NBWA/Fintech Q1 2025 Report: Craft’s Long Tail Contracts, Hard Tea and Non-Alc Outpace 2024 Sales

The first quarter of 2025 was rocky for the beer industry, as National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) chief economist and VP of analytics Lester Jones reported last week.

Brewbound’s coverage of Jones’ presentation of quarterly data from bev-alc invoice tech platform Fintech continues with a deeper dive into craft, hard tea and non-alcoholic (NA) beer. To learn more about broader economic trends and segment share trends, revisit this story.

Editor’s note: Fintech data represents about one-third of all alcohol sales from wholesalers to retailers. It includes more than 1 million weekly invoices from 5,296 distributors and 257,929 retailers nationwide.

Craft’s Misleading Q1

Craft beer kicked off 2025 with significantly stronger weekly purchasing than 2024, according to Fintech data. But that growth only lasted for three weeks, and 2025 craft invoices have not surpassed 2024 since.

Craft was the largest share loser in both off- and on-premise accounts in the quarter, dropping 0.8% in each. The segment accounted for 10.1% of dollar sales in off-premise retailers, making it the fourth largest. Craft over-indexes in the on-premise, where it landed in third place with a 17.3% share.

The segment’s top 20 brand families accounted for 58.6% of weekly purchases both off- and on-premise in Q1, a 1.3% increase in share, taken from all other craft brands (41.4% share).

“That long tail is contracting a little bit as there’s probably a rush by retailers to the safety of the known brands,” Jones said. “That, I think, is going to be a story and a narrative going into 2025.”

After all other brands, No. 15 Molson Coors’ Leinenkugel’s was the largest share loser, dropping 0.4% year-over-year (YoY), to 1.3% share, followed by No. 4 Samuel Adams (-0.3% YoY, to 3.9%), No. 5 Bell’s (-0.3% YoY, to 3.4%) and No. 19 Tilray’s SweetWater (-0.2% YoY, to 1%).

No. 3 Sierra Nevada gained the most share, increasing 0.8% YoY, to 6.5%, followed by No. 2 Voodoo Ranger (+0.4% YoY, to 9%).

Other craft share gains were small, including:

No. 7 (tie) Heineken’s Lagunitas, +0.2% YoY, to 2.5%;
No. 9 Mahou’s Founders, +0.1% YoY, to 2.4%;
No. 10 (tie) Firestone Walker, +0.2% YoY, to 2.1%;
No. 12 Elysian, +0.1% YoY, to 1.8%;
No. 13 Sapporo’s Stone, +0.2% YoY, to 1.5%;
No. 14 Monster’s Cigar City, +0.2% YoY, to 1.4%;
No. 16 (tie) New Belgium core, +0.2% YoY, to 1.1%;
No. 16 (tie) Golden Road, +0.1% YoY, to 1.1%;
No. 16 (tie) A-B’s Wicked Weed, +0.1% YoY, to 1.1%;
And No. 19 (tie) Deschutes, +0.1% YoY, to 1%.

Three craft brands were flat: No. 6 Shiner (2.8% share), No. 7 Kona (2.5% share), No. 10 Goose Island (2.1% share).

Hard Tea Keeps Pace with 2024

Unlike most other segments in the category, retailers’ weekly purchases of hard tea in 2025 have slightly exceeded or met 2024 levels in Q1.

No. 1 Twisted Tea gained 4.2% share, to 81.5% of the segment – “the definition of dominance,” Fintech VP of distributor strategy Eric Kiser said. Ostensibly, those gains came at the expense of No. 2 Monster’s Nasty Beast, which lost 4.2% share points and landed at 4.9%, nearly halving the share gains attained in its launch year.

The rest of the top five hard tea brands each lost 0.1% in share:

No. 3 (tie) Hornell Brewing’s AriZona Hard Tea, 2.7% share;
No. 3 (tie) Molson Coors’ Arnold Palmer Spiked, 2.7% share;
No. 5 Voodoo Ranger Hardcharged Tea, 1.6% share.

No other brands in the top 20 reached 1% share.

Non-Alc Continues to Outpace 2024

Weekly purchases of NA beer have comfortably outpaced Q1 2024 in every week of 2025 so far. Michelob Ultra Zero launched in January and captured 7.5% share, making it the third-largest NA beer in off- and on-premise retailers.

No. 1 Heineken 0.0’s share declined 2.9%, to 21.9%, still nearly three times the share of the next largest brand, No. 2 Athletic Run Wild. However, dedicated NA brewer Athletic has five brands among the top 20 and their combined share is 21.7%.

They include: