Afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. It's a pleasure to introduce the last speaker of our conference this year, Jim Koch, who is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Boston Beer Company. It's been an exciting and challenging year for Boston Beer. The company drives growth and innovation in Beyond Beer, one of the fastest growing alcohol segments, led by its fast-growing Sun Cruiser brand, while navigating a return to long-term sustainable growth by stabilizing Twisted Tea and Truly. Not forgetting its roots, Boston Beer also sees areas of opportunity to drive growth beyond its core Samuel Adams, Angry Orchard, and Dogfish Head brands, which remain an important part of SAM's portfolio. With that, I'm very pleased to welcome Jim back to our event. Thank you, Jim. Thank you for having me. I was trying to think how many years it's been for you. Thank you. I should have counted. At least 20. I was thinking maybe more, but yeah, at least 20. Yeah. Right. Well, you guys, Goldman took us public. I know. In 1996. We've been doing this conference long before me. Whenever you ask- Thank you. We've showed up. Yes, I appreciate it. I'm glad we get to have a beer. Okay. All righty. All right, I wanted to kick things off with, I guess, the big picture on the landscape in beer. You know, you just had your earnings a couple of weeks ago, and I would say back, you know, there were some encouraging signs about the category during Q1, and then I kinda wanna frame that in the context of your portfolio. Could you first talk to, you know, some of the early signs of improvement we've been seeing with the category this year through Q1, but to be honest, things seem to have not been going so well in April, maybe a little bit in May. Any idea as to what's going on there, and then kinda frame that, you know, within your portfolio? Okay. When we look at the category and the growth of it, we define it a little differently because f or us, you know, we put RTD. Yeah. With beer. Okay. ‘Cause they actually, while they're spirits based, they operate in the real world through the channels as beer does. They're, you know, they're in the beer cooler. Yeah. About the ABV of beer. They're largely in beer occasions. They go through beer wholesalers. Yeah. They tend to be made in a brewery. Not in a distillery. Right. To us, they operate like beer. We put that in with the overall beer category, which means for us, we view our sort of addressable market as a couple of points better than the overall beer category. For us, the trends have improved a little bit. We were down 6% in the first quarter of last year, and down 4% year to date. The whole category got a whole lot better. Last year we actually gained share. Yeah. Relative to beer. This year, we're- Yeah. Share. Okay. We were, I mean, you know, we can put a good face on it but that did not meet our expectations. What do you think some of the drivers of that were, Jim? You know, from a strategic perspective, are there changes that you're making, you know, in the beer? Yeah. Not fundamentally. I mean, we've always recognized that growth is not cheap, and- No. View ourselves as a growth company. We are willing to invest for the long term. Now we're seeing the growth not happening in the traditional beer market. Right. It's happening in what people call, it has a bunch of names. It does. It's beyond beer. I like to think of it, I call it the fourth category because it's not just beyond beer, it's beyond liquor, it's beyond wine. For us, that's attractive because, you can innovate in that environment. It creates opportunities. Yeah. Uh, that might I mean, to me, traditional beer, I think I said this at a conference 10 years ago, and people thought I was a traitor, but I said, traditional beer's not gonna grow again in our lifetime. Yeah, yeah. It hasn't. I know, right. There are these other opportunities. Yeah. That's what we've been focusing on. You know, I started Samuel Adams. We're the Boston Beer Company. Beer is our middle name. Yeah. Today, beer is 15% of our volume. Right, right. We've over all these years gotten to where we are by finding opportunities. All of them have some characteristics in common. One is, they taste good. We spend a lot of time on the flavor developments. The second is, they're premium products and have higher margins. That's our niche, is developing against those. To that point on premiumization, I do feel like that's been one of the areas. Broader, whether it's beer, beyond beer, the premiumization opportunities, which I think is still happening, but maybe not to the same degree as what we saw. Almost- Is it? You know, within beer itself. Okay. You're right, you know. Okay. All the growth has been in craft and imports. Yeah. For decades. Yeah. If you factor in the RTD opportunities. Yeah. If you do well there, as we saw with our friends at Anheuser-Busch. You know, it has a certain amount of magic to it. You know, when you're talking about premiumization. Yeah. You've probably seen this. I have. Here is a great example of it, this is LYTT. It's obviously not anything you've seen before. Comes in a light bulb. Yeah. It's 15% alcohol. It's about 7 oz here, and these sell for $3.99. