Will We See 10,000 Brewers in 2021?

Dear Client: Yesterday, a tweet from Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson made us choke on our water (ok, beer): "TTB 2nd quarter permit numbers are out and brewery permits grew again -- now topping 12,081." That's up about 254 over Q1.  But, hold on. This number is largely comprised of permits submitted before COVID took hold here, as processing time was around 50 days in April and May.  This begs the question: Is there really a world where we