Hop GrailUS beer label approvals by year, 1998–2026
539,695 federal label approvals for beer since 1998, counted year by year from the TTB registry. The record is 43,331, in 2021.
Before a beer label can cross a state line, the federal government has to approve it. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) keeps every approval in a public registry.
Hop Grail holds a copy of every beer approval in it since 1998: 539,695 of them through November 3, 2026. Counted by year, they make one chart.
A quiet decade, then a boom
From 1998 through 2006, beer label approvals barely moved. They ran between 3,492 and 4,900 a year. The low point, 3,492, came in 2003, the year TTB opened its online filing system.
Then the count started climbing. It passed 10,000 in 2011, 20,000 in 2015, 30,000 in 2017 and 40,000 in 2019.
Between 2008 and 2018 approvals went from 8,467 to 37,876, about 4.5 times as many.
The peak was 2021
The record came in 2021: 43,331 beer labels approved in a single year.
The 2020 total hides a split. Domestic approvals held almost level, 38,774 in 2019 and 38,459 in 2020. Imports fell from 2,673 to 1,568, a drop of 41 percent in one year.
Domestic approvals set their own record in 2021, at 41,329.
Since the peak
Since the peak, the count has fallen every year: 41,960 in 2022, 39,565 in 2023, 34,720 in 2024 and 28,066 in 2025.
The 2025 total is 35 percent below 2021, and lands between the totals for 2016 and 2017.
2026 is not finished. Through November 3, 2026 there were 22,369 approvals.
At that pace the year ends around 26,600, a little under 2025. The decline is continuing, and it is slowing.
What this counts, and what it doesn't
A label approval is a piece of paperwork, not a beer on a shelf. A few things to keep in mind when reading the chart:
- It counts labels, not beer. A one-off release sold in a few hundred cans gets one approval, the same as a flagship sold in the millions.
- Breweries file a new approval when a label changes, so a beer can appear more than once.
- An approval is not a release. Some approved labels never reach a store.
- Only beer sold across state lines needs one. A brewery that sells everything in its own state does not have to file, though many do.
- Imports have their own class codes. They were 15 percent of approvals in 1998 and 5 percent at the 2021 peak.
Every year
- 1998: 4,900
- 1999: 4,429
- 2000: 4,212
- 2001: 4,046
- 2002: 4,135
- 2003: 3,492
- 2004: 4,154
- 2005: 4,502
- 2006: 4,527
- 2007: 5,989
- 2008: 8,467
- 2009: 7,070
- 2010: 8,977
- 2011: 11,810
- 2012: 16,097
- 2013: 15,181
- 2014: 17,732
- 2015: 21,632
- 2016: 26,674
- 2017: 32,308
- 2018: 37,876
- 2019: 41,447
- 2020: 40,027
- 2021: 43,331
- 2022: 41,960
- 2023: 39,565
- 2024: 34,720
- 2025: 28,066
- 2026 so far: 22,369
Source: TTB Public COLA Registry, malt-beverage classes 900–909 and 950–959, counted by the date each approval was completed. Updated nightly. The newest approvals are in the register.