Here is the key sentence in the article.

...an acceleration in the long-term decline of so-called domestic-premium brands, which include Bud Light and rivals Miller Light and Coors Light...

So, are people drinking less beer or are they drinking less piss beer? Could it be that people are having two Hazy Imperial IPA's with 8+ ABV instead of a six pack of Coors Light? I am taking this headline with a grain of salt.

EDIT: I found my glasses.

I'm sure the weed legalizing has had an impact as well. I have completely stopped drinking in favor of weed. Saves my liver and no hangover.

Stop making so many mediocre IPAs. Other styles do exist.

beer shipments

That’s the problem. A lot of people are living in and around cities now. We buy beer at the brewery. Do these figures include 1st party sells? Distributors have always been a necessary evil and many states have laws saying you must go through a distributor for selling elsewhere, but many breweries are just doing taprooms now to not have to deal with that. I’d like to see those stats if they exist.

I do understand that many people are buying seltzers now, myself included.

It might have something to do with weed being easier to get. Where I live it's easier and faster to get weed than it is to get beer, especially on sunday.

A 4 pack is $12. I'm just going to get a bottle of whisky instead.

No beer for me, just drugs please.

Meanwhile my drinking has hit personal record highs this year. Yay depression.

I also wonder how liquor sales are as well.

My wife and I are obviously only one couple, so this is confirmation bias, but alcohol in general just isn't as appealing anymore. With all this general stress we've been going through (struggling with inflation, insane work hours, insane work conditions) alcohol is causing more migraines, sucky morning-after-drinking symptoms, high calories, expensive prices, there's just no good reason to drink as much as we used to. And it's not like we drank that much earlier in our lives as well.

Tie this all together with marijuana availability which has none of these cons except for high taxes, then alcohol doesn't sound as appealing anymore.

Because it's expensive, calorie intensive and takes longer to drink than something like whiskey or vodka.

If I'm thirsty, I'll drink water. If I want to get drunk, I'll drink whiskey. Beer is the middle ground that just isn't worth it anymore.

The beer fests near me are filled with selzers, ciders and stuff like mead. As someone who doesn't like beer, I think it's a positive change to have alternatives for different tastes.

I think beer is gross, personally, so this isn't a post about me but reading the comments it is interesting to see beer drinkers here decide against it due to cost and wanting other choices. I have news for you guys there are cocktails and other great alcohols that cost as much as your 7 to 10 dollar beer and they taste fucking great.

I don't like alcohol. I like fried food and obesity is certainly on the rise in America.

No joke, it's all the seltzer marketing that gets people to spend way more on way less alcohol.

It was successful as fuck. Just look at all the streamers shilling it.

Yet even as overall volume consumption declined, the largest beer makers remain financially resilient thanks to prices that climbed alongside — or even surpassed — broader inflation, Steinman said. Beer drinkers also continued to shift toward more expensive beer brands, especially imports like Modelo Especial, which became the No. 1 beer in America in 2023.

So people aren't willing to pay higher prices for worse product.

I drink IPAz when I only want to have 2 drinks instead of 10.

Turns out, that's most of the time

We're much more health conscious these days. We've seen how alcohol can wreck your health and quality of life. There are more and more people that don't drink alcohol at all. And so on.

Is this trend only the US? Would be interesting to see how it is in other countries and how it correlates to economic and social indcators

More expensive, but also just all around bad for the body. Just really not worth it.