Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/705687
3 Beverage Dynamics • Digital Edition Exclusive 2016 www.beveragedynamics.com Northwestern beer brewer Henry Weinhart's, and Coney Island (made by craft brewer Boston Beer), all reinforce the separation between hard soda and FMBs. Bardill wonders if hard sodas won some market share from craft beer buyers looking for a seasonal alternative. "It's a little bit of a stretch, but given the way the bottom dropped out of pumpkin [seasonal beers] last year, I have the theory that peo- ple viewed the fi rst hard sodas as a kind of seasonal new thing they hadn't tried. It's cool, it's in the beer section, and everyone's talking about how you can mix it with cinnamon whiskey or put ice cream into it." He now sees the same mad pursuit of new fl avors in hard sodas that he sees in the FMB category. Ciskey suspects hard sodas have peaked. "The sales bear it out, for sure," he says. "It's typical with anything that catches on: once one person catches on, every single one of the big com- panies put one out, but then they have to put out fi ve different types. Not Your Father's Root Beer still holds pretty strong, but nowhere near where it was when it came out last year. The other ones have defi nitely kind of fi zzled." HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES? For over a decade, cider has been a beverage haunted by its own potential. It has a long tradition, and a popular following in parts of Europe as both a rustic beverage and, in a more commer- cialized form, a mainstream choice. Cider was repeatedly pre- dicted to follow the path carved by craft beer—distinctive, local, anti-mainstream—and then it didn't. LEADING BRANDS OF FLAVORED MALT BEVERAGES, 2014-2015* (000 2.25-gallon cases) '14/'15 BRAND SUPPLIER 2014 2015* % CHG Bud Light Ritas AB InBev 30,500 30,655 0.5% Mike's Hard Beverage Mike's Hard Beverage 20,150 20,855 3.5% Twisted Tea Boston Beer 8,020 9,151 14.1% Seagram's Escapes N.A. Breweries 6,425 6,598 2.7% Four Loko Phusion Projects 4,810 4,760 -1.0% Sparks MillerCoors 4,060 4,025 -0.9% Smirnoff Twisted V Diageo-Guinness 3,510 3,595 2.4% Tilt AB InBev 3,185 3,275 2.8% Smirnoff Ice Diageo-Guinness 3,050 3,172 4.0% Total Leading Brands 83,710 86,086 2.8% Total FMBs 101,400 108,194 6.7% *Preliminary. Source: The Beverage Information & Insights Group. For more data, visit www.albevresearch.com. Non-Beer Brews