Domestic beer shipments dropped back into the red in July, according to the Beer Institute’s (BI) latest monthly economic report.
Taxable beer produced in the U.S. reached 12.625 million barrels in July, marking a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 0.8%, according to data from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) parsed by the BI. This follows June, the only positive shipments report thus far in 2025, when taxable shipments increased 0.3%.
Although shipments remain negative, BI chief economist Andrew Heritage noted that declines have decelerated during beer’s peak summer selling season.
“Outside of the first two months of the year (when abnormal monthly comps threw off the annual trend), U.S. produced beer is down 1.6% over the past five months,” he wrote. “From May through July, the trend has improved with U.S. production down 1% over the past three months.”
Year-to-date (YTD) through July, U.S. brewers have shipped 89.282 million barrels, 4.068 million fewer barrels than they did in the same seven months in 2024, a 4.6% decline. The steepest declines took place in January (-8.7%) and February (-16.4%).
Total industry supply, which includes domestically produced beer and imports, declined 1.9% in July, driven largely by imports.
“Imported beer has been a different story, accounting for about two-thirds of the decline in July,” Heritage wrote. “However, the import segment shows some signs of stabilization in scan data and the shipments trend has leveled off somewhat from the spring.”
Imported beer volume declined 5.1% in July, to 3.969 million barrels, according to data from the BI and U.S. Department of Commerce. YTD, imports have declined 5%, with 24.692 million barrels shipped.
Among the top 10 largest importing countries by volume, four recorded volume gains in July:
- No. 3 Ireland, +73.8% to 3.331 million barrels;
- No. 4 Germany, +5.6%, to 2.307 million barrels;
- No. 9 Jamaica, +80.1%, to 502,129 barrels;
- And No. 10 United Kingdom, +30.7%, 153,160 barrels.
Mexico, the largest beer importing country by far, recorded a 1.9% drop in July, to 106 million barrels, which marked a deceleration from its 2.6% YTD decline. The loss of volume, among other factors, drove Constellation Brands (Modelo, Corona, Pacifico, Victoria) to revise its fiscal guidance downward earlier this week, including projecting beer net sales to decline (between -4% and -2%).
No. 5 Canada, which slipped a place in volume ranking between June and July, recorded the steepest decline among the top 10, with volume declining 77.9%, to 457,307 barrels in July, and -81% YTD.
No. 7 Italy followed at -74.8% in July (266,769 barrels), and -65.7% YTD. No. 6 Belgium recorded a 44.7% decline (223,542 barrels) in July, but has grown YTD (+7.2%). The global producers of key brands from all three countries have recently shifted to stateside production, which affects import volume.
At the state level, shipments to wholesalers declined 3.7% in July, to 16.453 million barrels, and 4.9% YTD, to 106.7 million barrels. Although most states recorded volume declines, 20 grew shipments in July, including key beer producing states such as Wisconsin (+10.8%), Michigan (+3.4%) and Illinois (+3.3%), Heritage noted.
Other state-level volume gainers included New Mexico (+12.1% in July), Indiana (+7.7%), Arkansas (+6%) and Kentucky (+5.4%).
New Jersey led the way in declines in July at -17.1%, followed by Washington, D.C. (-16.7%), South Dakota (-14.9%), Delaware (-11.4%), and Oklahoma (-10.1%).
The five largest states by volume all remain in decline YTD:
- No. 1 Texas, 11.837 million barrels, -2.9%;
- No. 2 California, 11.073 million barrels, -3.9%;
- No. 3 Florida, 7.551 million barrels, -8.1%;
- No. 4 New York, 4.946 million barrels, -7.9%;
- And No. 5 Pennsylvania, 4.139 million barrels, -4.1%.
Shipment volume in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., remained negative YTD.
Heritage noted that shipments, which are sales to wholesalers, and depletions (sales to retailers) have been out of sync this season.
“Total industry shipments are down -2% over the past three months,” he wrote. “However, depletions have underperformed shipments by a few percentage points, down -5.3% over the same period. Expect shipments to converge closer to the depletions trend in the coming months.”
The BI plans to release August data on October 7.