2024 US beer trends: Mexican imports, flavoured beverages, non-alcoholic options

USA | Observers say Constellation Brands and Molson Coors will be jostling to gain more market share in 2024, while AB-InBev, the maker of Bud Light, will attempt a comeback.

Teamsters at AB-InBev’s 12 US breweries vote to authorise a strike

USA | Shortly before Christmas, 99 percent of AB-InBev’s 5,000 Teamsters members voted to authorise a strike, if the brewer does not offer a “strong new contract” before the current agreement expires on 29 February 2024.

USA | After a tumultuous 2023 for Bud Light, Benoit Garbe, the chief marketing officer of Anheuser-Busch, will resign at the end of the year. He will not be directly replaced. Instead, US chief commercial officer Kyle Norrington will oversee marketing for the country moving forward.

USA | Trumer Brewery, one of the few US craft breweries to brew European style pilsner beers exclusively, opened its first fully-fledged taproom this autumn, with a beer garden and pilot system producing lagers, including a schwarzbier and both highly hopped and unfiltered pilsners.

USA | After two decades as the top-selling beer in America, Bud light lost its title this year. Modelo Especial took over as the most popular beer tracked in retail channels. Everyone had a view why Bud Light was relegated to second place. But hardly anyone put it down to fundamental changes in consumer perceptions and the beer price architecture.

USA | Rap mogul Sean Combs sued Diageo again on 27 October in the New York Supreme Court, this time for “unlawful retaliation by a powerful international corporation”.

USA | Amongst all the consumer excitement about Boston Beer releasing its super-strong (28% ABV) and super-expensive (USD 240 per bottle) Samuel Adams Utopias beer this month, only analysts took note that the firm again booked an impairment charge related to Dogfish Head, the craft brewer it acquired in 2019.

USA | AB-InBev wants Bud Light to go back to being the beer men drink while watching football or having a barbecue. As the brewer tries to reverse a slump in Bud Light sales, its American unit, Anheuser-Busch, signed the biggest-ever sponsorship deal in the history of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to become the brand's official beer.

USA | It’s a worry. In recent weeks the share prices of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, and Constellation Brands, as well as of retailers like Walmart and Costco, have fallen. This came after anonymised data by Walmart had shown that US shoppers, who bought weight-loss drugs, also purchased less food.

USA | The property that for 44 years has housed San Francisco’s historic Anchor Brewery’s “steam beer” plant in Potrero Hill officially hit the market on 12 October.