Craft Beer Now 11% of Total Beer Volume

From Sterne Agee this morning:

Heineken/Lagunitas deal exemplifies the importance of most developed niche category – Craft Beer. Craft is now 11% of total Beer volume, IPA is fastest growing sub-category, and Lagunitas outpacing it. This isn’t Heineken’s first growthy brand deal. It owns 42% of United Breweries (Kingfisher), 95% of APB (Tiger), and 100% of FEMSA’s beer business(Tecate, Dos Equis, etc). We expect trend to continue for Heineken & other Beer majors given slow growth in big beer. AB-Inbev, for example, has regionally relevant brands, owns Goose Island, Blue Point, 10 Barrel, etc. and developed their own Craft beer, Shock Top. If BUD/SAB deal happens, Craft could suffer, but there’s potential for a JAH-like structure where sister Brewers facilitate broader distribution, better leverage hard assets, and combine buying power, increasing the power of Craft.