The beer category, which includes domestic beer, imported beer, craft beer, hard cider and flavored malt beverages, has mostly remained flat or suffered minimal declines in off-premise accounts in recent years, according to market research firms. In 2013, the category increased 0.1 percent in case sales and 3.1 percent in dollar sales, says Andrea Riberi, senior vice president of alcohol beverages with Nielsen, New York.
“There’s been a lot of talk about beer’s weak performance in 2013, but we should still keep in mind that the category finished out with positive growth trends in all Nielsen-measured channels, and it’s still the second-largest category that we measure,” she notes.