You know times are tough when brewing executives start talking like therapists. In early September, Constellation Brands’ chief executive officer Bill Newlands told the crowd at Barclays’ annual Consumer Staples Conference that the macrobrewer was “controlling the controllables.” What’s next — holding space for lost sales? Being intentional about your fiscal guidance revisions? Leaning in on layoffs?
It’s all very depressing these days, and not just for the Modelo parent company. The third quarter of 2025 was a stretch with precious few shining moments for the beleaguered American brewing industry. The trade’s top leaders have been doing their damndest to reframe the dismal outlook to their shareholders, employees, and maybe themselves, too. That’s their prerogative.
But your humble Hop Take columnist’s prerogative is radical transparency. I would never gaslight you, reader. It’s time for some editorial exposure therapy. Following tough sessions in Q1 and Q2, here’s your Hop Take Quarterly Beer Business Report Card for the third frame of 2025.
Subject: Government
Grade: A
In early September, news broke that unnamed figures within the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had moved to suppress the final version of the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking’s (ICCPUD) banally titled “Alcohol Intake and Health Study.” It was a major victory for the cross-category Science Over Bias lobbying coalition, which has since become a lot less vocal about its insistence on science that’s “transparent and free from bias,” despite Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s opaque and chauvinistic ongoing destruction of the federal public-health system. Hmm! (Obviously, the craft brewer- and distributor-friendly hemp-derived THC business got absolutely rolled in Congress, but that happened in early November, solidly Q4 territory. Expect this grade to come way down next semester.) Off Capitol Hill, Trump’s tariffs and immigration raids are still bad for the beer business. How could anybody have seen this coming, etc.?
Subject: Fluid (Sales) Dynamics
Grade: C+
I did not expect earnings reports to be, like, good this quarter. But all four publicly traded macrobrewers in the top five bled red ink all over their Q3 filings, with Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) “leading” the pack with the least-bad declines. On the strength of Michelob Ultra and Cutwater in particular, it beat the category’s declines by a bit; hardly a resounding success, but still one that likely struck envy at Molson Coors (MC), Constellation, and Heineken, whose year-over-year percentage declines ranged from the mid-single digits to the high teens in their most recent reports. Beer continued to lose ground in the on-premise in both draft and package last quarter, and its off-premise performance was consistently down mid-single digits in year-over-year percentages by dollars and volume both. Per the Beer Institute’s latest calculations, though, tax-paid estimates indicate the category actually shipped more beer in September 2025 than it did for that same month last year. Sure, only 1 percent more, but hey — it’s still growth! First time this year!
Subject: Innovation Lab
Grade: C-
Let’s briefly pause to applaud the ascent of Mich Ultra — a legitimate innovation, back when it was introduced in the early aughts — to the throne of America’s top-selling beer, which finally happened in Q3 2025. All right, applause over. As far as actually new products, the field was pretty sparse, and the American drinking public seems to have noticed. Bump Williams Consulting tracked a 41 percent decline in overall beverage-alcohol “innovation” products in the past two years, and a 40 percent decline for traditional beer innovations in the same period. Dollar sales of the latter are down 7 percent year-to-date through early October. Anecdotally, I can’t remember a single exciting beer release last quarter besides Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s 22-state rollout of its pilsner in 8.4-ounce 8-packs. It’s probably for the best that the fast-and-furious “total beverage” releases that marked the early 2020s are now subsiding, what with the insane chaos it threw the beer aisle into for the past few years. But it sure does make this section less fun!
Subject: Social Studies
Grade: C
Football returned to the teevee last quarter, but beer sales didn’t come back with it. The apparent uncoupling of the National Football League’s collective fan thirst from the national beer market’s light adjunct lager offerings does not bode well for the future of the category. Neither, frankly, does ABI’s apparent eagerness to consolidate its red network as much as possible, which was on display this August; fewer distributors does not a healthy middle tier make. Trump’s tariffs absolutely clobbered blue-collar workers, per a mid-Q3 report from The Guardian; fewer of those does not a healthy beer market make. Oh, speaking of classes, the AFL-CIO’s latest Executive Paywatch report, released in July, found that CEOs at Boston Beer Co. (BBC), Constellation, MC, Monster Beverage Corporation, and Tilray Brands made anywhere from 82 to 306 times more than their median employee. Seems bad?
Subject: Craftology
Grade: C
It was nice to see BBC co-founder and chairman Jim Koch return to the CEO desk, even though at this point the business is a craft brewer in the same sense that IHOP is a hamburger restaurant. It was less nice to see the Bay Area’s venerable 21st Amendment Brewery close after 25 years; Iron Hill Brewery abruptly close all its locations; Island Brands’ co-founders get named in an investor lawsuit; BrewDog’s remaining co-founder Martin Dickie suddenly resign; Monster’s brewing division post -17 percent net sales; and… well, you get it. It was another tough quarter for the embattled craft segment, there’s no two ways about it. No wonder the Brewers Association decided to pare back the schedule for the 2026 Craft Brewers Conference. Has anybody tried simply manifesting a better market yet? Think positive thoughts.
🤯 Hop-ocalypse Now
After nearly four decades in operation, Rogue Ales & Spirits appears to be a bit of a Dead Guy itself. Last week, the Oregon firm, which shut down “strategic[ally] paused” its Newport distillery and inked a sales partnership with U.S. Beverage in August 2025, abruptly shut down its five taproom locations and production facility. Local news reports indicate it owes over half a million dollars to its landlord, and another $30,000 in back taxes; as many as 500 workers could be out of jobs as a result. It’s the latest pioneering firm born in a geographic cradle of craft brewing to collapse, but it almost certainly won’t be the last. Brutal.
📈 Ups…
Happy 45th anniversary to Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. … The Halloween sales spike didn’t last, but Circana scans indicate beer’s hangover was the most mild of any category for the week that followed… ABI is reportedly scheming up a $700-million acquisition of BeatBox… Hardly a day after Trump signed hemp-derived THC’s delayed death sentence, Wisconsin OG Lakefront Brewery released its own infused seltzer line, lol… UNITE HERE Local 17 announced Friday that Indeed Brewing Co. has reached a tentative agreement with its workers, averting a potential strike…
📉 …and downs
Creature Comforts Brewing Co.’s licensed location in Los Angeles, which workers at the Georgia brewery cited in 2021 as an example of its bosses’ overreach, closed permanently… Monster Brewing plans to take a run at the already-crowded fauxstalgia lager segment in 2026 with Stunt Double… In yet another sign of beer’s fading star, Untappd earlier this month opened its ratings platform to include other beverages…
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