What are the top selling beers in America in 2018? Beer is one of the most popular drinks in the world, and Americans are a big reason why. 43% of Americans who drink alcoholic beverages list beer as their first choice. They love it so much that they spent more than $37 billion on beer at Nielsen-measured retail stores during the one-year period ended February 25, 2017. Beer is a giant industry in the U.S and not just for the main players; sales are growing at microbreweries at an even faster rate. According to industry statistics, total U.S beer volume sales dropped by 1% last year, but craft brewer sales kept rising, by a rate of 5% by volume to grow to 12.7% of the US beer market by volume.
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Last year, the $111.1 billion US beer industry sold 207.4 million barrels of beer, and statistics say that the average person (legally old enough to drink) drank around 26.9 gallons of beer and cider. Aside from the beer industry, these statistics indicate a lot about dietary habits in America. We’ll leave that discussion for another article and continue with the fact that Americans prefer domestic beers over imported ones, as they make up many of the top selling beers in America in 2018. There were around 5,648 brewery facilities in the U.S last year, which makes it 552 more locations than the year before. Even though a bunch of these breweries are actually brewpubs, the fact is that the beer market is steadily growing each year.
Before we reveal to you the top selling beers in the US, let’s name a few of the best selling imported beers in the US. The most popular imported beer brands in the US are Corona, Modelo Especial and Dos Equis. If you are wondering about the best tasting beer, check out 10 Best Selling Beer Brands In The World In 2017, or 12 Largest Beer Companies in US, as some of those most popular of brews must be among the best tasting as well. To claim only one wouldn’t be fair, as we all know how tastes differ. Speaking of tastes, it is interesting to note that light beers are becoming more and more popular over the years, as you will see pretty soon with our list below that names the top selling beers in America in 2018.
As 2018 is not over yet, there aren’t final statistics for beer sales (we don’t have a crystal ball at Insider Monkey sadly, that would make it so much easier to pick stocks, though our market-beating hedge fund strategy does exceptionally well without one); so in order to determine the top selling beers in America in 2018 we did some projecting. We used all the data we could find from Beer Insights, including data for 2015, 2016 and 2017. Using the latest shipment statistics, we calculated the average increase/decrease for each beer (of the top 10 sold in previous years); then, using data for the number of barrels shipped in 2017, we calculated how many barrels each beer will presumably ship in 2018. While three years’ worth of data is not to much to go on, this was our best guess using the available information.
Without further ado, we present you with the top selling beers in America in 2018:
10. Busch
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 4.6 million
Busch, the 10th-best-selling beer in the U.S in 2018 is brewed by Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (NYSE:BUD) in Missouri. Last year it shipped 4.7 million barrels and held down the same place among the best selling beers in the U.S. Anheuser Busch was a top stock holding of Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital.
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T-8. Natural Light
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 6.4 million
Natural Light is another popular beer in the stable of Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (NYSE:BUD). Longer brewing makes it lighter and smoother. Last year it was the eighth-most sold beer in America with 6.5 million barrels shipped.
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T-8. Busch Light
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 6.5 million
We are still not changing brewery with the light version of the tenth-ranked beer. It is an easy-drinking beer, with fewer calories than Busch. In 2017 it had 6.4 million barrels shipped, taking ninth place overall.
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7. Modelo Especial
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 8.4 million
Modelo Especial, brewed by Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V, ranks seventh on our list of the top selling beers in America in 2018. Last year, 7.2 million barrels of this beer were shipped, with it occupying the same place on the bestsellers list.
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6. Corona Extra
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 8.9 million
The same brewery, Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V., brings us Corona Extra in the sixth spot on our list of top selling beers in America in 2018. In 2017 this beer had 8.7 million barrels shipped, taking fifth place in beer shipments.
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5. Michelob Ultra
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 9.3 million
We are back to Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (NYSE:BUD) brewery with the fifth place beer Michelob Ultra. Last year, Busch shipped 7.7 million barrels of Michelob Ultra, which ranked it sixth overall.
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4. Budweiser
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 11.8 million
We stay with Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (NYSE:BUD) for its very popular Budweiser beer. In 2017, 13.3 million barrels of Budweiser were shipped, which earned it third place among the top selling beers in America.
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3. Miller Lite
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 12.3 million
Miller Lite, the third-best-selling beer in the U.S in 2018 is brewed by Molson Coors Brewing Co (NYSE:TAP). In the previous year, 13.1 million barrels of it were shipped, finishing in fourth place overall.
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2. Coors Light
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 15.1 million
The second-best-selling beer in 2018 is Coors Light, which is also owned by Molson Coors Brewing Co (NYSE:TAP). In 2017, it occupied the same position with 16.5 million barrels shipped.
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1. Bud Light
Projection of barrels shipped in 2018: 30.1 million
We have reached the top of our list of the top selling beers in America in 2018, where we find Bud Light, brewed by Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (NYSE:BUD). Bud Light obliterated the competition in 2017, with almost double the number of barrels shipped compared to the second-ranked Coors Light. Things were little changed from 2016, when 33.1 million barrels of Bud Light were shipped. Clearly, we have a winner.
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Disclosure: None
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