Abstract
The growth of the artisan beer sector in Catalonia has been following a promising trend for some years now. It has already managed to gain almost 2% of the market share of the brewing sector and the forecast is that it will continue to grow at an incredible rate. This study aims to study the 9 leading companies in the sector to see if they follow the same pattern and, thus, to predict whether the strategy of each of the companies is similar or not. The financial study of these companies aims to analyse whether they are following a joint path and by means of an analysis of Porter's 5 forces, the external environment of the sector will be studied. In this way, we will have both internal sector and external information. With such information, it will be possible to diagnose whether the Catalan beer sector is being threatened by the artisan sector. The last objective derived from the study is to analyse whether the modern theories of capital structures are useful for local and small companies or not, which is what the financial performance of the companies under study will be studied with.