Beer continues to wet the whistles of American consumers.
As adults across the country raise a glass of their favorite malt beverage to celebrate, total retail sales and other figures are something else to celebrate, according to recent Nielsen data including:
- Retail beer sales totaled more than $34 billion in the last year.
- Beer, cider and flavored malt beverages posted sales growth of 2% in the last year, a 2% dip from the 4% growth rate seen two years ago.
- For perspective, Americans spent a little more than one-third as much ($12.5 billion) on bottled water.
- Americans have remained consistent in their beer consumption over the past five years, buying about 1.5 billion cases of beer per year.
- According to a recent Nielsen Homescan Generations study, beer share loss totaled 2.1% among Millennials, 4.7% among Gen X and 2.7% among Baby Boomers.
- Dollar sales growth in the craft realm ranged between just over 15% to just over 18% from 2013 through early 2016, well above the 1.3%-3.5% posted by the overall beer category (excluding flavored malt beverages, ciders and seltzers). For the year ended Jan. 28, 2017, however, the momentum of craft slowed significantly, with dollar sales growth of just 2.9% in Nielsen-measured off-premise channels.
Comparatively, sales growth in the overall beer category for the same period was 1.9%.
- Across the total beer category, there were slightly more than 2,000 new product entrants to the market in 2016, down more than 23% from two years ago.