Salud!… The surprising leadership of Mexican beer in the United States

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Mexico exports more beer to the United States than any other country by far. In 2022, it shipped in seven times the volume of the second-highest source of U.S. beer imports, the Netherlands.

From 2013 to 2022, the amount of Mexican beer imports from doubled, according to data from the Beer Institute. Mexico carried the overall growth in the U.S. beer imports during that time: Imports from everywhere else dropped more than 25 percent.

The biggest growth in Mexican beer sales over the past year has been in states closer to the Canadian border, which tend to have lower Hispanic populations, while growth in states closer to Mexico has lagged, according to one Nielsen IQ analysis of on-premise sales.

We have as an example the Modelo Especial beer. The story of how Modelo Especial, a Mexican lager, surpassed Bud Light as the top-selling beer in America predates the conservative backlash that Bud Light faced in April over a collaboration with a transgender influencer. The country’s steadily growing Hispanic population is only part of the story, too.

Rather, the factors that, for the better part of a decade, put Modelo on its triumphant track include an increasing preference among American consumers for imported, more expensive beer; a decade-old antitrust deal; and effective marketing campaigns aimed at attracting young, non-Hispanic consumers to the Mexican beer. “Most people in the beer industry have assumed Modelo was going to overtake Bud Light at some point,” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association, a trade group representing over 6,000 American breweries. “It was a question of when, not if.”

The switch occurred at the start of June, after Bud Light had held the No. 1 spot for about 20 years. In the four-week period that ended July 8, Modelo made up 8.7 percent of retail beer sales in the United States, compared with Bud Light’s 6.8 percent, according to Nielsen IQ data analyzed by the consulting firm Bump Williams.

A demographic shift has also contributed to Model’s success. Hispanic people made up 19 percent of the U.S. population in 2021, up from 13 percent in 2000, according to the Census Bureau.

Along with that, Mexican products have gained “cultural appeal” among non-Hispanic consumers, Ms. Sarwat said. And it’s not just beer: The volume of tequila and mezcal — Mexican liquors — sold in the United States increased 273 percent from 2003 to 2022, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.