US craft beer production

American craft brewing growing alongside major-league strikeout totals. The pitcher is not, on the whole, drinking the IPA. The bar is not, technically, on the mound. The two cultures of skilled American excess agree on the calendar, even if they disagree on the lifestyle.

US craft beer production roughly tripled from 2005 to its 2019 peak, then plateaued, as the number of breweries expanded from under fifteen hundred to over nine thousand. MLB strikeouts per season climbed from about 32,000 in 2005 to over 41,000 by 2022 as bullpens specialised, four-seam velocity rose, and analytics rewrote how counts were managed. Two unrelated growth stories sharing a window because the same eighteen years optimised two American skill industries in their own ways. The country got craftier in two arenas.

Two American excellences compounded. The pitch and the pint, both on form.