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Scans are in thru Jul 4 holiday weekend and they’re nothin’ to write home about during the summer’s most important holiday period, even with a World Cup bump. Beer $$ down more than 2% with volume off nearly 4% for 2-wk stretch thru Jul 5 vs yr ago in Circana multi-outlet + convenience data. That includes $$ down 1.1%, volume down 2.4% for latest wk. Relatively disappointing but an okay outcome considering “the weather damped many celebrations” across the country, especially in the Midwest and Northeast, Circana bev alc veep Scott Scanlon pointed out. Yet the combo of better beer trends on-premise, healthy avg price increases, and continued strength in RTD wine & spirits paint a much prettier picture for the industry overall during this period. Beer + RTDs Down Just 0.5%; Wine & Spirit RTDs Up to 9 Share of Broader Category Indeed, beer + RTD $$ were down just 0.5% for last 2 wks in MULC, almost 2 full pts better with wine & spirit RTDs collectively up more than 20% for period. Wine & spirits RTDs accounted for a whopping 9 share of $$ in this broader category, up 1.6 pts vs yr ago. Even as High Noon sales dipped low-double-digits, it was the best-selling RTD in MULC channels and ranked #11 beer + RTD fam overall by $$. Surfside, Cutwater and Sun Cruiser posted the #2-4 largest $$ gains in alc bevs, behind only Michelob in this dataset, as Surfside and Sun Cruiser more than doubled and Cutwater grew nearly 90% for 2 wks. And nearly all other top RTD fams grew including BuzzBallz and Carbliss $$ up more than 20%, BeatBox, NUTRL, Monaco and On the Rocks up low-double-digits, Big Sipz up high-singles and Long Drink up mid-singles.On-Prem Beer STRs Up 11.5% Nationally for Week Thru Jul 4; +6% for Last 4 Wks Then too, on-prem beer depletions grew an eye-popping 11.5% nationally for the latest week thru Jul 4, Beer Inst chief economist Andrew Heritage shared with INSIGHTS. While that includes a major boost in World Cup host states, +17%, non-host states were up 7% on-prem as well. That put on-prem beer STRs up 6% nationally for the last 4 wks thru Jul 4 including +14% in host mkts, +2% in non-host states. This “sustained impact” on-premise has reinforced beer’s place as the “top choice” for all kinds of social occasions, Andrew underscored. Imports have consistently been the top segment gainer in BeerBoard’s tracked on-prem accounts, led by import draft volume up ~20%, fueled by Pacifico, Guinness, Modelo Especial, Corona Premier, and Corona Extra all gaining share. Yet Mich Ultra continues to post the top brand share gain by far.Constellation Posted Top Beer Gain, AB Posted Top Alc Bev Gain in Scans In off-prem scans, Constellation was the biggest gainer in the beer/FMB/cider category for 2 wks thru Jul 5. Its top 4 brand fams, which make up 99% of its portfolio, collectively grew more than 2% by $$, +0.9 share of beer. Modelo fam grew 2%, Pacifico sales rose more than 20% and Victoria was up more than 30%, offsetting Corona fam’s 2% dip. STZ portfolio single-handedly lifted import beer segment $$ up 1%, +0.9 share of total beer for period. Imports outsold next largest segment domestic premium (-5%) by more than $100 mil for this 2-wk stretch, putting it nearly 5 $$ share pts ahead at 26.4.AB’s top 10 beer fams were flattish by $$ with volume down nearly 2%, still managing to snag an additional 0.65-0.7 share for 2 wks, leading AB to the 2d largest share gain of any beer co. Michelob continues to post the largest individual brand family gain with $$ up 7% before including Mich Ultra Zero family’s near 80% growth. Busch family continued to grow and gain share thru the holiday. And AB’s fast-growing RTDs put co’s top alc bev brand families up 2% by $$, posting the largest $$ growth of any alc bev supplier for period.MC Top Fams Down Most Among Top Alc Bev Cos; Coors, High Life, Topo Chico Fams Gained Share Molson Coors’ top fams collectively declined almost 4% by $$, and trend improved just slightly (0.2 pts) including Monaco wine & spirits RTDs. Suggests MC posted the largest $$ decline among top alc bevs cos. Tho Boston Beer posted the steepest beer/malt loss. Coors family and Miller High Life fam each managed to gain share for latest 2 wks despite slight sales declines. And Topo Chico Hard remained healthy, up 7%. But Miller Lite and Keystone fams each slipped 6%, Icehouse was -7%, Milwaukee’s Best -11% and Blue Moon $$ dropped nearly 17%, the latter now lapping last year’s launch of Blue Moon Extra among other factors.Hard Seltzer’s Early-Yr Growth Evaporated; FMBs in Freefall Despite Some Healthy Trends Among Top Fams Early this year, hard seltzer segment was posting solid growth, and as recently as mid Jun, its $$ were still slightly up and gaining share of total beer in Circana MULC data. But the script flipped in Q2 and beyond, spilling over thru key July 4 weekend. Hard seltzer sales slipped 6% and shed 0.3 share pts for 2 wks thru Jul 5. Lead brand fam White Claw declined slightly while Truly sales sank more than 20%, putting 4/5 of the segment collectively down 5%. All other seltzer fams are down nearly 10% even as Topo Chico Hard and Happy Dad are growin’ lately, tho mostly thru their more flavor-forward FMB styles. Altogether, hard seltzer sales are now down for the year.But FMBs remain even more challenged lately with $$ sales off nearly 10% for latest 2 wks thru Jul 5 in MULC. FMBs shed 0.9 share of total beer $$, the largest share loss of any beer segment during key Jul 4 holiday. That’s even as a handful of top FMB fams posted healthy trends including Smirnoff Ice up 2%, Clubtails and Four Loko $$ up low-double-digits, Cayman Jack up slightly and Mike’s Harder down just 1.6%. But lead fam Twisted Tea slipped 12% for 2 wks vs yr ago, softening by 2X compared to YTD thru Jun 14. Notably, Sun Cruiser’s triple-digit growth was still able to offset Twisted’s $$ loss, but just barely, collectively eking out a 0.1% gain for 2 wks. Other top FMBs, Mike’s Hard and Seagram’s Escapes were each down more than 20% for 2 wks. And all other FMBs were collectively down 18%.Top 3 NA Beer Fams All Grew Double-Digits; Mich Ultra Zero Fam Bigger than Heineken 0.0 Fastest trending beer segment all year, non-alc beer, saw share gain accelerate during this 2-wk period thru July 4 weekend, fueled by each of the top 3 brand fams posting strong gains. Non-alc beer grew 16.5% and snagged an additional ~0.3 share of beer $$ to almost 1.7 share for 2 wks thru Jul 5. Category’s been up ~0.2 share pts and hovering between 1.5-1.6 share for the yr. It was particularly notable to see Heineken 0.0 family $$ rise up 11% for this period vs slight decline for the year. And yet, Michelob Ultra Zero family $$ officially surpassed Heineken NAs to become the 2d largest non-alc beer fam in natl scans as its $$ rose nearly 80% for 2 wks. Mich Ultra Zero fam leapt to 16.5 share of NA beer $$, up almost 6 pts on its own. Yet Athletic still led the category as #1 fam with $$ sales up 13% and category share down to 20.8 for 2 wks. Each of the top 3 NA beer fams still gained solid share of total beer, as did all other NA beer fams collectively (+7%).

Beer Posted Lackluster 2-Wks Thru Jul 4 Holiday in Scans; Healthier Picture Overall with RTD Growth, On-Prem Boost

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