If 2019 was the unofficial summer of hard seltzer, no brand made a bigger splash than White Claw. Sales of the brand were up 250% since it was introduced in 2016 and White Claw is the #1 brand fronting a $1 billion industry. White Claw isn’t just seltzer with a spirit like vodka added to it. It’s actually brewed like beer. It’s made with a mixture of gluten-free grains and sugars. That mixture is fermented into alcohol, which is then purified to remove odors, colors and tastes. It then mixes that base with water and other flavors, which keeps the alcohol percentage lower than that of a spirit or wine drink. But White Claw is just one of many brands enjoying the recent growth in demand for hard seltzer. Part of the reason for their popularity is simple: hard seltzers are comparable to beer in terms of alcohol percentage but tend to have fewer calories and carbs. This proves to be a strong selling point, with hard seltzer brands becoming very good at pushing that message to the masses. Hard seltzer holds 3.4% of the total share of the beer, flavored malt beverages and cider market, but the dramatic increase in popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed. Big beer has entered the playing field. Anheuser-Busch (AB INBEV), the big beer giant behind Bud Light and Natural Light, acquired what’s now known as Bon + Viv from Nick Shields, the so-called founding father of spiked seltzer, in 2016. In August 2019 they introduced Natural Light Seltzer to their portfolio and sold about 480,000 12-packs in three months. White Claw’s biggest competitor is Boston Beer Company’s Truly, which grew sales 177% in 2019. The company says Truly is now larger than established beer brands like Stella Artois and Blue Moon. But what does the added competition mean for White Claw?
How White Claw Took Over The $1 Billion Hard Seltzer Industry
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