Domestic tax paid shipments from U.S. breweries continued their six-month streak of declines, with a -5.1% dip in August 2023 compared to August 2022, the Beer Institute (BI) reported, citing numbers from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
Domestic brewers shipped an estimated 14.2 million barrels in August 2023, a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 769,444 barrels. Year-to-date though the end of August, tax paid shipments have declined -6.2% compared to 2022, a decline of 6,930,152 barrels. Shipments have declined YoY in every month of 2023 except for February, which recorded a +1% increase.
At the state level, Arkansas recorded the largest increase in shipments (+12.3% YoY) compared to August 2022, followed by Kentucky (+10.7%), Alaska (+9.5%), Arizona (+5.6%) and New Mexico and Wisconsin (both +5%). Rhode Island recorded the steepest YoY shipments decline in August (-23.2%), followed by Washington (-20.4%), Hawaii (-19.4%), New Jersey (-15.9%) and Massachusetts (-15.6%).
In August, Texas led the way in volume, with 2.087 million barrels shipped, followed by California (1.967 million barrels), Florida (1.095 million barrels), New York (875,000 barrels) and Pennsylvania (655,000 barrels).
Year-to-date, the Lone Star State still shipped the most beer (14.4 million barrels), followed by California (13.4 million barrels), Florida (9.4 million barrels), New York (6.4 million barrels) and Pennsylvania (5 million barrels).
“For year-to-date trends, the top five states contributing to growth include Indiana (+2.7%), Iowa (+4.3%), Washington (+2.2%), Kansas (+1.2%), and Arkansas (+1.5%),” outgoing BI vice president of research Danelle Kosmal wrote. “However, among those top five YTD states, three experienced declines for August (Indiana, Iowa, and Washington).
“The top five states contributing to YTD declines include California (-7.2%), Texas (-2.8%), Florida (-3.7%), Pennsylvania (-3.9%), and Wisconsin (-5.7%),” she continued. “However, there were bright spots among a few of those states in August, with Texas up +2.7% and Wisconsin up +5% compared to August 2022.”
Overall import shipments were 3.5 million barrels, a decline of -5.9% compared to August 2022, but Kosmal cautioned that “2023, has been a year of regular fluctuations in imported shipments, with strong declines one month and significant increases the next.”
“July 2023 imports were 3.9 million barrels – the strongest month of shipments ever recorded by BI,” she wrote. “So it is likely that there was still a lot of beer on hand from July shipments, and therefore, brewers held back some on August shipments.”
Year-to-date, overall imports have declined -0.3%, bolstered by a +2.6% in Mexican imports.
Shipments of non-alcoholic (NA) imports have increased +33.9% compared to August 2022 and +24.5% compared to the first eight months of 2022, driven by the debut of Corona NA and Heineken 0.0’s continued growth.
The BI is scheduled to share its September 2023 economic report on November 8.