Mexican Imports Soar In A Slowing US Beer Market

2023 was a terrible year for beer in the US. All the majors felt it except for Constellation Brands, home to Mexican beer brands, Corona and Modelo.

Here’s the deal…

Maybe it’s the ongoing legalization of cannabis, the emergence of alternatives like hard seltzers and canned cocktails, or simply the growing sobriety movement. Maybe it’s all of these things to differing degrees, but whatever the reason beer drinking in America has fallen to the lowest level in a generation.

“It was a tough year for beer,”  Beer Marketer’s Insight VP  David Steinman told NBC. Beer shipments were on track to plunge below 200 million barrels, a decline that hasn’t been seen since 1999.

But Constellation Brands, who brew a family of beer brands in Mexico and import them exclusively to the US, had a great year.

In 2013, Constellation acquired Grupo Modelo’s US beer business from Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal that made the Victor, NY-based beer, wine, and spirits company, the third biggest beer producer in the US.

When AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer took full control of Grupo Modelo a decade ago, it was obliged by US antitrust regulators to sell the Mexican company’s business in the US to Constellation Brands.

That transaction provided Constellation with complete, independent control of all aspects of Grupo Modelo’s US business; a brewery in Mexico and an exclusive perpetual brand license to import, market and sell Corona and the Modelo brands in the US as well as the freedom to develop brand extensions and innovations.

And while Anheuser-Busch had a particularly painful year, led by the fall of Bud Light after its brief but costly association with trans influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, Constellation’s Modelo brand became the single most popular beer by US dollar sales.

“Beer now accounts for some 80% of Constellation’s business as demand for its higher-priced spirits and wines slowed down in the face of sticky inflation,” reports the Drinks Business.