Beer drinking in America falls to the lowest level in a generation
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It wasn't just Bud Light.
The past year saw the lowest level of beer consumed in the U.S. in a generation, according to industry group Beer Marketer's Insights, as consumers shifted away from traditional favorites to other forms of alcohol — and in a growing number of cases, avoiding alcoholic beverages altogether.
"It was a tough year for beer," said David Steinman, BMI vice president and executive editor.
For the first time since 1999, he said, beer shipments were on track to fall below 200 million barrels.
Leading the decline, Steinman said, was Anheuser Busch. But while the Bud Light-maker caught headlines over a sponsorship agreement with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney that subsequently led to a boycott among some longtime drinkers, the protest does not explain why overall consumption still managed to fall, Steinman said.
Instead, Anheuser Busch was at the forefront of an acceleration in the long-term decline of so-called domestic-premium brands, which include Bud Light and rivals Miller Light and Coors Light, Steinman said. Anheuser Busch, owned by global conglomerate AB InBev, also suffered from a decline in hard seltzers — a category in which it has long dominated.
The beer industry also now finds itself competing against a surge of new alcohol products, many from non-traditional producers, said Lester Jones, vice president, analytics and chief economist at the National Beer Wholesalers Association.
"For example, some of the world's largest soft drink and energy companies introduced sugar-forward alcohol beverages to the market, all of which are vying for the same consumer occasions as traditional malt- and hop-forward products," he said in an email.
Yet even as overall volume consumption declined, the largest beer makers remain financially resilient thanks to prices that climbed alongside — or even surpassed — broader inflation, Steinman said. Beer drinkers also continued to shift toward more expensive beer brands, especially imports like Modelo Especial, which became the No. 1 beer in America in 2023.
And beer sales in other parts of the world continue to remain strong, Steinman said.
"With prices going up, dollar sales have continued to grow and profits have been rising," he said.
Still, significant headwinds remain. The craft-beer boom of the 2010s has petered out, and there are now so many varieties of alcoholic beverages available that the consumer may now be overwhelmed.
"The U.S. beer industry had a wild ride in 2023 against the backdrop of an expanding economy that created more jobs and wage gains for many people, as well as an oversupplied alcohol marketplace that saw a rapid influx of new products," Jones said.
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Notwithstanding the bad news for beer, there is nothing in the world more refreshing than an Ice-cold one right after coming off the 18th green on a hot sunny day. Although the word "wine" is not mentioned in the article, I'd be interested to know if the general taste is shifting to a more cultured beverage. I wonder if the sales of wines have increased.
My kids are all drinking seltzer drinks more than beer now. I drink pbr at home but, when I go out, I like a nice IPA.
I don't like the after effects of alcohol and can count the number of beers I've had this century on one hand. I couldn't care less about the beer industry.
I am doing my part to keep numbers up.
I try, but just cannot drink a lot of beer anymore. Most of the mass-produced brews have little taste and the craft beers have been so overdone that it's hard to find a consistently good taste.
Never cared for Blue Moon and Yuengling tastes just like Bud to me which for me is very little flavor. The lightest beer I prefer is Fat Tire.
My resolution this year is to do my best to bring those numbers back up....
Yeah I'm slipping in my drinking, just got back from 3 months in Fl where I didn't have even 1 beer the entire time
Well, I am back from running Model Trains for local First Night Event, so it is time to Get the beer numbers up. Happy New Year!
Microbreweries make excellent beers, much better than the mainstream beers. But if beer drinking is going down, is there a correlation between that and any increase in the consumption of wine or spirits?
I know from our small sampling of parties (albeit we throw large parties) that more people are drinking spiked water and spirits (e.g. Bourbon). So IMO beer drinking does seem to be slowing a bit.
I don't know the answer to that question. But there are trends-- many that occasionally change.
So my guess would be that there are a lot of people who enjoy alcoholic beverages who if they stop drinking beer will still continue to drink alcohol-- but just change their drink of choice.