The numbers are in and have been tabulated. It appears that even in the face of so many great options, the great masses have really terrible taste in beer.
The best selling beer in the US is Bud Light and has been for some time now, but it only got to number one by making the flagship Bud number two and it’s been that way ever since. But due to American’s unquenchable thirst for bland beers that are also light on calories, Coors Light is now the number two beer.
Coors Light became number two thanks to a steady 9% growth over the last 5 years while Bud has been consistently shipping fewer barrels. The combined rise and fall gives Coors Light the edge. In absolute numbers Coors Light shipped 18.225 million barrels in 2011 while Bud sold 17.7 million barrels. To put this into perspective, at its peak in 1988 there were 50 million barrels of Bud shipped.
Of the smaller brewers who make beer for the more discerning consumer the biggest, Boston Brewing Company, known for Sam Adams, shipped 2.26 million barrels across all their brands in 2010. Sierra Nevada shipped 786,000 barrels in 2010 and New Belgium had 661,000. Listing the 2nd largest small brewer, Mike’s Hard Lemonade seemed like a smack in the face to actual beer since it’s only included by a technicality of being a malt beverage. A full listing of barrels shipped by the smaller brewers can be found at Beer Insights. The big boys’ shipments can be found there as well.
