There is a strange rivalry amongst people who enjoy tried and true mainstream beers and craft beer enthusiasts. There is an odd contest to see which beer drinker is better, as if there was a metric to determine such a personal choice. With one gentleman guzzling his canned light beer at the bar and the other dude sitting next to him with a flight of IPA, saison, Kölsch, and gose beers, you’ll never hear, “Hey, you like that beer? That’s cool. I like this beer. Enjoy the beer that you like.” Why this is a competition is ponderous. So with the unveiling of the top 10 selling beers there is sure to be some hubbub about the list.
Darren Rovell posted the top 10 beers sold in the U.S. in 2018. The figures were gathered by IRI Worldwide, a “leader in powerful market and shopper data, predictive analytics and the foresight that leads to action.”
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Bud Light is destroying the competition. Bud Light had an incredible $5.2 billion in total sales, more than double in 2018 sales than the next competitor Coors Light, which had only $2.2 billion.
What should be noted is that eight of the top 10 best-selling beers of 2018 were down in sales over the last year. This comes as no surprise since millennials are drinking less brewskis. Beer companies are searching for new revenue streams and some have even started to invest in cannabis beverages.
However, two beer brands were gaining market shares in a year that was abysmal for much of the industry. Keystone Light was up 4.8 percent and Michelob Ultra was up a whopping 15.6 percent. Michelob had marketed their Ultra beer as a healthy, low-calorie alternative to other beers and it has paid huge dividends. Michelob has also targeted women with great success to increase sales. While sales for other big beer brands have been on the decline, Michelob Ultra sold 33 million more cases in 2017 than they did in 2012.
So no matter if you like Budweiser or a “craft brew that you probably haven’t heard of yet,” be kind to your fellow beer drinkers. And let’s unite to make fun of spiked seltzer drinkers.
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