A heat wave is hitting liquor shelves as spirit brands and ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails aim to spice up sales with new fruit and hot pepper-driven flavors.

U.S. brewers shipped more beer this March, with domestic tax paid shipments increasing 0.7% year-over-year (YoY), to 12.5 million barrels of beer, the Beer Institute reported, citing domestic tax paid estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

Weak alcohol sales dragged on Monster Beverage in Q1, part of a confluence of factors that saw net sales drop 2.3% during the quarter.

Anheuser-Busch (A-B) InBev recorded mid-single-digit losses in revenue (-5.1%), shipments (-6.7%) and depletions (-5.4%) in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2025, the company reported Thursday.

What’s the best route from online to on-shelf sales? For many intoxicating hemp brands, the solution appears to be finding space with beer and liquor distributors. Having leveraged DTC distribution to meet the unique needs of the category, hemp brands are now considering how to marry online sales with the larger opportunity within beverage-alcohol retail.

The results of Molson Coors’ Q1 in fiscal year 2025 (FY25) were in stark contrast to the first quarter of 2024. Q1 net sales declined 11.3% year-over-year (-10.4% on a constant currency basis), the company reported Thursday morning. A year ago, Molson Coors reported 10.7% YoY (+10.1% in constant currency) net sales growth in Q1.

Brewers Association (BA) president and CEO Bart Watson entered the Brewbound Podcast studio last week fresh off stage from giving his State of the Industry speech at the 2025 Craft Brewers Conference (CBC).

Not that long ago, the idea of buying cannabis online – especially in a drinkable format – would have seemed like an unlikely pipe dream. Now, order-by-mail has become a primary mechanism for distributing intoxicating hemp beverages.

Despite recent headwinds, craft beer continues to have the largest share of beer sales at Total Wine & More stores. But “it won’t stay that way” if industry trends continue, according to the chain retailer’s senior director, merchandising, Andrea Starr.

In this exclusive quarterly deep dive curated for Brewbound Insiders, 3Tier Beverages breaks down the latest trends shaking up the beverage industry.

The craft segment’s dollar sales and volume declines have accelerated to start the second quarter, traditionally the lead-up to beer’s all important summer selling season, according to the most recent off-premise report from market research firm Circana.

Ball Corp. chairman and CEO Daniel W. Fisher has once again called on major beer manufacturers to deploy “more aggressive pricing” strategies to “push volume,” suggesting those strategies have worked for energy drink companies and other non-alcoholic (NA) beverage producers.

Under new leadership for the first time in more than a decade, the Brewers Association (BA) is “relentlessly focused on members and what their needs are,” CEO and president Bart Watson said last week.

The U.S. beer industry generated $470.96 billion in economic output in 2024, holding 1.58% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the biennial Beer Serves America study commissioned by the Beer Institute (BI) and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).