BWC: Craft Beer Off-Premise Sales -7.1% Through 3 Quarters of 2021

Three quarters into 2021, craft beer dollar sales in off-premise retailers have declined -7.1% year-to-date through October 2 and that negative trend is mostly accelerating, according to a report from Bump Williams Consulting (BWC).

Craft beer dollar sales declined -12.7% in Q2 and improved slightly to -12.5% in Q3, but there have been “no major improvements since cycling COVID,” BWC wrote. For the most part, the first quarter of 2021 was cycling against a pre-pandemic period in which the on-premise trade was open and functioning normally.

Craft’s -7.1% decline nearly doubled the overall beer category (-3.4%).

Below are highlights from BWC’s report.

Hazy and Imperial/Double/Triple IPAs Dominate Craft Styles

In the overall craft segment, IPAs accounted for 42.9% of all off-premise dollar sales and gained 1.7 dollar sharepoints. All other styles lost share.

Within the IPA segment, hazy IPAs and imperial/double/triple IPAs are stealing share — +1.3 sharepoints and +1.1 sharepoints, respectively — from traditional IPAs (-0.8 sharepoints). Other styles gaining dollar share include American wheat (+0.3 sharepoints), American lager (+0.3 sharepoints), sour/American wild ale (+0.2 sharepoints), and wheat IPA (+0.1 sharepoints).

Craft styles that have increased dollar sales include hazy IPA (+11.7%, to $339.3 million), imperial/double/triple IPA (+8.8%, to $319.2 million), American wheat (+5.3%, to $107.3 million), sour/American wild ale (+7.7%, to $57.6 million), American lager (+18.7%, to $51.3 million), and wheat IPA (+3.1%, to $45.3 million).

The top three growth styles are hazy IPA, imperial/double/triple IPA, and low-/non-alcoholic beer. Combined, those styles have added nearly $900 million in off-premise sales to the craft segment.

New Belgium Boasts 3 of Top 6 Craft Growth Brands

New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger brand family accounts for three of the top six craft growth brands, with Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA at No. 1 (dollar sales +39.8%, to $91 million), the Voodoo Ranger Hoppy Variety Pack at No. 3 (+153%, to $20.6 million), and Voodoo Ranger Juicy Hazy IPA at No. 6 (+60.3%, to $27.5 million).

Other hazy and imperial/double/triple IPAs contributing growth to the craft segment include Sierra Nevada Big Little Thing Imperial IPA (new release, $15 million), Lagunitas Hazy Wonder IPA (+189.9%, to $9.4 million), SweetWater Hazy IPA (new release, $5 million), Elysian Full Contact Imperial IPA (new release, $3.9 million) and Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing (+4.6%, to $81.5 million). In addition to Sierra Nevada’s Big Little Thing and Hazy Little Thing, the brewery’s Dankful IPA also increased sales to $2.5 million.

Hazy IPAs and low-/non-alcoholic beer factored prominently among new craft brands, with SweetWater Hazy IPA at No. 2, Lagunitas IPNA Non-Alc IPA at No. 3, and Elysian Full Contact Imperial IPA at No. 4. Other new non-alc brands in the top 25 included Samuel Adams Just the Haze Non-Alc IPA at No. 10, and Athletic Brewing Free Wave Hazy Non-Alc IPA at No. 14.

Several variety packs — both new and older — are also contributing to growth, including the Blue Moon Share Pack (new product, $3.9 millon), Wicked Weed Hop Spectrum IPA variety pack (new product, $2.9 million), Hop Valley variety pack (+103.1%, to $5.4 million).

New Belgium, Firestone Walker and Hop Valley Only Craft Brand Families to Grow

Thus far in 2021, only the off-premise dollar sales of Lion Little World-owned New Belgium (+11.5%, to $265.6 million), Duvel USA-affiliated Firestone Walker (+0.1%, to $98.4 million) and Molson Coors-owned Hop Valley (+7.7%, to $37.1 million) among the top 25 craft brand families have remained in black, according to NielsenIQ data shared by BWC.

Some of the steepest declines in craft dollar sales are among brands in Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Brewers Collective:

  • Goose Island, -12%,
  • Golden Road, -12.9%,
  • Karbach, -17%,
  • Shock Top -32%.

Other Brewers Collective brands posted single-digit declines, including Elysian (-5%), Kona (-4.1%) and 10 Barrel (-3.6%).

The other Molson Coors-owned brands in the top 25 brand families recorded nearly identical declines — Blue Moon (-10.1%) and Leinenkugel’s (-9.9%). Hop Valley was elevated to a national brand in early 2021 and had a significant sales focus behind it, whereas other brands in the company’s Tenth and Blake division are regional.

The largest Brewers Association-defined craft breweries — those who produced fewer than 6 million barrels annually and not more than 25% owned by an entity that is not a craft brewer — also posted off-premise declines:

  • Sierra Nevada, -5.7%,
  • Boston Beer’s Samuel Adams, -6.6%,
  • Gambrinus’ Shiner, -7.5%,
  • Bell’s -5.7%,
  • Stone, -14%,
  • Deschutes, -7%,
  • Boston Beer’s Dogfish Head, -12%,
  • CANarchy’s Cigar City, -2.5%,
  • New Glarus, -5.1%,
  • Artisanal Brewing Ventures’ Victory, -2.5%.

New Belgium contributed the most growth of any brand family, followed by non-alc brewer Athletic (+435.9%, to $15.2 million), A-B-owned Wicked Weed (+43.9%, to $23.8 million), Lawson’s Finest Liquids (+44.9%, to $17.3 million), pFriem Family Brewers (+86.5%, to $7.6 million), Deschutes-owned Boneyard Beer (+184.6%, to $4.8 million), Hop Valley (+7.7%, to $37.1 million), Three Floyds (+23%, to $13.4 million) and Zero Gravity (+43%, to $7.3 million).

Overall, all classifications of craft beer brands have declined in 2021, but some have fared worse than others. Mainstream craft — which BWC defines as nationally distributed craft brands owned by A-B or Molson Coors, such as Blue Moon or Shock Top — have suffered the worst declines, “with collective dollar sales down over -12% vs. [year ago],” BWC wrote.

“Regional and ‘local’ craft are down to a similar degree vs. [year ago], whereas it is the national brands that have fared the ‘best’ among the tiers,” BWC wrote.

BWC defines “national” craft brands as Sam Adams, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas. “Regional” brands are brand families with category-wide distribution rates higher than 20%, such as Founders and Bell’s.

Cans Reach Nearly 60% Share of Craft Dollars

Cans continued to win out over bottles as consumers’ preferred package type, increasing share over glass by +5.2 points to 58.6%, according to BWC.

Dollar sales of bottles have declined -17.6% over the first three quarters of 2021, while cans’ dollar sales have increased +2%.

Six-packs of both bottles (-16.2%) and cans (-2.1%) have declined in dollar sales year-to-date. Dollar sales of 12-pack cans (+8.4%), 4-pack cans (+4.2%), 18-pack cans (+26.9%), and 19.2 oz. single-serve cans (+49.7%) increased.

Meanwhile, dollar sales of 12-pack bottles (-18.4%) and 15-pack cans (-8.9%) declined.