The fallout surrounding the conservative-led boycott of Anheuser-Busch’s (A-B) Bud Light brand and the accelerated declines that ensued accounted for three of Brewbound’s top stories of 2023. The internal machinations at A-B, including a reshuffling of its craft division, also piqued Brewbound readers’ interests.
As we close out the year, here’s a look back at the 10 most-read stories of 2023, in reverse order.
10. Twisted Tea Goes Extreme with 8% ABV Lineup
More bang for your buck offerings are playing well with convenience-store consumers, so Twisted Tea’s turn to the Extreme probably wasn’t the most surprising development of 2023.
Boston Beer Company unveiled Twisted Tea Extreme, an 8% ABV version of its flagship hard tea brand – the top-selling flavored malt beverage (FMB) in c-stores – over the summer.
Extreme launched in two flavors (Lemon and Blue Razz) in highly developed Twisted Tea markets: Montana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont. After the summer, company execs were already talking about expanding distribution.
Meanwhile, Boston Beer isn’t riding with just Twisted Tea as a host of challengers arrive. The company is adding a spirits-based, non-carbonated hard tea brand, Sun Cruiser (4.5%), in 14 test markets in March.
Get ready for the hard tea wars of 2024.
9. A-B Makes Additional Staff Layoffs at Several Craft Breweries
Before the Bud Light boycott and prior to offloading eight craft brands to cannabis firm Tilray, A-B was in cost-cutting mode at its craft breweries in February.
A day after ceasing operations and eliminating jobs at Cleveland, Ohio-based Platform Beer Co., news of additional job cuts at other craft breweries began to circulate.
Employees were let go from Houston, Texas-based Karbach Brewing; Patchogue, New York-based Blue Point Brewing; Lexington, Virginia-based Devils Backbone; and Asheville, North Carolina-based Wicked Weed. It remains unclear how many employees and breweries were affected.
Andy Thomas, president of A-B’s High End division, said in a statement to Brewbound:
“This week, several of our craft brewery partners announced local team updates that will allow them to better address evolving consumer needs and trends in their home markets and beyond. As the craft industry continues to transform, we’re staying laser focused on continuing to lead growth in the segment.”
A-B wasn’t done making moves within its craft division though, as we’d later find out.
8. Sazerac Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Malt-Based Fireball Cinnamon Product
Several alcohol companies have faced class-action lawsuits in recent years for allegedly misleading consumers. Sazerac joined the list for allegedly creating consumer confusion between its whisky-based Fireball Cinnamon Whisky and its malt-based Fireball Cinnamon.
The product in question, Fireball Cinnamon, is a flavored malt beverage (FMB) that contains “natural whisky and other flavors and caramel color,” according to its label. The FMB is 16.5% ABV, half the strength of spirits-based Fireball (33% ABV).
The first lawsuit was filed in Illinois, by attorney Spencer Sheehan, who has become notorious for false advertising lawsuits. A federal judge held Sheehan in contempt, saying the attorney “acted in bad faith” in a lawsuit that he filed against Starbucks earlier this year.
Sheehan spiked the Illinois lawsuit after the original lawsuit’s claims that the consumer bought the FMB at a Jewel-Osco store was debunked due to the product not being sold in those stores. A second lawsuit was filed in the state, along with similar lawsuits in New York and California. Those cases continue to play out in the courts.
The Voodoo Ranger train kept rolling for New Belgium in 2023. To keep up with demand for its cartoon skeleton adorned IPAs, New Belgium struck a deal in March with Constellation Brands to acquire a 259,000 sq. ft. facility in Daleville, Virginia, that was once a Ballast Point brewery.
The facility will provide New Belgium with 125,000 barrels of beer capacity over the next year, which is being dedicated to high ABV IPAs Voodoo Ranger Juice Force and Fruit Force.
New Belgium appears to need the extra capacity with sales of those IPAs continuing to trend up. Through the first 11 months of 2023, Juice Force is now the third best-selling beer in off-premise retailers, while Fruit Force is the only new brand to crack the top 30 craft brands at No. 15 with $46 million in sales through December 3 in Circana-tracked channels.
The former Constellation facility has been dedicated to FMB production, and the New Belgium move comes as the company adds Voodoo Ranger Hardcharged Tea to its repertoire.
6. Anchor Brewing to Cease Operations, Liquidate Business
Perhaps the most jarring brewery closure of the year occurred in July with the announcement that Sapporo would cease operations at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco and liquidate the business.
The company attributed the decision to drop Anchor to “a combination of challenging economic factors and declining sales since 2016.” Ultimately, Sapporo said the economic pressure “made the business no longer sustainable.”
As of press time, Anchor’s future remained cloudy, with former employees mounting a bid to buy the brand and San Francisco area investors also putting together their own offer.
Anchor was established in 1896, making it the nation’s first craft brewery. Fritz Maytag revived the brand in 1965 and made Steam Beer an iconic craft brand. Expect a resolution in 2024.
