Light Beer Takes A Dive

“People are crazy and times are strange
I used to care, but things have changed”

                                    Bob Dylan – Things Have Changed

Admit it – you’re no stranger to light beer. Most of us, when pressed, would own up to having consumed our share of light beer back in the day. We also think it’s safe to say that most of us are no longer light beer drinkers …and that’s bad, bad news for Big Beer.

Light beers used to be the drink of choice for holidays such as the Fourth of July. At its peak in 2008, the light beer segment reigned alongside American monoliths like Budweiser. Light Beer was a gold mine and its dominance presumed unassailable. Oh how things have changed.

According to Beer Marketer’s Insights, American sales of nine major brands, including the once top-selling Budweiser, declined by more than 25 percent over the past five years. That’s not pretty. But if Big Beer is hurting, then its light beer segment has got to be reeling.

Domestic light beer sales in the U.S. could possibly dive to a 10-year low in 2015, according to a report in the Shanken News Daily.  Light beer sales fell by a sobering 3.5 percent, to 98.4 million barrels, in 2013, and the e-mail news service projects that sales could decline by an additional 4.9 million barrels by 2015.

The biggest losers cited in that report were all the usual suspects. The sector’s dominant force, AB InBev’s Bud Light, experienced its fifth straight down year, dropping a brutal 3.1 percent, to 37.6 million barrels. Coors Light didn’t escape unscarred either – it lost 1.5 percent of its sales. And Miller Lite had the worst year of all of them, with a shocking 5.9 percent decline in sales!

So What Happened?

So what happened was we happened – American craft beer happened.

As all of you no doubt already know, craft beer has been on a major roll over the last decade. And its growth not only reflects the American beer consumer’s increasing sophistication but also their disenchantment with once-familiar brands that now might seem tasteless, watery, or bland.

According to the Brewers Association, craft beer sales in 2013 reached “7.8 percent volume of the total U.S. beer market, up from 6.5 percent the previous year. Additionally, craft dollar share of the total U.S. beer market reached 14.3 percent in 2013, as retail dollar value from craft brewers was estimated at $14.3 billion, up from $11.9 billion in 2012.”

Some industry analysts suggest that it’s not just about America’s growing love affair with craft beer; light beer drinkers may have moved on to the increasingly prosperous wine and spirits segments. And while some data might support that migration- we’re not buying it. True beer lovers don’t move on to wine or spirits – they move on to better beer. And that means American craft beer, not dry martinis.

Will light beer ever recover from the doldrums it’s entered? Anything’s possible, but frankly, we don’t expect it to. Craft beer has thrived in a paradigm shift of epic proportions and Americans now demand and expect so much more from their beer than it being “less filling.”

And all the perfectly manicured television blondes in the world are not going to change that.