Welcome to Brewbound’s Inside Look at the Beer Business for the week that was … Saturday, August 3, 2024.

Who says endorsements are just for athletes? 

Kudos to the MOLSON corporation for finding a creative way to work beer into Olympics sponsorship! 🍻

And more importantly, a congratulations to the parents of 9 Canadian Olympians who are now getting a 💰, TV time and most importantly – free beer (😱) as part of their new endorsement contracts during the Paris games.

See, mom and dad? All of those early alarms to take the kids to swim practice for years really do pay off in the end.

THEN: When L4W data (ending July 14) from CIRCANA puts craft beer sales at -4.8% and volume -6.4%, and that’s good news … that about says it all for the state of the business (L4W for the previous 4-week period was -5.2% and -6.8%, respectively).

AND: Former BARSTOOL CEO Erika Ayers Badan will keynote the NBWA convention in San Diego this fall (she is now the CEO at FOOD52). 

OH: While BUD LIGHT’s woes of falling to #3 in sales have gotten headlines of late (more data below in the A-B earnings report breakdown), it’s certainly worth noting that BL still leads in volume by case share … for now:

• BUD LIGHT: 9.07 share (-1.71 points YTD)
• MODELO ESPECIAL: 7.81 share (+0.91 points YTD)
• MICH ULTRA: 7.69 share (+0.38 points YTD)

BTW: Total bev-alc volume has now been in the red each week for the last 25 weeks.

GET A ROOM!: The discounted room block for BREWBOUND Live at the Marina del Rey Marriott Hotel in December is now open! If you get the room next to Zoe, no complaints are allowed about any Narty activity – ya know, a party at night. Or I guess that’s really just a party. Either way, Zoe says book next to Justin if you prefer to hear white noise coming from someone’s room.

PITCH AWAY!: Applications to compete in this year’s Pitch Slam competition are also now open through September 30th here.

The event is returning to Marina del Rey, CA, on Dec. 11 & 12 for 2 days of insightful conversations and analysis, plus top-notch industry networking opportunities. You can register now here!

Confirmed speakers include:

• Mary Mills, consultant for 3 Tier Beverages;
• Arthur Moye, owner and CEO of FULL CIRCLE Brewing;
• Kaleigh Theriault, director of thought leadership, beverage alcohol vertical at NIQ;
• Brian “BK” Krueger, VP of business development and portfolio strategies at Bump Williams Consulting;
• Natalie Cilurzo, RUSSIAN RIVER co-owner;
• Peter Skrbek, CEO Deschutes Brewery;
• Lester Jones, NBWA chief economist and VP of analytics; 
• Jennifer Hauke, DRAFTLINE TECHNOLOGIES founder and president; 
• Rebecca Maisel, GULF DISTRIBUTING SVP of legal and government affairs 

PLUS: Beer and other bev-alcohol brands can participate in retailer one-to-ones. Leaders from WHOLE FOODS and other businesses will be available for private, pre-scheduled meetings. Brands will be selected at each retailer’s discretion. REGISTER HERE.

See, now there’s a positive item! Granted, perhaps that’s just because wholesalers got more conservative in their orders due to too much stock on hand last year … but let’s just stick with they’re ordering more beer.

As always – above 50 means they intend to order more of a category in the month ahead, and under 50 means order less.

Total beer was a very healthy 59 (+5 points from June 2023), and every category had gains over 2023! What’s that? Except craft beer? See – this is why we can’t have nice things.

Craft was once again well in the basement at a 30 😩 (-9 points from last July), but more noteworthy was Below Premium:

• Last July: 39
• This July: 62, its highest number since May 2020 🤯
• Last month it was 54, May was 50

Don’t worry, I’m sure the economy is fine 😳.

MOTHER EARTH BREWING CO

Western Regional Sales Director – Nampa, ID

21ST AMENDMENT BREWERY

Plant Manager – San Leandro, CA

ALASKAN BREWING CO

So … they’re better than Q2 a year ago! So that’s something (at least based on % losses). But yeah that’s all I got.

