The child is grown; the dream is gone.

Long ago, you'd walk into a house filled with children and see hash marks all over the linoleum. These lines measured how fast kids were growing, and all it took to verify the household's accounting was to compare them with little humans dashing back and forth, assuming they'd stand still long enough.

I'm sure there's an app for it these days.

I can't imagine anything better calculated to lift eyebrows than a constantly updated chart on the side of brewery, visible to the public, showing how many barrels of beer actually are being produced inside. Of course, the Feds know. They're collecting taxes on real output, as contrasted with hopeful estimates on a business plan.

Come to think of it, perhaps there needs to be one set of hash marks visible to the general public, and another capable of being seen only by bankers and brewery investors.

But aren't we doing that already?

Brewers Association beer and brewing stats for Kentucky and Indiana.

The straight dope from Kevin Gibson, including Kentucky and Indiana production rankings.

 Since this short snippet was buried in a "business briefing" update, I'm including all of Kevin's text.

Kentucky ranks 38th in U.S. in total breweries, report shows, by Kevin Gibson (Insider Louisville)

The Brewers Association recently reported 2015 statistics on craft breweries state by state and the economic impact of the industry on each state; Kentucky ranked 38th in the nation with 24 total breweries, with California (518) by far being the highest.

The association reports that Kentucky breweries brewed 87,156 barrels of beer last year, or 0.8 gallons per adult (21 and over). Those numbers rank 32nd and 38th respectively nationwide. The economic impact is reported at $495 million, good for 27th in the United States.

Kentucky’s brewing industry, while it has taken a back seat to distilling in terms of popularity and growth, has shown movement in recent years. The number of breweries in the state has more than doubled in the last five years, according to the report.

In Louisville, Great Flood Brewing recently announced it will build a production brewery that will greatly increase its impact, while no fewer than two other breweries are in the process of opening.

Our neighbors to the north, Indiana, ranked 15th nationally with 115 breweries that drove more than $1 billion in economic impact. Nationally, there were more than 4,200 breweries doing business in 2015, according to the report. Domestic craft beer sales grew by 12.8 percent.

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