“Beer” Needs All the Help it Can Get

Dear Client: Even the freight train of hard seltzer growth couldn't keep August domestic shipments from brewers to distributors to be down 7.3%, or over one million barrels, according to estimates from the Beer Institute.  However, we did lose a sell day, so apples-to-apples shipments were "only" down 3.1%. (And yes, hard seltzers, even though some are sugar-based, are taxed and counted as beer by the U.S. Treasury. More on that below).  BI chief economist Michael Uhrich suggested that "August’s