Domestic Beer

If you were to hazard a guess as to which domestic beers are the top sellers by volume, you'd probably manage to guess at least half of the top ten. These are the familiar, less-expensive brands, regular as well as light, that you see everywhere—Budweiser, Coors, Miller, etc. The table below tells the story about the top ten domestic beers in 2013.

This pie chart makes it easier to visualize the relative size of these various domestic brews, as measured by annual case sales. Bud Light accounts for nearly as much market share as all the other non-top-10 domestic beers combined. Lumped together, the beers ranked six through 10 also account for a smaller market share than Bud Light.

Stephanie Cernivec's report in Beverage Industry reveals a far more interesting picture emerging when we look at what kind of year each of these top 10 domestic beers had in 2013. The following chart shows the percent change in case sales that each of the top ten brands experienced from 2012 to 2013.

Michelob Ultra Light was the big winner among the top ten, with its case sales rising 6.5 percent. But seven of the top ten domestic beers suffered sales declines for the year. In the case of Natural Light and Miller High Life, the declines were steep—7.5 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively.

Imported Beer

While the domestic-beer category is hurting, the imported-beer category is thriving, according to Jennifer Haderspeck's report in Beverage Industry. Imported beers grew in volume by 4.5 percent in 2013. The following table contains the particulars on the top ten imported beers:

The pie chart to the left shows each of the top ten imports' relative share of this market segment, a category in which much of the growth is being propelled by Mexican beers. The Mexican brews grew in 2013 twice as fast as total imports (11.1 percent vs 5.3 percent). By comparison, Canadian imports as a group were down 6.5 percent last year, and European imports declined 2.1 percent. Experts attribute growth in the Mexican-beer segment to the growing Hispanic population in the United States, and aggressive marketing by these brands (think of the "Most Interesting Man in the World" commercials from Dos Equis, or the "Find Your Beach" campaign by Corona). The relative fortunes experienced in 2013 by the top ten imports are evident here:

Craft Beer

Although craft beers are popular, and this segment of the market is the one in which the most exciting things are happening, craft beers generally remain way behind the main domestic brews and imports in both case sales and revenue. Part of the explanation for this has to do with distribution. Reporting for Beverage Industry, Jessica Jacobsen cited one industry expert who noted that while craft beers have good distribution in grocery stores and liquor stores, they're less available in convenience stores and gas stations, which lack the space to accommodate a large variety. But that's changing as distribution through those latter outlets grows. And, overall, the growth rates for craft beers is much greater than for major domestics or imports. In a future post, I'll have more to say about the craft-brew industry. For now, here's the basic rundown on the top 10 brands in the craft-beer segment: