10 Best Alcohol Stocks To Buy According to Analysts

8. The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM)

Stock Upside Potential: 17.27%

The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM) is a prominent player in the American beer industry, best known for its flagship brands such as Samuel Adams and Truly Hard Seltzer.

Though its history is deeply rooted in crafted beer, The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM) is now heavily committed to innovation and diversification, giving it a strong foothold in the Beyond Beer category covering flavored malt beverages and hard seltzers. The company remains a dominant force also in the hard tea segment and its Twisted Tea Brand enjoys a strong 85% market share, with the next best-selling competitor brand limited to a low single-digit share in the market. TBBC has also recently launched a distinctly American light craft lager called Samuel Adams American Light, to make sure it doesn’t miss out on the ballooning no-lo trend.

However, The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM)’s highly anticipated national launch of Hard Mountain Dew, which was initially expected to be a significant driver for its expansion, has not gained traction as quickly as projected. Moreover, its core Truly Hard Seltzer brand also continues to face challenges and the company witnessed an 11% decline in volumes of its overall Hard Seltzer category in Q3 of 2024. BBC’s $300 million investment in Dogfish Head Brewery doesn’t seem to be going according to plan either and it has already written down around $85 million of the floundering Delaware firm, including an impairment charge of $41.2 million in the last quarter.

The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM) maintains a strong financial position, with over $200 million in operating cash flow for the first nine months of 2024. The company ended Q3 2024 with a cash balance of $256 million and zero debt, a rarity among the massive global beer conglomerates. Moreover, to return value to its shareholders, TBBC has recently expanded its share buyback authorization by $400 million, bringing the total repurchase agreement to $1.6 billion.