Beer continued to outpace other beverage-alcohol categories in Consumer Price Index (CPI) increases to start the year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) January 2025 report.
Overall inflation increased +3% year-over-year (YoY), which the CPI for beer away from home outpaced by a small margin, at +3.1% – the largest increase across all bev-alc both at home and away.
Beer at home increased +1.8%, well under the overall inflation rate. The gap in CPI increases between beer at home and all items (-1.2%) is wider than any delta recorded between the two metrics in 2024.
The CPI for beer at home outpaced overall inflation for four straight months in 2024 (June through September). Of note, volume declines recorded by the Beer Institute (BI) in those same months accounted for 87% of 2024’s YoY losses, according to the trade group.
Beer outpaced total bev-alc and other bev-alc categories both at home and away in January. Overall, total bev-alc increased +1.4% YoY in the month.
The CPI for total bev-alc at home increased +0.8%, on par with spirits at home. Wine at home was the only bev-alc metric to post a decline in CPI (-0.2%).
When compared to December 2024, the CPI for beer at home was flat (0.0%), the lowest month-over-month (MoM) figure. Total bev-alc (+0.4%), spirits at home (+0.5%) and wine at home (+0.6%) all outpaced it.
Away from home, beer led the category at +3.1% YoY, slightly outpacing overall inflation, followed by spirits away from home (+2.4%), overall bev-alc away from home (+2.1%) and wine away from home (+1.3%).
Spirits away from home recorded the largest MoM increase in CPI across the industry at +1.1%, followed by total bev-alc (+0.3%), beer (+0.2%) and wine (+1.1%).
For the first four weeks of 2025, all segments but one in the overall beer category have increased case prices YoY, according to market research firm Circana. The average price of a case of overall beer has increased +$0.63, to $30.56, for the four-week period ending January 26.
Domestic super premium’s average price per case declined -$0.02, to $30.28.
Non-alcoholic beer took the largest price increase at +$1.15, to $36.72 per case, followed by hard seltzer (+$1.11, to $40.62 per case), assorted (+$1.04, to $47.79 per case), hard cider (+$0.80, to $48.99 per case), craft (+$0.67, to $44.12 per case), imports (+$0.67, to $37.43 per case), flavored malt beverages (+$0.55, to $41.46 per case), domestic sub premiums (+$0.45, to $19.82 per case) and domestic premiums (+$0.39, to $24.98 per case).