5. Anheuser-Busch to Sell 8 Craft Brands to Tilray
After relegating Platform Beer Co. to a ghost brewery of three IPAs and selling Appalachian Mountain Brewery to its founders (details below), A-B offloaded eight other craft beverage brands to Tilray.
Tilray had already built a portfolio of craft brands with SweetWater, Montauk, Green Flash and Alpine. The $85 million deal with A-B placed Shock Top, Breckenridge Brewery, 10 Barrel, Blue Point, Redhook, Widmer Brothers, Square Mile Cider and HiBall Energy in its care.
The deal “tripled” the size of Tilray’s beer business, to 12 million cases annually, making it the fifth-largest Brewers Association-defined craft brewery by volume in the U.S., and 13th largest overall.
After hearing from Ty Gilmore, president of Tilray’s U.S. Beer division, during the 2023 Brewbound Live business conference, we know there’s a lot of inbound interest in what Tilray is building and the company also doesn’t appear to be finished adding to its platform.
4. Survey Says: Beer Distributors Believe Bud Light Has Suffered Permanent Damage
The present and future of A-B’s Bud Light brand was a story that would dominate not only industry-focused publications but mainstream media.
Two months into a conservative-led boycott of the nation’s top-selling beer brand for an influencer promotion with transwoman Dylan Mulvaney, some distributors were certain that the damage to the brand would be permanent.
Financial services firm Jefferies found that a majority (65%) of distributors surveyed expected the Bud Light downturn to last at least another six months. However, 32% believed it could be permanent.
A separate distributor survey – the quarterly “Bev Bytes” by Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog – found that most respondents are “pessimistic about the potential for a full recovery” of Bud Light’s “brand equity and market share.” Those who do see the potential for a turnaround said it could take three to five years.
Bud Light’s trends remain in the red. Through the first 11 months of 2023, Bud Light’s off-premise dollar sales and volume are both down double-digits, -18.7% and -21.9%, respectively, in multi-outlet and convenience stores tracked by market research firm Circana.
Bud Light has also fallen behind Constellation Brands’ Modelo Especial in year-to-date dollar sales ($3.7 billion to $3.5 billion), but remains the top volume beer brand (144 million cases to 103 million cases).
Industry watchers will be awaiting the April 2024 comps to see if those red numbers turn green.
3. Appalachian Mountain Brewery Founders Buy Back Company From Anheuser-Busch InBev
A-B’s changing craft strategy continued to play out in May when the company sold Appalachian Mountain Brewery and Cidery (AMB) to the Boone, North Carolina-based craft brewery’s founders, Nathan Kelischek and Chris Zieber.
AMB had been under A-B control since 2020, after the beer giant acquired the remaining stake in Craft Brew Alliance (CBA), creating a bloated Brewers Collective portfolio.
Kelischek and Zieber, cousins and North Carolina natives, had not owned the company since 2018, when it was fully acquired by CBA. Zieber spoke to Brewbound after the deal announcement: the Q&A can be read here.
The AMB move by A-B was sandwiched between stripping down Platform Beer Co. to three IPAs and selling off eight other craft brands to Tilray.
As 2024 approaches, all eyes will be on A-B to see where its craft priorities lie.
Two weeks into the conservative-led boycott of Bud Light, A-B placed a pair of its top marketing executives on leave.
Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, and Daniel Blake, group VP of marketing for mainstream brands, were both placed on a leave of absence.
A-B also appointed Todd Allen, VP of global marketing for Budweiser, to Heinerscheid’s former post as VP of Bud Light. He was to report directly to Benoit Garbe, A-B’s U.S. CMO.
However, this wouldn’t be the only leadership shakeup. Garbe’s resignation was announced in November, with his exit from the company coming at the end of the year.
Instead of backfilling Garbe’s role, A-B U.S. chief commercial officer Kyle Norrington took on oversight of A-B’s marketing, brand plans and portfolio strategy.
As the year came to a close, A-B’s attempted turnaround for the brand was focused on football (enlisting Peyton Manning, Emmit Smith, Travis Kelce and others), UFC and country music.
The most-read story of 2023 on Brewbound was the outset of the Bud Light boycott.
In the one-week period immediately following the beginning of the boycott (week ending April 8), packages of Bud Light showed accelerated sales and share declines, while Molson Coors’ competing light lager brands Coors Light and Miller Lite showed “a notable uptick” in sales and share, Bump Williams Consulting’s Dave Williams shared with Brewbound, citing NIQ data.
For the week ending April 8, Bud Light posted declines in off-premise dollar sales (nearly -7%), volume (-10.7%) and dollar share (-3.7%). By comparison, for the week ending April 1, Bud Light recorded declines in dollar sales (-1.6%), volume (-6.4%) and dollar share (-0.7%), according to NIQ data.
Those negative trends would accelerate in the months that followed, with double-digit declines becoming the norm. Off-premise dollar sales and volume of Bud Light were each down nearly 26% in the four-week period ending December 3 in Circana-tracked scans. Those trends were only slight improvements over the 12-week period in which dollars were down -26.6% and volume down -27.4% through December 3.
April 2024 is definitely circled on A-B’s internal calendars.