Summertime sipping: are young adults drinking more?

Hard seltzers and teas get a warm weather boost

It's summer break for colleges, and young adults say they are planning to drink more.

An analysis of more than 75,000 pieces of feedback from "The Crowd" of alcohol drinkers shows that, contrary to some media reports, 18-29-year-olds plan to drink more than older adults. Young adults seem particularly drawn to lower-calorie, lower-proof hard seltzers, juices, and teas, which have historically performed well in summer.

Adults of all ages, actually, are turning more toward wine, hard seltzers, and hard teas. As the weather warms up, customers increasingly like these types of drinks' taste and flavor options and the low costs of wine brands like Sutter Home and Yellow Tail. Take a look below at how HundredX customer data powers insights into the alcohol industry.

Key Takeaways:

Over the past three months, Consumption Intent^1,2 rose for every type of alcohol except for spirits. Hard seltzer/tea, which is up the most over the past three months, exhibits some seasonality and is gaining interest with young adults.

Since February, Consumption Intent for all alcohol only increased for 18-29-year-olds; it stayed stable or fell for other age groups. This contrasts with some media reports claiming young adults are drinking less.

Since February, sentiment³toward Taste increased the most for wine/champagne, followed by hard seltzer/tea.

Sutter Home and Yellow Tail are driving up wine’s Consumption Intent and sentiments toward Flavor and Taste.

Consumption Intent for Bud Light fell dramatically after its promotion with Dylan Mulvaney. Since February, Modelo Consumption Intent increased 4%, and it now tops other major beer brands.

Discover HundredX insights into Alcohol trends:

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Consumption Intent for all categories is up in the last three months except for spirits (-1%). Beer and hard seltzer/teas are up the most (both 2%). Hard seltzer/teas up every month since bottoming in October 2022 for a total of 7%. Last year hard seltzer/teas picked up into the summer as well.
- Note: All Alcohol and Beer exclude Bud Light and Budweiser given their recent declines significantly skewed the takeaways.
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Consumption Intent for alcohol overall is up the most in the last three months for households making more than $200K (+2%) to retake the highest overall, while consumers making $100K-$199K were the only bracket that was down (-2%).

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Seemingly in contrast to a commonly held view that young people are drinking less alcohol, consumption Intent rose (+3%) over the last three months for 18-29-year-olds while it stayed stable or dipped for all other age groups.

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Consumption Intent among 18-29-year-olds rose the most for hard seltzers and tea (+7%), followed by beer (+5) over the past three months. Seems to be a preference for lower alcohol content, though wine/champagne fell 5%, mostly pulled down by champagne.

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Sentiment toward Product Availability jumped for all types of alcohol in the last three months, up most for wine/champagne (+7%), then spirits (+4%). The industry faced supply chain pressures throughout 2021-22. Product Availability is a top three reason someone likes/dislikes an alcohol brand.

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Alcohol drinkers like the flavor options of hard seltzers/teas far more than they do for other types of alcohol. However, over the past three months, wine drinkers’ appreciation for flavor options surged (sentiment up 8%), as top brands have released new products. Flavors is a top five factor in customer satisfaction.

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Since February, Sentiment toward Taste increased the most for wine (+4%) followed by hard seltzer/tea (+3%). This is on the back of new product releases. However, drinkers like the taste of beer most. Taste is among the top three reasons someone likes or dislikes an alcohol brand.

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Sutter Home and Yellow Tail are behind wine’s Flavors and Taste jumps. Since February, customer sentiment toward Flavors increased dramatically for Sutter Home (+17%) and Yellow Tail (+15%). In April, Yellow Tail released Fresh Twist, a new line of fruit-flavored wine.

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Wine’s recent pickup in Consumption Intent was driven by the less expensive brands we follow, with Sutter Home (+7%) and Yellowtail (+6%) up the most the last three months. This is consistent with the recent trend of lower-cost alternatives outperforming across our coverage.

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As previously mentioned, Bud Light and Budweiser saw big drops in Consumption Intent amid fallout over Bud Light’s promotion activities with Dylan Mulvaney. Modelo now has the highest Consumption Intent out of any of the major beer brands we cover following a 4% surge from February.

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Please contact our team for a deeper look at HundredX's data on Alcohol and Spirits, which includes more than 100,000 pieces of customer feedback across 66 alcohol brands.

All metrics presented, including Net Consumption (Consumption Intent) and Net Positive Percent / Sentiment are presented on a trailing three-month basis unless otherwise noted.
Consumption Intent for alcohol represents the percentage of customers who expect to consume more of that brand over the next 12 months, minus those that intend to consume less.
HundredX measures sentiment towards a driver of customer satisfaction as Net Positive Percent (NPP), which is the percentage of customers who view a factor as a positive (reason they liked the products, people, or experiences) minus the percentage who see the same factor as a negative.

Strategy Made Smarter

HundredX works with a variety of companies and their investors to answer some of the most important strategy questions in business:

Where are customers "migrating"?
What are they saying they will use more of in the next 12 months?
What are the key drivers of their purchase decisions and financial outcomes?

Current clients see immediate benefits across multiple areas including strategy, finance, operations, pricing, investing, and marketing.

Our insights enable business leaders to define and identify specific drivers and decisions enabling them to grow their market share.

Please contact our team to learn more about which businesses across 75 industries are best positioned with customers and the decisions you can make to grow your brand’s market share.

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HundredX is a mission-based data and insights provider. HundredX does not make investment recommendations. However, we believe in the wisdom of the crowd to inform the outlook for businesses and industries. For more info on specific drivers of customer satisfaction, other companies within 75+ other industries we cover, or if you'd like to learn more about using Data for Good, please reach out: https://hundredx.com/contact.

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