Published: August 19, 2024
In the brewhouse, being on top of your beers housed in tanks—in the kettle, fermenting, or cellaring—is vital to producing quality beer. But before you even create a beer, it’s paramount to know what beer will sell, whether in draft or packaged.
The front-of-the-house staff knows the customers coming into the business and the beers they lean toward. But as new faces make their way into your taproom or you distribute to new retailers, knowing what those consumers are ordering is equally as important as creating a quality product.
Untappd Insights gives you all of this data with just a couple of clicks to help you conscientiously map out your brew calendar.
A part of the Next Glass family of brands that includes Ollie, Untappd for Business, Hop Culture, and BeerAdvocate, among others, Untappd Insights compiles distribution, trend, and sales data from the craft beer industry, honing in everywhere from your small town in rural America to a city across the globe.
Tapping into the more than eleven million registered users, the Untappd app delivers the intel you need to succeed, whether you are looking for information near or far. These insights will help you decide which brands to bring to market for distribution, as well as what to pour in your tasting room.
Previously, we’ve covered the most popular beers in Pennsylvania, New York, California, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Illinois.
In this piece, we’ll break down the most checked-in beers in Massachusetts over the past three months, showcasing the immense data portfolio Untappd Insights provides.
(Above photography courtesy of Samuel Adams)
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Massachusetts: A Top-Ten State for Check-ins Year-to-Date
Graphic courtesy of Untappd Insights
The beer scene in Massachusetts has grown over the past decade. Breweries in Massachusetts boomed through the 2010s, as they did across the country. The state is now home to 224 breweries—sixteenth most in the country—with 4.2 breweries per capita—which ranks twenty-sixth in the U.S.
Consumers in Massachusetts check in a lot of beer. Looking at the data from any perspective, Massachusetts ranks anywhere from ninth to eleventh in the nation based on check-ins.
For the year to date—a little less than eight months in—Massachusetts has the tenth most check-ins nationwide, with 848,238 from 18,735 venues. The Greater Boston area leads the way with 528,813 check-ins. Worcester, with 154,690, is the only other city with over 100,000 check-ins. Springfield is third on that list, with a little over 68,000 check-ins.
Dating back to the start of 2019—as far back as the data goes—consumers in Massachusetts checked in 12,665,209 times at 80,516 venues. Over that span, the state ranks tenth in the nation in check-ins. Boston, Worcester, and Springfield all recorded over one million check-ins since 2019, with Boston leading the way at just shy of eight million, Worcester second with 2.4 million, and then Springfield a tick over one million.
If we look at data going back twelve months, Massachusetts again ranks tenth in the U.S. with 1,462,730 check-ins across 24,615 venues.
In the past ninety days, Massachusetts slipped a little, ranking eleventh with 380,069 check-ins across 13,407 venues. But if we trim the timeframe to the past month, Massachusetts jumps back inside the top ten at number nine with 134,441 check-ins at nearly 7,700 venues. Check-ins within Boston over that span are tops for cities, with 80,723, nearly four times as many as the next closest city in Worcester.
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The Top 10 Beers in Massachusetts – Last 90 Days
Photography courtesy of Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company (on the left) and Trillium Brewing Company (on the right)
It’s no secret that craft beer consumers love IPAs. The style is perennially at the top of the most checked-in beer styles, including the most recent Untappd Year in Beer data. Massachusetts consumers follow that same trend.
Nine out of the top ten beers checked in over the past ninety days are IPAs. And the list is diverse, with seven different breweries making an appearance. Only one brewery—Tree House Brewing Company—appeared more than once, showing up four times.
Despite the influx of IPAs, a light beer—Samuel Adams Summer Ale—topped the list for most check-ins. This is not a huge surprise. Recent trends have shown that lower-ABV beers and lagers have gained in popularity and the summer months, hotter weather, and seasonality certainly played a part in rocketing this refreshing wheat beer to the top of the charts in its hometown.
- Summer Ale (Wheat Beer-American Pale Wheat) – Samuel Adams
- Fiddlehead IPA (IPA-American) – Fiddlehead Brewing Company
- Cloud Candy IPA (IPA-New England/Hazy) – Mighty Squirrel Brewing Co.
- Julius (IPA-American) – Tree House Brewing Company
- Lunch (IPA-American) – Maine Beer Company
- Haze 10th Anniversary (IPA-Imperial/Double New England/Hazy) – Tree House Brewing Company
- Very Green 10th Anniversary (IPA-Imperial/Double New England/Hazy) – Tree House Brewing Company
- Harpoon IPA (IPA-American) – Harpoon Brewery
- King Julius (IPA-Imperial/Double) – Tree House Brewing Company
- Congress Street (IPA-American) – Trillium Brewing Company
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About The Author
Giovanni Albanese
Giovanni is a content writer for Next Glass, contributing to the Ollie blog. He is a writer by day and a brewer/business owner by night, owning and operating Settle Down Brewery & Taproom in Gilroy, California.
Giovanni is passionate about a number of things, including history, documentaries and sports, but none more than reporting/writing and brewing beer. After receiving a radio broadcasting degree then a journalism degree from Salem State College in his home state of Massachusetts, he relocated to California in 2008.
Then, his writing career kicked off – covering sports, business, politics and more along the way – while concurrently dabbling in home brewing. The home brewing turned pro in 2021 when he launched SDB Brewing Company. Settle Down Beer officially opened in February.
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