US: Craft beer sales up in the grocery, drug and convenience channels for the last four weeks

The latest four-week and year-to-date craft brewer sales scan data were released by Symphony IRI Group (SIG) on April, 29. The top two craft beer styles, pale ale and “seasonals,” both showed nice growth of just under 9 percent by dollars in the grocery, drug and convenience channels. And both have lost nearly 1 share of the craft segment by styles, it is reported.

India Pale Ales have picked up 2.7 more share points of craft to now comprise 14.3 share of scanned sales. At this pace, IPAs will pass seasonals and pale ales in 2012 or 2013 to become the most popular style area for craft.

India pale ales are up 43.2% in dollars year-to-date, and case sales are up 40.5% so far. Perhaps it is time that IRI started to look at tracking both IPAs and Imperial IPAs. Overall, scanned craft sales are up 14.3% in dollars so far this year and 12.7% in volume. Craft growth continues to accelerate.

SIG currently places each brand they track into 1 of 28 style buckets. So far this year 6 of those style buckets are showing lower sales, and the other 22 are growing.

Here are the top 10 fastest growing styles by percentage in scanned case sales year to date:

1. Stout +61%

2. Pilsner +49%

3. IPA +40%

4. Other Pale Lager +38%

5. Variety Packs +30%

Eight other style buckets show over 20% growth year to date: strong ales, other specialties, unknown, Belgian style ales, blond/kolsch/other golden, scottish, golden ales and barleywines.

29 April, 2011