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While tuff times continue across most alc bevs, yesterday's 3-Tier Beverage Thought Leadership Seminar showcased some bright spots like RTDs, domestic super premiums (read: Mich Ultra), NA beers and ciders. Current consumer choices influenced by wellness trends and wallet tightening, 3-Tier's Tim Oldread and Devon Hevener pointed out, utilizing NIQ data backing this up. All Aboard the RTD Rocket Ship While NIQ-tracked $$ sales were down single-digits across spirits, wine and beer over the last 52 wks, spirits vols were up 3.3%, buoyed by 24-25% gains from RTDs in both $$ and vol over the same period. RTDs also increased their share of spirits sales by 2.6 pts to 12.7 total. Whiskey is still the top dog in spirits at 32.5 share but lost 1.2 pts in what Tim called a "tough moment," while RTDs continue to approach tequila, which is at 16.6 share and lost 0.2 pts over the last yr. Gotta note tho that while wine-based cocktails had similar $$ and vol growth #s - 25% and 21.1%, respectively - the wine category still declined 4.2% and 4.9% in both metrics. Which means traditional wine still takin' it on the chin.Only 2 beer-labeled categories grew over the last 52 wks thru Apr 18: the aforementioned super premium and, on drastically smaller volume, cider, each up around 3% for the period. Notably, local cideries have dramatically increased share since 2018, when they were 33% of the biz. Now it's up to 57%. Those categories grew share by 0.7 pts and 0.1 share, respectively, as did imports (+0.4) and below premium (+0.1) despite low-single-digit losses in overall sales. The gains for domestic super premium and imports have come almost entirely from craft, domestic premiums and FMBs, 3-Tier showed.The "Barbell" Effect: Growth in No/Low ABV and High-ABV While mid-strength beer, defined as between 4-6.9% ABV, still makes up the vast majority of $$ at 85.1 share, that number is down 4.2 pts as growth coming in what New Trail dir of sales Jon Hoey called the "barbell" categories of no/low ABV on one end and high-ABV on the other. Beers between 0-0.5% grew 13% to 1.5 share of beer overall, while those at 7%-ABV or above grew 11.6% to 9.8 share. By far the biggest loser in the category was catch-all "assorted" segment, which fell 15.4% to 1 share. In craft, the ratios change dramatically, with mid-strength at 51.5 share, high-ABV at a whopping 35.3 share and no/low ABV at 4.9 share.Among pk sizes, single-serves are the only meaningful gainers, up 1% for total beer and 4.1% for craft, with 19.2oz leading the way on both, up 15% for total beer and 11% in craft. Meanwhile, can $$ sales fell 2.1% for total beer compared with a 6.2% drop for bottles, a discrepancy that was considerably larger in craft, where can $$ sales fell a comparable 2.5% but bottles were down 12.3%.Mich Ultra/Ultra Zero, New Belgium Increase Share; Blue Moon Struggles It's not surprising that Mich Ultra is driving super premium gains, but it's a standout in NA as well, where Mich Ultra Zero, with $91 mil in sales, is now the third-largest NA brand family behind Athletic ($156 mil) and Heineken ($121 mil) for 52 wks (it's already #2 in 2026 scans YTD). Ultra Zero is 6x larger than it was at this time last year, which "signals a platform shift &mdash; not a product launch," per the presentation deck. "NA beer has graduated from niche to channel." With Ultra leading, super premium NAs were up 160% in $$ sales YoY, but craft and import NAs also grew 6% and 10%, respectively. The category as a whole logged $842 mil over the last 52 wks, up nearly 14% vs last yr and 40% over last 2 yrs.In craft, New Belgium is the $$ share leader at 10.2 share, up 0.5 pts from last yr, followed by Sierra Nevada at 7.2, up 0.3 pts. Other notable share gainers included Goose Island and Elysian, both having picked up around a quarter of a point. And while smaller bizzes are showing some nice $$ growth, led by Fiddlehead at +$2.67 mil, with Boneyard, Fort George and pFriem all up more than $2 mil, the losses on the flip side are literally 10x as large, with Blue Moon losing $26.1 mil, followed by Shiner, recently sold Stone and Sam Adams, all down ~$15 mil.

RTDs, Mich Ultra Family Biggest Bright Industry Spots Over 52 Wks, Sez 3-Tier; "Barbell" Growth With Both NA and High-ABV Gains; Local Cider Nearly Doubled Share Since 2018

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