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We will see. Yeah. Um, but- You just announced that. Yeah. Yeah, yesterday. For those listening, it's a 7-oz shaped like a light bulb. Very high flavor intensity. It glows in the dark, I believe, right? Yep. The packaging. It's resealable. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's BuzzBallz. It is. Yep. You open it, and you can't reseal it. Okay. Uh- Sure. These you can reseal, you can recycle them. It's very flavor intensive. We'll see, but I think, you know, it's it sells for, on a case equivalent basis- ooh, 2.5 times Yeah. Even something like Truly or Hard Seltzer. Yes, premiumization is still out there and possible. That's great. And consumers will pay- Yeah. For this. Just in time for the summer. That's rolling out. These are for your children. Oh, yes. Thank you. Yeah. Children. Drinking age. Legal. Yes. Legal age. It's not for you, Bonnie. No. No, no. All right. Well, or me. That's- Thank you. That's exciting. We'll see how that does. Yeah, see how your kids like it. Yes. I will, and I'll report back. In terms of the beer category, more recently you are seeing a slowdown. How are you seeing within, you know, beyond beer? Are you also, at least I'm thinking of the scanner data, we are seeing just kind of a broad slowdown, whether it's April and May. Any thoughts as to what's driving that, other than maybe gas prices, the pressures? You know. On the consumer? These, I don't know. I'm, I guess, I'm the wrong person to ask. These are all, like, noise. Yeah. I mean, I'm really worried about, you know, how's the year gonna end? Yeah. It's hard to read these tea leaves. Yeah. I like to try to stay focused on the- What you can control. Bigger picture. Okay. Yes, exactly. Okay, let's talk about heading into the summer. You know, we've got Memorial Day around the corner. We've got a couple of events, whether it's, you know, World Cup and our country's 250th Anniversary. I think about that as, you know, more drinking occasions. What is it, I don't know, specifically that you're doing to kind of, you know, leverage these upcoming events, and how are you thinking about that? Yeah. I guess we look at it, I don't think there's gonna be a burst of consumption. Yeah. You know, it'd be a big deal if it went up 1%. We look at it differently. What we're looking at is they change the retailers' strategies. Okay. And approaches. For us, we think the World Cup will be important for Truly. Okay. But it will happen because we're sponsoring the men's soccer team. Yeah. That will give the retailers a reason to put Truly on the floor. That will drive Truly volume, not the World Cup per se. Yeah. Given, our sponsorship, our teams, the POS, the retailers now have a reason to build a big stack of Truly instead of White Claw. Yeah. That, and from our consumer research, you know, White Claw is more top of mind. Truly sells, you know, we do a BOGO at Publix. It's enormous. We're not as top of mind as we would like to be. Yeah. We'll use the World Cup really as a way to get displays. The same thing with Samuel Adams. You know, what beer are you gonna put on the floor? On the floor. for America 250th Anniversary? Yeah. It's not gonna be Corona, so. Okay. We look at it from the retailer's lens backwards. Okay. Speaking of Truly, 'cause I know that's a big initiative and focus for you, and it has been, to stabilize the brand. To be honest, It's in decline. Is it three or four years now, I believe, of the decline? Yeah, more than four. Yeah. You know, what, I don't know, structural changes are you maybe making to this brand and, you know, to have it better compete against some of the spirit-based RTD? In conjunction with that, you know, I definitely wanna get into the topic of, you know, increased advertising spend and investments, you know, the cost of growth, at what point do you make the decision potentially to kind of pull back maybe on- Sure. Sure Spend levels behind Truly? Sure. you know, Truly continues to be important in our portfolio. Yeah. Fortunately, it's a big enough brand. It's important to our wholesalers. Yeah. And our retailers. Okay. You know, they would like to see it stabilize. It's hard for us to grow as a company. Yeah, given the size. Truly is- Right. You know, declining mid-14%-16%. I know. You know, I'll be honest, I don't have an answer. Yeah. We're trying to sort out, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the brand, but White Claw has become kind of the default. Yeah. Brand in that category. Yeah. We're trying to figure out, do we differentiate ourselves in some way? Obviously, the World Cup sponsorship will help, but that doesn't fix any problems. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. That just, you know, gives us a little more time. We're trying to understand that, and we have honestly, we've failed to do so in the last four years. Well, I know, and we've talked about this, you know. You've changed the flavor profile, you know, you've leaned in. Hmm. That hasn't necessarily been enough, so you haven't discovered maybe what it is that's not resonating and keep working at it, I guess. All right. Is there, you know, a, you know, a decision that you're making in terms of the dollars spent behind Truly? 