Colorado is awash in suds, and that means more jobs are on tap.

That’s the point of a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau, which apparently has been busy counting breweries as well as people.

Colorado ranks second behind only California for the number of breweries, at 204 in 2016, up from 57 in 2012, the report says. (California has 368, and Washington state comes in third at 162.)

And Denver County ranks fifth for the most breweries among U.S. counties, with 39 as of 2016 – up 388 percent from 2012. San Diego County tops the list with 73.

In all, the number of U.S. breweries rose from 880 to 2,802 between 2012 and 2016, the bureau says.

The vast majority of those beer-making businesses are small craft brewers, each employing 49 or fewer workers. That group has a collective payroll of $2.6 billion nationwide, the report says.

According to the Census Bureau, the average brewery employee in Colorado is paid $52,805 per year.

“Across the United States, the craft brewery business is hopping,” the report says. “In one five-year period, the number of [U.S.] breweries more than tripled and the most growth happened in small, craft-brewery establishments that have fewer than 50 employees.”

Now, every state has at least one brewery, and just over a quarter of the 3,143 counties have one or more.

The report quotes Bart Watson, chief economist for the Boulder-based Brewers Association trade group, as saying that the trend toward smaller breweries is driven by shifting consumer demand for craft beer as well as by support for local business.

“It is similar to the trend toward specialty coffee,” Watson said. “We are also seeing it in distilleries and wineries.”

The report was issued to coincide with national Manufacturing Week. (Yes, brewing is classified as manufacturing.)

The report does not include beer-related businesses not classified as “breweries,” such as restaurants that make their own beer.