Top 30 craft brands, year-to-date ending March 24, 2013

Code:

                          Cat          Cs sales
  Top 30 Craft Brands  chg YA   Sales  % chg YA
BELLS TWO HEARTED ALE     0.2  32,142      75.5

And they couldn't send any to California?

 

..also not Every beer (or) Brewery's beers are available "everywhere", takes some longer than others to reach certain places.

 

a bit surprised that boulevard does not have a product on there.

 

Declining sales in seasonal beers from BBC, SN and NB. Strange. Stranger still is the huge uplift Shiner seasonals have seen. Ruby Redbird is awful, but I guess people dig that one. Two-Hearted is everywhere now and it's a quality brew. Glad it's on this list and with such a massive increase.

 

Fuck you New Belgium

 

SN used to be a Costco staple in CA years ago. Don't know if it still is. SA on the other hand has dominated Costco sales in the Northeast. The main issue is that SA always has at least two different cases there and they get competition from Harpoon and Magic Hat, when those are stocked. Not sure what's in CA these days -- haven't been in a CA Costco for more than 10 years. But these three factors -- regional distribution at a mass-retailer; multiple options from the same brewer; local competition -- may well account for both the booming sale of both breweries and the specific horse-race numbers. Note that three different cases are of SA are right next to each other in the rankings, so SA far outsells SN overall.

An interesting thing I noted is that all Seasonals appears to be sinking. Maybe that phase has passed (one can only hope). Another interesting thing is that most prices are in the $29+ to $34 range, with a couple of outliers on either end. Red Hook seems to be on the list for the sole reason that they are the cheapest of the bunch. At the other end, you have Stone, Dogfish Head and Bell at 30-50% more per case than the rest of the top lineups. Bottom line -- if you want to go national, make sure you can price your wares at $30-35 per case. Anything hire turns you into a cult following.

 

The general breakdown is even more interesting: http://goo.gl/1AIF7

Looks like craft, as a category, is really eating into the regular share -- from 13% to 15% for 2012 and 15.6% for 2013. An 43% of those sales are IPA.

 

Those stats are "on premise" only, however, not a "general breakdown" - and so can't be compared to the OP's stats (which are Grocery Store sales) or overall beer stats.

BeerPulse had a good explanation of these Guestmetrics numbers at
IPA that has been discontinued for two years shows up as top gainer in GuestMetrics report
which notes that GM gets their figures by "culling their data set of restaurant receipt scans for craft beer info" (which suggests to me it might be heavily based on chain restaurants vs. indie/mom & pop establishments) and also that they appears to "skew in a West Coast direction".

 

Apparently, a lot of people. Just not many on this site.

 

No need, apparently. Dont worry, for every one they dont send to CA, I will drink 3!

 

Good for Bell's, I've been drinking a lot more Two Hearted as my go to never fail IPA...and for as much shite as Shiner takes 'round these parts(BA forums) it's obvious it has it's fans. Shiner > Leinenkugel

 

They can't keep up with local demand. You may get some as the capacity expands.

 

hipsters who like the psychadellic can.

 

i take this list with a grain of salt

 

That's fine, as long as you don't put it in your beer...

 

Unless you are brewing a Gose.

 

"I like my beer salty and my women strong." Or is it the other way around?

 

Came too texas may 1

 

Cheeseheads are very very loyal and they love themselves some beer.

 

Stone IPA is so underappreciated. Such a good beer.