The Brewers Association “Power Hour” with Dan Wandel, Senior Vice President of the Beverage Alcohol Market Insights Group at IRI this week had some entertaining craft beer stats.
Dan laid out some impressive year-to-date craft beer category numbers that bode well for craft beer in 2014.
One of the more impressive stats was craft beer dollar sales in the grocery channel which were up 20.5% (All numbers are YTD through July 13th).
The high end beer segment (imports, super premium, cider, craft and others) now makes up over half (50.6%) of total beer dollar sales in the supermarket channel. That is a furthering of the mind-blowing shift going on in the overall beer category. The revolution clearly continues.
In the total beer category, domestic shipments are flat and imports are up ever-so-slightly at +0.5%,
Total craft can sales are up 79% in IRI tracked supermarkets and now make up 7.2% market share of total craft sales.
As Dan pointed out, 2014 could be the strongest year of growth for craft beer ever!