If all publicity is good publicity, aluminum is having a moment. The lucky thirteenth element on the periodic table, aluminum has received significant airspace over recent weeks and months as tariffs have been proposed, gone into effect, been delayed, and cycled over and again. This conversation has naturally pulled in the craft beer industry as these tariffs stand to impact one of the primary vessels that beer is stored in from brewery to consumer—two primary vessels if you count steel for kegs.

So, the timing of the annual packaging trends report from the Brewers Association (BA) is, shall we say, apt. This post explores what happened in packaged craft beer in the last year, from the evolution of package types to trends by channel to pricing.

Before diving in, it’s important to note that there are two definitions of “craft beer” that are included in this analysis. First is the BA’s definition of craft, which refers to products made by small and independent breweries, called “BA Craft” throughout this post. The BA Craft definition includes non-alcohol beer that meets the craft criteria. Second is the definition used by NielsenIQ (“NIQ Craft”) which is a product-focused definition that describes “full-flavor” beer and does not include non-alc. I’ll be labeling all my ensuing stats accordingly.

As a starting point, packaged craft had a more difficult 2024 than beer overall. BA Craft was down 4.0% in sales volume compared to the year prior, slightly outpacing NIQ Craft (-4.2%) and trailing the overall beer category (-3.1%). This decline when aggregating across all channels hides some of the variation by channel, which I’ll get to in a short while. But first…

Container Type

In 2024, cans continued their conquest. Aluminum took another 3.2 percentage points (pp) of overall container share from glass in volume sales among craft. At this point, cans make up almost three of every four containers sold (73.8%) within NIQ Craft (76.0% for BA Craft). The chart below demonstrates the steady climb of cans over the previous four years, bumping up share of sales volume of 3-4 pp annually since 2021. Understanding that it becomes increasingly difficult for aluminum to capture more share as it reaches such heights, even a slowing of share gain (which could be starting to happen) leaves cans the dominant container type into the foreseeable future.

In contrast, the container mix of non-craft beer was 71% can and 29% bottle, which is only slightly more can-centric than in 2021 (69% can, 31% bottle). Craft is moving more rapidly towards cans than beer overall. To drive this growth in cans, brewers across the country have invested significantly in aluminum packaging equipment over the past few decades. Obviously, brewers can’t switch package types on a dime, so I expect this is driving much of the anxiety around the aluminum tariff conversation.

An aside: If you count yourself among the anxious, I encourage you to explore some of the articles and news ticker that the BA has put out to keep members informed on the subject. Cut through the noise to understand the current state of tariffs, how we expect it to impact the craft beer industry, and what you can be doing.

Unit Size

For BA Craft, four unit sizes make up 96% of volume share in scan data: 1-packs (or “singles”), 4-packs, 6-packs, and 12-packs. Among these, the benchmark 6-pack maintains the largest share (46%), but volume declined 5% year-over-year (YoY) and the package size lost 0.4 pp of overall volume share. The largest declines were seen from 4-packs whose 2024 share of 11% was down 0.5 pp from the year prior with an 8% decrease in volume. 12-packs saw share gain with slight volume decline, and the sole gainer in volume and share was the solitary 1-pack.

You may not be surprised to know that the rise in singles has been buoyed by one particular container size: 19.2-ounce. In 2024, 19.2s made up over half of sales volume of singles for BA Craft (54%), gaining 6.6 pp of 1-pack share. For NIQ Craft (which includes the New Belgium Brewing juggernaut), 19.2s account for a full 72% sales volume. Drilling down deeper into this container size, IPA is the dominant style in BA Craft 19.2s, making up 86% of total volume in 2024. The style of “Imperial/Double/Triple IPA” has been largest on the rise, making up 35% of total 19.2 volume sales in 2024 compared to 30% in 2021. However, there are some large volume gainers in the past year outside of IPA, some of which include American Pale Ale, Extra Pale Ale, Pilsner, and Sour.

These gains are substantial as all other container sizes for singles are in decline (both volume and share). This includes the once-mighty 22-ounce package that continues its slide down to 1.0% share of BA Craft volume, down 0.6 pp from the year prior. I suppose you could say the bomber is bombing.

Channels

Some of the trend in package size can be linked to evolution in channel sales. To cut straight to the punchline, sales in food stores were steady for BA Craft while all other channels experienced volume decline in 2024. With a consumer shift to the food channel comes a consumer shift to purchasing for occasions, and it seems as though the occasions are meant to be enjoyed 19.2 ounces at a time. While overall BA Craft change was 0% in the food channel, singles were up 6%, 6-packs dropped by 1%, and 12-packs were themselves flat.

Zooming out a bit further, the trends are more consistently negative. Across all channels, BA Craft volume was down 18% between 2021 and 2024, though it’s worth noting that 2021 was a high water mark due to the shift in purchasing behavior in the pandemic. Food stores are down the least at -15%, followed by convenience (-16%). The major declines occurred in drug stores (-48%) and open state liquor stores (-25%). The latter is likely one of the primary pain points for craft brewers, as liquor stores used to be one of the easiest points of entry for small and independent producers getting into distribution. For some states (e.g. Colorado) this shift is driven by regulations where it became legal for full-strength beer to be sold in grocery stores, reducing visits to liquor stores as consumers purchase their beer in the same place as their food.

Pricing

So far, I’ve only shared figures in terms of sales volume. However, it’s worth ending on a slightly different note. When we look at most of these stats, not from a volume perspective, but from a dollar sales perspective, trends track more positive (or at least less negative). For instance, compared to the 4.0% decline in BA Craft volume sales from 2023 to 2024, the dollar sales were down 2.4%. This trend indicates that prices are going up over time as volumes are decreasing, bridging some of that gap. It’s worth noting here that we know beer is an elastic good, so let’s not ignore the fact that some of the volume decline could be driven by the increase in price.

The average price per case was on a steady rise from 2021 to 2024 for both BA Craft (+2.5% annualized growth rate) and NIQ Craft (+2.6%). While NIQ Craft took more price than BA Craft overall, that wasn’t uniformly the case for all unit sizes. For both 12-packs and singles, BA Craft outpaced NIQ Craft over that four-year period. It’s worth remembering that these unit sizes are dwarfed in sales volume by the 6-pack, but the highest price growth rate was in the most economical 12-pack. One other interesting takeaway was that in 2021, the average case price for singles was higher than 4-packs, which would be expected based on volume discounts. However, in 2022 to 2024, the average case price of 4-packs was higher than the singles, flipping that volume discount on its head.

In the interest of not making a long story too long, I’ll cut this post here. That said, if what’s written above raises any further questions, I hope you’ll take some time to dive into the 3 Tier/NIQ Dashboard available to all BA Members, or you’ll reach out to me directly.