3 Up, 3 Down with 3 Tier Beverages is a quarterly insights series available to Brewbound Insiders, via the Chicago-headquartered, bev-alc-focused consulting and data firm.
Boston Beer Company’s Q3 financials were described by one analyst, Bernstein’s Nadine Sarwat, as “a messy set of results.” The company’s portfolio – including Samuel Adams, Dogfish Head, Truly Hard Seltzer, Angry Orchard, Sun Cruiser and Hard MTN Dew – reported a -1.9% year-over-year (YoY) decline in shipments (sales to wholesalers) and -3% decline in depletions (sales to retailers) in the quarter.
Duvel USA-owned Boulevard’s beyond beer offshoot Quirk is tea-ing up a 2025 innovation slate that touches on hot trends in the fourth category. Quirk Hard Tea (4% ABV) will roll out in early 2025 with a standalone lemonade tea offering and a variety pack, executives announced to wholesalers during Duvel USA’s virtual wholesaler summit last week.
Hard seltzers remain down double-digits through mid-July in Circana-tracked off-premise retailers. Hard seltzer declined -11.8% in dollars and -16.1% in volume through the rolling 52-week period ending July 14.
Flavor-forward innovations are driving beer category growth and this trend is accelerating, according to the most recent report from Bump Williams Consulting (BWC). Of the top 25 growth brands at total U.S. off-premise outlets year-to-date (YTD) through June 15, 13 were “flavor-centric” or ready-to-drink (RTD) offerings, BWC founder Bump Williams noted, citing data from market research firm NIQ.
The beer industry’s 2023 performance was dragged down by two anchors: The continued decline of the once-meteoric hard seltzer segment and Bud Light’s calamitous losses in the face of a conservative-led boycott, Beer Marketer’s Insights senior editor Christopher Shepard said in his keynote address to the California Craft Beer Summit.
A panel of judges has upheld a jury decision that Constellation Brands did not violate its sublicense with Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) when it introduced Corona Hard Seltzer.
In the latest installment of Brewbound’s A Round With – a weekly Insider-exclusive Q&A series with industry leaders – Katie Beal Brown chats about the rollercoaster ride of turning a cherished family cocktail recipe into a nationally distributed, ready-to-drink product … and kicking off right before the pandemic turned the bev-alc world upside down.
In this latest round of distribution news, we check in with new coconut vodka water, Mother’s Milk and another fruit-infused vodka cocktail named after the same parent, Mom Water, as well as craft distillers Heritage Distilling and Frey Ranch, plus news from rum Coconut Cartel.
San Diego-based hard kombucha and canned cocktail (RTD) maker JuneShine will acquire beyond beer brand Flying Embers in an all-stock transaction, the company announced today.
If you frequented the Two Robbers’ website or Instagram in the past month, you’d notice a significant change. The website’s homepage now says “Two Robbers Spirits Company” with a “Website Coming Soon!” banner. And the Philadelphia-based hard seltzer company’s Instagram has been completely cleansed, with previous posts deleted and a handful of new photos in their place.
Boston Beer Company executives made “inactionable statement[s] of corporate optimism” about sales of Truly Hard Seltzer during its Q1 and Q2 earnings calls in 2021, negating a lawsuit and subsequent appeal filed by investors who alleged the company misled them about the brand and company’s performance. A panel of three Second Circuit judges upheld the… Read more »
Red Tree Beverages, Coca-Cola’s “firewalled, wholly owned” subsidiary to explore beverage-alcohol, has no intention of getting into the distribution business, Red Tree president Jenny Dowdy said yesterday during Beer Marketer’s Insights fall seminar.