Mexico's Modelo dethrones Bud Light as top-selling U.S. beer

Bud Light boycott
(Image credit: Natalie Behring / Getty Images)

The top-selling U.S. beer in May was a Mexican import, Modelo Especial, and not perennial top-seller Bud Light, according to new data from Nielsen and beverage consultancy Bump Williams. Modelo accounted for 8.4% of U.S. retail-store beer sales in the four weeks ending June 3, versus 7.3% for Bud Light, which overtook Budweiser as America's top seller in 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported. Bud Light's sales were down about 24% in May compared with a year earlier.

Drinkers have been switching to Mexican imports as well as other alcoholic beverages like hard seltzers and wine, and Modelo and Michelob Ultra were on track to overtake Bud Light in a year or longer, the Journal reported. But a conservative boycott of Bud Light starting in April, when transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted on Instagram about a some Bud Light sent to her by Anheuser-Busch, is credited with hastening the beer's dethroning.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.