Good afternoon,

Linked below is the State Shipments for October 2019.

Here are a few key findings:

• We estimate consumer retail spending on beer decreased by 0.4% during October 2019.
• Total U.S. beer shipment volume decreased by 1.7% during October 2019, which had the same number of selling days as October 2018.
• Movement of this year’s annual price increase to this spring instead of this fall muted the volume decrease.
• Volumes declined in 30 states in October, with double-digit declines in nine of these.  The strongest performance of any state was a 4.7% increase in shipment volumes in Colorado.
• Adverse weather conditions negatively impacted beer shipments in October.  Much of the West experienced temperatures well-below normal for October, while much of the East experienced well-above-average precipitation.
• Additionally, October’s shipment volumes suffered due to trade-up.  Drinkers continue to shift away from less expensive mainstream and economy beers and towards more expensive products such as FMBs, including hard seltzers, imports, crafts, wine, and hard liquor.

If you have any questions, please reach out.

Cheers,

Michael Uhrich
Chief Economist