Hard seltzer has lost its fizz: canned cocktails are all the rage now

USA | After enjoying a boom during the pandemic for their convenience and ease, hard seltzers are fading. They are being replaced by pre-mixed canned cocktails, which are made with a spirit and not with brewed alcohol.

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RTDs may hike sales to USD 11.6 billion globally over next five years

USA | Analysts believe there will be no slow-down in the ready-to-drink (RTD) category. A new report from the IWSR, an analytics firm, forecasts that the category’s global value will increase by an additional USD 11.6 billion over the next five years. Value growth will outpace volume growth, the IWSR added.

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Forecasting types got hard seltzer’s growth wrong

USA | Boston Beer’s Chairman, Jim Koch, already hinted in February that first quarter 2022 beer sales would be tough. And indeed, January proved pretty rough. Taxpaid domestic beer shipments dropped 815 000 barrels (950 000 hl), or 6.2 percent over January 2021, estimated the Beer Institute. In February, shipments declined 5.8 percent over the same month 2021, which is a loss of 681 000 barrels (796 000 hl).

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Coca-Cola to launch a Fresca branded hard soda with Constellation Brands

Canada | It is pick’n chose for The Coca-Cola Company. Having partnered with Molson Coors for its Topo Chico hard seltzer, the beverage firm, in January 2022, said it has now chosen rival Constellation Brand to create a line of RTD cocktails under Coke’s Fresca soft drink brand. Slated to arrive some time this year, the drinks will be produced, marketed and distributed by Constellation.

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Boston Beer chucks millions of cases of Truly as sales slow

USA | It must have been a tough decision to take: Boston Beer, the maker of Truly hard seltzer, threw away excess stock, instead of discounting it. This was in response to a category-wide sales slowdown.

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Boston Beer to open a Truly taproom in Los Angeles next year

USA | Errr, will punters really seek out a destination taproom to drink hard seltzers? Boston Beer clearly thinks so. Truly LA, as this brick-and-mortar taproom is called, will open next year in Downtown Los Angeles. It will seat 350 persons indoors and outdoors.

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Sooner than expected hard seltzer sales fizzle

USA |Hard seltzer’s slumping summer sales have sent waves of concern across the beverage industry. The slowdown started with consumers’ return to the on-premise and has only gotten worse as the summer has worn on.

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Boston Beer ties up with Pepsi to resurrect hard soda

USA | Pundits are shaking their heads. Why would Boston Beer together with PepsiCo launch an alcoholic soda under the banner of Pepsi’s brand Mountain Dew? Don’t they remember that only a few years ago hard sodas were a “boom-splat phenomenon” (Jim Koch) that faded as quickly as it arrived?

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Molson Coors to sunset eleven economy brands

USA | Budget tipplers beware: Brewers and drinks companies want you to trade up. The number two brewer in the US, Molson Coors, said on 30 July 2021 that it will slash 11 economy brands from its portfolio, representing about 100 SKUs.

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Coca-Cola explores alcohol segment with hard seltzer

USA | There were three takeaways from Coca-Cola’s strong second quarter 2021, when net turnover grew 42 percent to USD 10 billion: The on-premise, which was pummelled last year, has rebounded. Its core brands performed strongly and its efficient distribution networks played an important role.

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Boston Beer: Has the hard seltzer boom gone flat?

USA | Boston Beer’s investors are given to violent mood swings. After hitting record stock prices on high hopes for hard seltzers, Boston Beer’s shares dropped 18 percent on 22 July 2021, following the release of the brewer’s second quarter results, which fell short of analysts’ expectations, and the company admitted it had “overestimated the growth of the hard seltzer category”.

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BrewDog et al slammed by watchdog over hard seltzer claims

United Kingdom | BrewDog is in hot water with the advertise watchdog again, this time over misleading nutritional claims for its Clean & Press hard seltzer. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), on 7 July, took objections to hard seltzer ads which appeared between December 2020 and January 2021, including BrewDog’s Clean & Press range, London-based brand Drty Drinks, and Wild Drinks Group’s Whisp.