'Cause I know you're still stepping up incremental advertising. Yeah. Is there gonna be less money focused towards Truly and more on, you know, behind Sun Cruiser, maybe LYTT? Yeah. well- Or how do you- Look at our advertising spend differently than. Okay. Basically, I mean, we're advertising against the creative content that we're putting- Yeah On that media. We don't say, "Well, Truly's gonna get this much money, because it's this percent of our volume, and we have these goals. We basically have I mean, today, you can get pretty good data about is the advertising actually working? You know, in all the- Yeah. Direct-to-consumer stuff. Yeah It's very, very good. In businesses, consumer products, less good because it goes through these other channels. Just in the last, you know, year or two, a few problems have been solved by that allow you to get all the way to the consumer and see if an exposure to the ad changes their purchase behavior. Cause you're now, different players here are integrating loyalty card data with the IP address. Yeah. You know what social and digital went into that home. You know their IP address. You've got loyalty card data. AI allows you to set up a control group not exposed to the ads. Interesting. Okay. You can actually get similar- DT, to DTC. Interesting Data on, all right, how much did this ad cost. Yeah. To serve it to these 10,000 IP addresses. First. And how much- Yeah. Did the purchase behavior change? That gives us a much better. We've been working on this for 12 years. Okay. We've basically, we advertise against creative that works on media. Okay. That works, and we are somewhat brand agnostic. Okay. You feel like with these capabilities, maybe you're getting smarter, more efficient, and then ultimately, as you know, you step up advertising spend, I think the goal is to drive accelerated top-line growth. How do you eventually kind of balance that with, you know, being able to deliver on the bottom line? The cost of growth. Yeah. you know? Um, we'll, we're starting to get better. Okay. ROI. I mean. Okay. All right, we spent this much, $1 million. On social digital on Truly, what purchase change did we get? I mean, frankly, the answer's been so far, not much. We've taken, over the last three years, a lot of the advertising off of Truly and put it against Twisted Tea that, where it worked, Sun Cruiser where it worked. Okay. Wanna go to your guidance. You made the decision recently during your Q1 call to narrow your volume range to down low single digits to mid single digits. It prior was flat to down mid single digits. Just, you know, trying to understand if that reflects, you know, in part you sort of being prudent or the environment, you know, that we're seeing today with the broader consumer and maybe the broader category. What would need to happen to put you at the low end of that range? You know, how realistic would it. Better. I know. Better. Better. Okay. Yeah. Better, yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, I'll answer your first question. It was somewhat prudent, but it was, to be honest, we were disappointed. Yeah. By where we were. Sure. In that sense, it was prudent to sort of tweak it a little bit. What would have to happen? Hmm. Would be, I mean, there's a number of different pathways. One would be that, you know, being more visible with Truly over the summer begins to mitigate the declines. Hmm. Like, maybe. I mean, cutting them in 50% would by itself get us closer. That's one possibility. We're Sun Cruiser's continuing to grow triple digits. Yeah. It's the fastest- Yeah Growing RTD right now. I think right now it's the number 4 RTD in two years from nothing. For me, that's been more than just a volume, it's been an affirmation of our innovation capabilities. Yeah. To continue to develop meaningful innovation. We're sort of counting on that growth, you know, diminishing, but coming in fairly high and that's all happening. Right. I guess the other thing would be, w e're working on Twisted Tea. Right. Trying to reduce the declines there. Twisted Tea's, you know, it's a big number. It's our biggest brand by far. Yeah, right. Right. We're throwing a lot against it. We've got new packages both at the, you know, the 24 oz, you know, 24 unit value pack, and then a 4 x 16 unit that hits a $9.99 price point for the dollar store. Yeah. For both of those things, we actually increased our distribution points in the resets. Because of the success of Twisted Tea Extreme, so we got new points of distribution for that and really didn't lose much, 'cause Truly's still a pretty big brand. We're reinforcing some of our sort of more blue- collar base with NASCAR, with Barstool Sports, with Stagecoach. With Realtree Camo. You know, refreshing that base. There's a bunch of things. None of them: a djusting our price point. Some markets, it's- Right. Priced at Stella. Yeah. Pricing- Okay. Kind of, you know, it was growing 25% a year. Everybody, including the distributors and the retailers, pushed their margins up. We're, you know, couponing some of that back. There's a bunch of tactical things. With Twisted Tea and at the end of the day, our, share of hard tea. Hm. Well, Twisted Tea and Sun Cruiser is actually up a little- Okay. -at better