By: Tara Nurin
Raise your hand if you believe the collective “we” are boozing it up big time during coronavirus.
If your arm’s up, lower it. You’re wrong, as are a lot of other people.
Practically every reporting agency—from the major data collection companies to the beer and mainstream media—has assumed too much knowledge on the part of the public and has failed to, at least initially, explain their methodology when they’ve presented alcohol sales trends over the course of coronavirus. And said public has naturally responded to the misleading headlines and too-fine-print by forming the incorrect conclusion that sales are soaring. So many friends, social media strangers and even my own boyfriend have argued with me when I’ve tried to correct them that I start to wonder whether my expert credentials as a business-of-beer writer matter to anyone anymore. (I see you, Dr. Fauci.)
Here’s the truth: For the most part, alcohol sales in the United States have only spiked in stores that sell it to-go. Though certain markets and vendors call themselves outliers, that is not generally enough to offset the fact that practically every business that serves alcohol to drink on-site has closed over the past three months.
Ergo, Americans are not buying more or spending more on alcohol. We’re simply moving our purchases to off-premises shops that let/force us to take it home, rather than staying to consume on-premises at a bar, taproom, brewpub, concert, festival, baseball game, barber shop, or anywhere other than our abodes. And though some stats suggest that the overall quantity of wine and spirits sold remains roughly even with pre-COVID levels, the amount of money spent to buy wine and spirits has dropped since this time in 2019, while beer sales, by any measure, are hitting the floor.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s Danny Brager, senior vice president of beverage alcohol at Nielsen: “Consumers are spending significantly less on alcohol because of the closures and restrictions to the on-premise space. People are just transferring their purchases, not buying more alcohol in total.”
Nielsen calculates that off-premise volume sales would need to grow by at least 22% over the same time period last year to make up for the temporary loss of the on-premise gathering space if the country remained in full lockdown but allowed to-go sales from bars and manufacturers. We have seen off-premise volume growth play out like that to some degree during the pandemic, particularly for spirits and wine, but not for the beer/flavored malt beverages/cider category, which has grown there, on average, just 17.5% for the 12-week period ending May 23.