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in retailing packaged alcoholic beverages, such as ale, beer, wine, and liquor.
• 312120: Breweries: This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in brewing beer, ale, lager, malt liquors, and nonalcoholic beer.
• 722410 Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages): This industry comprises establishments known as bars, taverns, nightclubs, or drinking places primarily engaged in preparing and serving alcoholic beverages for immediate consumption. These establishments may also provide limited food services.

The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) is an industry classification system in which all Federal economic statistics are based on up to 1996. Use this site to do a keyword search to find an SIC code for an industry.

• SIC 2082 Malt Beverages (except malt extract)
• SIC 5181 Beer and Ale (beer and ale sold via retail method)

It is important to know these codes in order to retrieve statistical information produced by the Census as well as search certain databases by these codes. Once you have these codes, you can look up businesses on Mergent Online, which is a subscription-based service offering information on approximately 15,000 NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ companies. Information available for companies include details about the company, executives, financial information, reports, and competitors.

The service also provides data on 20,000 non-U.S. based corporations. Company information comprises that of all of the Mergent/Moody's Manuals except for the Municipal & Government Manual. Annual and quarterly financials date back 15 years, annual reports date back to 1996 or 1997, and SEC filings date back to 1993. Information available for each company includes: company history, business, property, subsidiaries, officers, directors, long-term debt, bond ratings, capital stock, income statement, balance sheet, statements of cash flow, exchange and ticker symbol, address, telephone number, annual stock price ranges, trustees, registrar, transfer agent, stock splits, dividend payment history and more.

You can use NAICS and SIC codes to find industry reports from First Research, which provides unlimited access to an online library of profiles on over 900 industry segments. This research tool features in-depth, up-to-date information. Profiles are comprehensive and include:

• Condensed industry profile overview in addition to the traditional full profile overview
• The competitive landscape
• Products, operations and technology
• Finance and regulation
• Regional and international issues
• Human resources
• Labor statistics

Things to know

The government agency that oversees the sale of alcohol is the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. the TTB has a specific portal for beer resources, which includes required documents (Brewery Records, Reports, and Returns) and statistics from 2008 - 2019. 

In the United States, each state has the right to regulate how beer and other alcohol is produced, distributed, and sold, and as a result each state runs an alcoholic beverage control board or commission of some form. Some states, like Oregon, have adopted the "Control" model, wherein the state government directly manages the sale of alcoholic beverages and products via wholesale, through state-sponsored and managed stores. The TTB has compiled a list of all state regulation agencies, that additionally designates which states operate under the Control model.

• Additionally, the National Alcoholic Beverage Control Association, founded in 1938, supports and offers resources for those states under the Control model. They offer resources as well as statistical data for industrial as well as research purposes.

The United States Department of Agriculture, composed of 29 agencies, manages the food, agriculture, natural resources, and associated issues for the country. Of these agencies, many manage or publish data pertaining to the brewing industry and its requisite ingredients:

• The National Agricultural Statistics Service publishes the national statistics on hop growth and production through its Washington state field office. A majority of hops grown in the country are produced in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. In addition, the office publishes historic data on barley, other small grains, and hop production, as well as hop stock information. The annual data, some of which dates back to the late nineteenth century, is viewable through easily downloaded pdf pages. 
• The Foreign Agricultural Service seeks to promote U.S. agricultural products abroad by expanding and opening international markets. They also publish recent information and news related to wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages internationally that impact U.S. producers.