- Sales from the three months to the end of December down 3.1% year-on-year at US$393.7m
- Full-year 2023 finishes at -2.9% – $2.01bn
- CEO Dave Burwick confirms retirement with lead director Michael Spillane taking over next month
The company, which has made waves in the US RTD category in recent years with its Truly Hard Seltzer brand, saw the year-to-date sales dip of 1.7% worsen in Q4. The overall 2.9% top-line decline in 2023 means that Q3’s +0.9% performance was an outlier across the year’s four quarters.
In a somewhat convoluted results statement – Boston Beer’s 2023 Q4 comprised 13 weeks compared to the previous year’s 14 – the group noted unspecified declines in volumes for Truly. Meanwhile, fellow malt-based RTD Twisted Tea along with alcohol-free variants of flagship lager Samuel Adams and Dogfish Head canned cocktails posted volume rises in the three-month period.
While quarterly volumes were down by just 1%, the full year came in at -5% as the former brand pattern played out across 2023. Despite this, founder & chair Jim Koch professed to be “pleased” with the “steady improvement in comparable weeks depletions (volumes).
Separately, Boston Beer also announced last week that Dave Burwick will retire as CEO on 1 April. Burwick, who assumed the helm in 2018, prior to which he spent 20 years with PepsiCo, will be succeeded by lead director Michael Spillane.
Koch credited Burwick with overseeing the company’s growth “from $850m in revenue when he began as CEO to more than $2bn in revenue with a portfolio of powerful brands in attractive categories today”.
