Beer Marketer's Insights - NA Craft Beer +102% to $69 Mil for 52 Wks in Nielsen, 20.5 Share and Countin'; Bigger Than NA Wine & Spirits Combined

Athletic Brewing and a growing number of other craft entrants are fueling non-alc craft beer to new levels, latest Nielsen report on total NA beer, wine & spirits shows. While NA beer sales grew 19.5% to $337 mil for latest 52 wks thru Aug 20, craft NA beer jumped 102% to $69 mil for period. So craft snagged additional 8.4 share of total NA beer $$ to 20.5. Close to double craft's share of overall beer category. Got 63% of NA beer growth, too. That's on top of previous 52-wk period where craft NAs soared 288% vs total NAs up 34%. Leading non-alc subsegments, imports and below premium, losing most share of NAs as they slowed to +6.5% and -9% respectively for latest 52 wks. Imports shed over 4 share to 33.4 of total NA beer $$ and below premium shed near 8 share to 24.4. Craft NAs still dominated by main player, Athletic, which surpassed Busch to become 4th-largest NA beer brand overall for 52 wks. (#3 player ahead of O'Douls in more recent periods, only behind Heineken 0.0 and Bud Zero; 22nd-largest overall beer supplier and 15th-largest craft supplier by $$ in separate IRI foodstore dataset - see Sep 6 issue.) Top-5 non-alc beers make up 70% of total NA beer sales for 52 wks. But all other NA brands outside of top-5 gaining ground within NA landscape as well, including several craft brands plus AB's Stella Liberte (counted in Nielsen data as superpremium NA now that it's made in US). Sam Adams Just the Haze non-alc IPA and Lagunitas NAs (IPNA and Hoppy Refresher) were top-5 growth brands in NA beer behind Athletic, Bud Zero and Heineken 0.0 for 52 wks. Meanwhile, total NA beer, wine and spirits sales collectively grew nearly 21% to $395.2 mil for 52 wks. Still just 0.4 share of total alc bev $$. NA beer represents a whopping 85.3% of total NA sales in tracked Nielsen channels for 52 wks thru Aug 20, even as NA wine and spirits gained some ground to 13.4% and 1.3% respectively. In fact, NA craft beer is bigger than NA wine and NA spirits categories combined, making up 17% of total beer, wine & spirits NAs. Yet more NA brands and SKUs continue to enter the fold across the board. There were 72 new SKUs tracked over latest 52 wks, including 37 new NA beer SKUs, 17 NA wines and 18 NA spirits. Those numbers poised to grow further with pending launches from more existing craft brewers, among others. NA brand loyalty is "relatively low" vs broader beer, wine & spirits, Nielsen survey data shows, perhaps suggesting more room for more brands too.

NA Craft Beer +102% to $69 Mil for 52 Wks in Nielsen, 20.5 Share and Countin'; Bigger Than NA Wine & Spirits Combined

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