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Molson Coors kills off its Coors Seltzer

USA | Touting “Drink A Seltzer and Help Save a River” was not enough to sway consumers. As hard seltzer sales move into the crucial summer season, Coors Seltzer is getting out of the game.

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Former AB-InBev CEO Brito warns: novel drinks a danger to beer

USA | AB-InBev’s new guard, CEO Michel Doukeris and North America chief Brendan Whitworth, have their work cut out. In his farewell interview with the Financial Times (FT) newspaper, on 4 July 2021, former CEO Carlos Brito, who stepped down at the end of June, said that the age of megadeals is over. This, analysts said, will put more pressure on AB-InBev to build brands and grow organically, although its scale has sometimes stood in the way of agility.

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Jim Koch of Boston Beer has high hopes for hard seltzers

USA | It was kind of unsettling to hear Jim Koch, the founder of Boston Beer, only talk about hard seltzers at the US industry gathering, the Beverage Forum, which was held in May. Is beer on the way out, and its continued decline taken for granted, that everybody is painting the future of hard seltzers and a host of Alternative Adult Beverages in glowing hues?

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Hard seltzers in Europe: will they fly?

Belgium | They have been a long time in coming and the covid pandemic certainly delayed rollout plans, but finally hard seltzers, which are an alcoholic drink containing sparkling water and fruit flavour, are hitting Europe’s shelves.

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Hard seltzers – a gift to the brewing industry

USA | Hard seltzers are among the fastest-growing categories within the beer, spirits and wine category, and should continue growing in the double digits this year, AB-InBev’s North American chief Michel Doukeris said on 17 March 2021 on CNBC.

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Diageo buys maker of Texan Lone River ranch water

USA | Good grief – what is ranch water? By all accounts it is a hard seltzer that takes its inspiration from a popular Texan highball cocktail, which is mixed with lime juice, tequila, and Topo Chico, a brand of sparkling mineral water from Mexico.

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Boston Beer buoyed by hard seltzer sales

USA | The growth rates are still staggering: Boston Beer said that the US hard seltzer category constituted about 7 percent of domestic beer consumption in 2020, having grown approximately 160 percent over 2019.

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AB-InBev drags Constellation to court over use of Corona name

USA | Grupo Modelo, the Mexican arm of AB-InBev, has accused Constellation Brands in a lawsuit of breaching a deal on the use of the Corona brand name by applying it to a product other than beer, it was reported in February 2021.

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US beer sales in 2020 almost unaffected by covid-19

USA | The NBWA, the beer distributors’ industry body, says that Americans were consuming virtually the same volume of beer in a year-over-year analysis. But within the segment there have been remarkable shifts.

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Omega Yeast launches yeast nutrient for brewing hard seltzers

Hard Seltzer | Omega Yeast®, known for custom propped liquid yeast pitches, announces the November release of Propper Seltzer™, a yeast nutrient for non-malt, sugar-based fermentation. Propper Seltzer nutrient is compatible with any strain of yeast including beer yeast, champagne yeast, wine yeast and distillers yeast, and was designed to make things easier for brewers looking to create their own hard seltzer.

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Carlsberg to push into non-booze segment

Denmark | Due to consumers’ growing predilection for all things healthy and nice, Carlsberg seeks to expand its range of non-alcoholic drinks and hard seltzers.

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Europe’s brewers to expand beyond the beer shelf

Europe | The concept of “total beverage company” is having a comeback. There was a time when only Foster’s and SABMiller styled themselves such. Now the idea is proving attractive again.

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Coke and Molson Coors partner to launch Coke’s Topo Chico hard seltzer

USA | Fearful to renege on their words that alcohol shall not touch their lips in the US, Coke struck an agreement with Molson Coors to manufacture, market and distribute Coca-Cola’s Topo Chico hard seltzer brand for them.