The U.S.’s total beer supply declined -6.7% year-over-year (YoY) in September, as built-up summer inventories (domestic production plus imports) fell back in line with depletion trends, according to Beer Institute (BI) chief economist Andrew Heritage.
While beer consumers – particularly core craft fans – once cared more about brand and where a product was made, most bev-alc consumers are now prioritizing price, quality and availability, among other factors. This has caused not only a shift in how craft beer is produced and marketed (hello, contract brewing boom), but also trends in imported beer.
Sapporo is the largest Asian import beer brand by U.S. dollar sales by a wide margin, but Sapporo-Stone leadership has its sights on doubling the brand’s share of overall imports in the coming years, executives said during the brand’s virtual annual business plan meeting with wholesalers last week.
Constellation Brands unveiled today the Q2 financials that showed slowing growth, which led to the company lowering its fiscal year 2025 (FY25) guidance last month.
U.S. brewers shipped an estimated 12.8 million barrels of beer in July, a -2.5% decline year-over-year (YoY), and a loss of 458,000 barrels compared to July 2023, according to the Beer Institute (BI).
More than 4.043 million barrels of beer were imported into the U.S. in May, marking the first time more than 4 million barrels were imported in a single month, according to Beer Institute (BI) chief economist Andrew Heritage, citing the latest report from the Department of Commerce.
Constellation Brands reported a strong first quarter of its 2025 fiscal year, with $2.662 billion in reported net sales, a +6% increase compared to the same quarter last year, according to its Q1 earnings report.
April domestic tax paid shipments declined an estimated -4.3% year-over-year (YoY), to 12.3 million barrels, according to Beer Institute (BI) chief economist Andrew Heritage, citing estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
Domestic tax paid shipments declined an estimated -13.6%, to 12.7 million barrels, marking a loss of more than 1.9 million barrels in March 2024 versus March 2023, according to Beer Institute chief economist Andrew Heritage, citing estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
Move over domestic premiums, imports are king. Imports overtook domestic premiums in dollar sales in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels in the four-week period ending April 20, making imports the No. 1 beer segment in scans.
An estimated 11.9 million barrels of beer were shipped in February, a +7.9% increase year-over-year (YoY), marking the “strongest monthly growth in almost three years, since May 2021,” Beer Institute (BI) chief economist Andrew Heritage wrote in the trade group’s latest round of economic reports, citing estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
Constellation Brands leaders laid out a vision for “dialing up” growth for its portfolio of Mexican import offerings over the next five years during Monday’s opening session of its Gold Network Summit at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
Imports have been one of the few beer segments to consistently record off-premise growth over the past year, and a similar story is playing out in the on-premise, according to NIQ’s on-premise market research arm, CGA.
It’s not a matter of if but when Modelo Especial will become the nation’s No. 1 beer brand in dollar sales, Constellation Brands Beer Division president Jim Sabia told wholesalers Tuesday during the company’s Gold Network Summit in Las Vegas.
