Draft Sales are ... Improving?
Yesterday afternoon, I was invited to sit in on a report by Fintech and the National Beer Wholesalers Association that was current through November 11—nearly a full-year summary of beer’s performance in 2024. There wasn’t a ton of movement in the past year, and while dollar ales were up, this was a function of inflation rather than increased volume.
The one thing that did seem to improve was sales of draft beer. It’s not a huge change, but it’s great to see things headed in the right direction. If you’ve been reading the monthly NBWA beer purchasers’ index, craft has looked absolutely terrible for months. Despite that, craft actually looks to be doing better than expected, and that includes the smaller producers as well. I won’t get too far into the weeds, but here are the highlights.
Draft & Craft
In 2024, draft grew by a half a percent to 14% of the surveyed beer purchases, and among on-premise sales (bars and restaurants), keg sales grew relative to all packages by 4.4%. I was a little surprised to learn that bottles and cans still constitute half the on-premise sales, but it was 54% in 2023. When they broke out the changes by type, more good news: craft was up .6% on draft, the largest of any category. “Premium plus lights,” which accounted for 42% of draft sales in 2023, fell the most, by almost 1%.
Craft sales were not horrible, too. Given that so much of the news I’ve seen—and the vibes I feel when I’m out—has been negative this year, it was interesting to hear this report, which showed signs of life. I appreciate that they define craft the way normal humans do: “all the beer that’s not domestic lagers or imports.” By this metric, Blue Moon is by far the biggest craft brand, selling nearly twice as much as number two, Voodoo Ranger (I have no idea why they broke Voodoo Ranger into two categories, but it doesn’t change things much). The one caveat with craft sales is that the annual growth is a bit bi-modal, in growth territory the first half of the year, and lagging in the second half. Below is a slide of craft performance.
A few more notes:
For roughly the past year, wholesalers have had more inventory on hand than normal.
Retail beer accounts crested in 2017 and were declining pretty rapidly even before Covid struck. They have steadily rebounded since, but are still about where they were fifteen years ago.
The top ten best-selling beers accounted for 57% of the total market, and the biggest growth came with Modelo (no surprise), Michelob Ultra, and Corona. Bud Light, which seems to have finally stabilized, was nevertheless the biggest loser year over year, down around 2%.
At the end of the presentation, Eric Kiser and Lester Jones presented slides showing the six best-selling beers in a few selected states, and it illustrated how much variation there is by region. California’s best-selling beer is Modelo, and by a huge margin—it sells as much as the next three combined. In Florida, Michelob Ultra far outpaces the number two, and Modelo isn’t even in the top six. In Michigan, Miller Lite is in front, but just by a a nose—Bell’s is a close number two.
If you would like to see the presentation, here’s a video.