margins and better pricing. Twisted Tea, the decline's mitigating significantly. That would do it. Okay. We haven't really factored in the innovations. You know. Okay. We have Sinless, which is a vodka cocktail. Yeah. And then LYTT- LYTT, yeah. Was just announced yesterday. Okay. We haven't factored those in, either one of those. That's not even, that could be upside on. Yeah. When I think about the high end of your guidance, which is down, right, low single digits. Right. Your point is if Truly declines are, I don't know, cut in 50% and then Twisted declines are, you know, mitigated. A little bit. Or stabilized. Yeah. You could hit that- Oh, yeah. Yeah -in addition to. Yeah. You know. I mean, if- Yeah. Three of those hit, we could be positive. Okay. Have you, in the context of all this, I guess if I go back to, maybe I should go back to, like, Twisted Tea because like you mentioned, that is, it's interesting 'cause now it is your largest brand. It wasn't so long ago that Truly was, together they are still very big. Then you touched on this, I definitely wanna get into Sun Cruiser and the amazing success you've had there. Is that, I assume, also contributing to some of the pressure you've seen on Twisted, meaning it's cannibalizing to some extent or? Yes. Right? It's cannibalizing. Yes. I mean. The answer is yes. Yeah. It's cannibalizing and in a funny way. How? It's harder to see in the data. Huh. When you think of cannibalizing, you immediately think, well, somebody was drinking Twisted Tea- Yeah. -they're drinking Sun Cruiser. Yeah. That's only like 20% of the decline at Twisted Tea. Okay. It's more subtle than that, I think. Okay. What, you know, the advent of vodka tea, is allowed people to question, "Well, what's Truly made out of? Okay. That's like, oh, it's malt. Yeah, yeah. Now people don't know what malt is. Yeah, they don't. The only thing they know is malt liquor. Yeah, yeah. It's, oh, so this is malt liquor- Yeah. -with tea. Oh. Yeah. It in a way de-positioned- Yeah. Twisted Tea- Interesting. -as having an inferior ingredient. Interesting. Yeah, that would be my theory- Yeah. -of what's happening. No, that's interesting. That could very well be without the understanding from the consumer. You know? Yeah. Yes. In terms of Twisted Tea innovations, you touched on both Twisted Tea Extreme and Twisted Tea Light. How have they been contributing, you know, right now? Do you think to some extent those can create a halo effect, you know, just for, I don't know, the Twisted Tea family based on potential success of those innovations? Yeah. The answer is yes, but probably only at the retailer and the wholesaler level. Okay. Where it's important, I'm not sure. I don't see it. Okay. Haloing for the consumer. Hmm. For the retailer it's like, "Oh, all right, t his is an important brand. Yeah. You know, I mean, Twisted Tea Extreme is triple digit growth. Yeah. We got more shelf space. Yeah. This year than we had last year. For Twisted. Right. For Twisted. Yep. Okay. Yep. It's interesting as I sit here and, you know, we've been talking about Twisted for a number of years, and within reason you were sort of the only player, right? You created the category and their success, so of course what happens? Competition. Well, it's not- Do you think- -the FMB. No. No? It well, yes, it brought in competition. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. None of it stuck. Okay. I mean, you know, well, it brought in AriZona. Yeah. Not a factor. Yeah. It brought in Lipton. You know, not a factor. It brought in Monster. It did, right? -with Nasty Beast. We don't talk about that. Not a factor. There's probably one other one. Brought in Anheuser-Busch with Hoop Tea. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Not a factor. Oh, New Belgium with Hardcharged. Okay. None of those have really stuck. I wouldn't be surprised if today our percent of the FMB is bigger than it was two years ago. It's really the, A, the de-positioning. Yeah. B, the vodka tea. Yeah. Okay. I think. Okay. That makes sense. Is there more innovation coming on Twisted other than what you've announced potentially in the vodka? Nothing- Nothing big or- Nothing in the pipeline. Okay. It'll probably happen. I don't know- Yeah. -what it'll be. You mentioned this a little bit this spring, or shelf reset, you've got more space for Twisted. Remind us, I think you said you expect slightly, or to slightly increase your shelf space this spring. That's happening. In total. Yeah, in total. Yeah, in total. Primarily is that, is it for across the board, or is it more Twisted and? It's Sun Cruiser. Sun Cruiser. Twisted Tea Extreme. Yeah. A few and a little more cider. Is it, but then it's Truly losing- Yes. -total company or so? Yeah. Total company's up. Okay. Truly's losing. Was that in line with your internal expectations, or did that surprise you a little? I mean, in totality that you were gaining. I was pleasantly surprised that we were up. Okay. All right. I think we were one of three suppliers at Walmart that got- Yeah. -more shelf space. That's great. I mean, beer shelf space is under a lot of pressure. Yes. Yes, which is, I guess, understandable given what, you know, we talked about with the category. You touched on