• U.S. Shipments (sales to wholesalers): -2.7%
• U.S. Depletions (sales to retailers):  -4.1%
• U.S. Revenue: -0.6%
• North America volume: -3.9% (for A-B’s own beer)

North America is now A-B’s smallest global region (Europe surpassed it in Q2 – #ThanksBL), and represents about 15.5% of A-B’s total global volume.

Thus globally, it’s a different story for A-B in Q2:

• Revenue: +2.7% ($15.3 billion)
• Profit: +25% ($1.8 billion)
• Volume: -0.8%

The company had $28 million in layoff costs in Q2, and $62 million in impairment charges.

Err, for the American people, not for himself (although I’m sure he’d take it ... and if not, I'll take it), but I’ll get to that in a sec. 

Global BALL shipments were +2.8% in Q2 YoY, a nice sign, with $158 million in net earnings, also nice, but a net loss of -$78 million after taxes . . . not nice.

PLUS: Total sales were -4% to $1.47 billion, broken down as such:

• North American sales were down about -$70 million ($1.47 billion to $1.54 billion a year ago).
• EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) sales were -$40 million to $880 million
• South America was the bright spot, +$17 million to $422 million

AND: Ball CEO and chair Daniel Fisher called for U.S. light beer producers to lower prices to increase volume and help out the larger beer biz revenue picture that the category is facing. A move which coincidentally would also require more cans, but that’s not important right now.

Thankfully for Daniel – according to those BPI numbers, Americans are trading down to lower priced beer already! And hey – all beer needs cans.

Then again, when you own as many breweries as TILRAY now does … that’s probably a good thing. Bev-alc was 33% of total TILRAY revenue in Q2, a little under 2x vs. a year ago / before A-B deal. Other businesses are weed, distribution and wellness brands.

YoY comps are wonky since TILRAY didn’t own the A-B breweries in Q2 ‘23, so here are some Q2 ‘24 revenue & profit numbers, which are nice:

• Bev-alc net revenue: $76.7 million
• Bev-alc net profit: $40.8 million

Zoe has ya covered here on specifics with the status on various brands in the TILRAY portfolio.

Sadly, the same growth was not seen in my hair, but that’s far less of a surprise. Here’s what the HEINEKEN folks shared:

• Revenue: +2.2% ($19.3 billion)
• Volume: +1.7%
• HEINEKEN global volume: +9.2%

The HEINEKEN USA however … was a different story:

• Net Revenue: low single-digit decline
• Depletions: low single-digit decline

Yeah, having your first down year since the pandemic is never a great sign, with net sales registering -1.4% for FY24 (volume -3.5%).

LATAM was the big culprit, with sales -21%.

Just a sampling across categories:

• Tequila -5% (CASAMIGOS -22%)
• Vodka -8% (CIROC -28%)

BUT: GUINNESS is doing great, as total DIAGEO net beer sales were +18%, with GUINNESS 0.0 more than doubling its sales in Europe.

The BREWBOUND duo (Jess has a “Life is Beachin’” sign up at her office) discuss the insights from all of the 2024 halfway mark reports last week.

PLUS: A breakdown of the TILRAY and BOSTON BEER Q2 earnings reports, including a lot of TRULY and TWISTED talk, plus a little hope for podcast favorite … SHOCK TOP! Oh, then Justin drinks beer with pirates (or something to that effect).

Listen Here!

• Kudos to MOLSON COORS for winning beer’s annual distributor popularity contest, aka the TAMARRON CONSULTING Brewer Partnership Compass survey, asking 171 distributors whom is best to work with (BOSTON BEER and CONSTELLATION took 2nd and 3rd). 
• BOSTON BEER added two new board members – Biz Stone, a co-founder of TWITTER and MEDIUM, and Joe Jordan, president of DOMINO’S. 

This week’s beer is going out to the best new job opening ever! Official beer taster! Finally! I knew all that hard work would pay off if I just waited long enough.

So, who’s it for? ALDI? Ya know what, I’m just gonna keep this week’s definitely non-ALDI beer to myself.

Slainté!  

-Sean McNulty