Salary
Average Salary: $35,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,461,180
Free beer.
Oh, sorry. Did you want to be paid in something other than beer? Don't worry, you will be. Median annual income for a brewer is around $35,000 per year (source). That number depends largely on the size of the brewery and your level of experience.
In the brewery biz, people think in barrels—not years. If you're a brewer with 15,000 barrels under your belt, you're probably earning a little more than the median. But if you've been involved in 60,000 barrels, you're looking at around $52,000 per year. And if you're a brewery manager with 60,000 barrels successfully brewed, you could be looking at a huge payday of over $100,000.
Not so fast. New to the profession? First of all, you should be involved with a local workers union, such as the American Brewers Guild or the American Society of Brewing Chemists. And second, you're going to need to grind it out for a while as a grunt worker—entry-level in the brewing business is only about eleven dollars an hour, or about $25,000 yearly (source).
But hey, free beer.