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

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.

The four weeks in the survey also includes Cinco de Mayo, a peak sales event for Mexican lagers.

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Anheuser-Busch, which also makes Michelob Ultra, noted that Bud light still had the title of top-selling beer of 2023. But its precipitous decline in sales "is an ominous sign" for independently owned Bud Light distributors "during what they say is a make-or-break stretch between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July," the Journal reported. Some Anheuser-Busch distributors are reportedly contemplating layoffs. "Our year is screwed," one distributor who doesn't also carry Modelo told the Journal.

Anheuser-Busch is part of the Belgian multinational beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, which bought Mexico's Grupo Modelo in 2012. As part of regulatory approval for the merger, the company sold U.S. rights to Modelo Especial and Corona to Constellation Brands. At that time, Constellation told the Journal, Modelo wasn't in the Top 10 U.S. beer brands, but it is now the top seller in California and cities like Chicago and Dallas, and a top brand among Hispanic consumers.