Boston Beer Company - Samuel Adams

With spirit-based, ready-to-drink versions of popular hard seltzers on the way, has the era of the RTD trade-ups officially arrived?

Craft brewing has grown up and that’s OK. “Like it or not, we’re not the new kids on the block; we’re not revolutionaries, like we were in the beginning,” Boston Beer Company founder Jim Koch said.

On National Vodka Day, Truly Hard Seltzer, leader and innovator in the hard seltzer category, announces the launch of the brand’s first spirits-based seltzer, Truly Vodka Seltzer.

Dogfish Head’s canned cocktails are gaining traction in the fast-growing spirits-based, ready-to-drink (RTD) canned cocktail market. Dollar sales of the Dogfish Head brand family (+92.3%) are outpacing the overall segment (+56.5%), according to NielsenIQ total U.S. all off-premise data, shared by Bump Williams Consulting.

Hard seltzers ended the summer season down -5.5% year-to-date through September 10 in multi-outlet plus convenience channels, as the segment continues to battle tough comps of years past, financial services firm Jefferies reported, citing NielsenIQ data.

In this Brew Talks replay, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Dan Kenary of Harpoon’s parent company Mass. Bay Brewing and Suzanne Schalow of Craft Beer Cellar share their views on the evolution of the beer category with the addition of fourth category offerings such as hard seltzers, spirits-based canned cocktails, hard kombuchas, hard teas and more.

Boston Beer Company is launching a multimillion-dollar, multi-channel marketing campaign to support Truly Hard Seltzer, which it recently reformulated with real fruit juice. In the new ad campaign, Boston Beer, which has leaned on singer Dua Lipa in previous Truly ads, has instead turned to fruit flies to help promote the reformulated hard seltzer brand.

The college football season kicked off last weekend and will go into full throttle this Labor Day weekend. For those watching at home, Boston Beer Company’s Twisted Tea will be heavily featured this weekend and throughout the season. Boston Beer’s playbook for Twisted Tea includes a 360-degree marketing “Tea Drop” campaign, with new 15- and 30-second TV spots that will be featured across the major networks airing college football games.

Boston Beer’s head of cannabis, Paul Weaver, discusses the Truly Hard Seltzer and Twisted Tea maker’s foray into cannabis-infused beverages in Canada. Weaver shares why tea was the perfect vehicle for a THC-infused drink, how the July launch of Teapot has gone, and how the narrative of cannabis stealing occasions from beer has changed.

One year after its launch, the joint venture between Boston Beer Company and Beam Suntory revealed a third product: Twisted Tea Sweet Tea Whiskey. Hard MTN Dew – a collaboration between Boston Beer and PepsiCo – rolled out to Las Vegas retailers this week after a regulatory standoff with the Nevada Department of Taxation.

For the 52 weeks ending July 16, the combined malt- and spirits-based hard seltzer segment reached $4.263 billion, according to Jefferies equity research managing director Kevin Grundy. In the last four weeks, spirits-based seltzer’s share of the business has reached 9.1%. Malt- and sugar-based hard seltzers account for 90.9% of the segment – and their sales are declining.

Twisted Tea Hard Iced Tea, the nation’s No. 1 hard iced tea brand1, is partnering with Sesame3, a web3 platform for brands, to launch its first-ever NFT.

Due to the “greater than expected continuing decline in demand in the hard seltzer category,” Boston Beer Company has “reduced” its fiscal year 2022 volume and earnings guidance, founder and chairman Jim Koch said in a press release announcing the company’s Q2 2022 results.

What could the sale of a long fiercely independent craft brewery to a global brewing giant mean for consumer sentiment?