Sinless, c an you share a little bit more about Sinless Vodka Cocktails? You know, what do you see as the opportunity for the brand? Yeah. What it offers to the consumers is, you can have a vodka cocktail- Hmm. -instead of a Cosmopolitan something like that, in a bar. You know you're only getting 100 calories. Yeah. You know you're getting no carbs. You know, no sugar, you know, how much alcohol you're getting in there. You don't have, you know, a bartender free pouring and you end up with two shots in there and don't expect it. those are the, and then that's on-premise. Off-premise, you know, it's portable. You can take it. It's hard to, you know, have a mixed drink on the beach. Yeah. There's a lot of people that want that experience. That's what it offers. It kind of fits in with, you know, no sugar, healthier, p ortable, convenient. We'll see. You touched on on-premise channel. How has that channel been trending so far this year? Do you still see that as a, you know, big opportunity for some of the brands we've been talking about? Yeah. We're up on-premise. Okay. Sort of low to mid-single digits. That's always been a strength for us. We believe that's where brands are built. Sun Cruiser, in its most successful markets, is 30%, sometimes 40%- Yeah -on premise. Yeah. That's I mean, five years ago I would've said that can't happen. Yeah. Why would a bar- Yeah -sell, you know, a $6, $7 Yeah. Vodka tea instead of, you know, pouring it from their well vodka. Having it cheaper and being able to serve a premium. The on-premise places have been surprisingly receptive to it. Yeah. Partly, you know, 'cause labor costs are higher. Yeah. They're harder to find good bartenders, and they make all their money, you know, on those nights when they're just cranking. Yeah. They got two bartenders. Yeah. You know, they can put 12 Sun Cruisers on the server's tray in the time it takes them to do two mixed drinks. Consumers have been very accepting of it, and it's much more controllable. You know, you know what your costs are gonna be, how much they're putting in a drink and those things. I've been surprised that, retail, the on-premise accounts- Yeah. -have not been resistant- Yeah. No, that's interesting. -to it. Definitely wanna talk a little bit more about Sun Cruiser because, you know, it really has been a standout, another one from you since the launch two years ago. What is your outlook for Sun Cruiser's performance? I mean, if we're sitting here, I don't know, two, three years from now, is this gonna be one of your bigger brands in your portfolio? That's a good question. I don't- I see. Well, the answer is probably not, it's not gonna be Twisted Tea. Yeah. Yeah. It's not gonna be Hard Seltzer. Okay. I think what we're seeing is when you get into beyond beer where there's exciting growth, it's also very fragmented. You know, there may never be again something like Bud Light was in its heyday where- True. -it had 20%+- True -of the market. Yeah. We're going into a more of a liquor world. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what's the biggest liquor brand, Fireball or Tito's? Yeah. Yeah. I think they have 6%. Yeah. -something- Right -like that. I don't You know, as things premiumize, they fragment. To that point, I mean, some innovation, so should we expect in the next two, three years just more innovation or organic growth from you? And/or would you consider, you know, M&A ever? Probably not. Okay. Well, you're pretty good at- Dogfish Head was a unique- Yeah. I mean- Yeah. Sam and I have been friends for a long time. He brought a lot of cultural stuff. He was willing to take a lower price. We were probably willing to pay more. Right. That one worked for a bunch of intangibles. I guess my view of it is, when these brands come up, it's an auction. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. You know what your odds are. In an auction, you know, the winner is gonna be the seller 80% of the time. The loser's gonna be the buyer 80% of the time. We're not set up to do that. We don't have M&A capabilities, post-merger integration. What we do have, is I believe, unmatched innovation capabilities. Yeah. We're built for that. We've structured, different kind of people in place. I could go on, but so for us, that's the most efficient way of doing it. Yeah. That honestly makes sense. Again, we'll see. You've had great success. Yeah. Your track record's incredible. In terms of gross margins, kind of switching gears again, you recently maintained your margin guidance of 48%-50%, but now, you know, we talked about you do see a little bit more downside risk on volumes this year. Just trying to understand the confidence you have in achieving that gross margin range, especially in light of, you know, rising cost of oil and everything else. So far w e're pretty confident. I mean, we have a, you know, plan, an agenda. The savings are coming in as we expected. You know, I think we, our supply chain people have done a great job, and our finance people have done a great job of bringing those savings in, and- Yeah. I see them continuing for this year. I mean, who the hell knows? Yeah. They could start bombing everything in sight in the, you know. Yeah. Persian Gulf. Right. You know, we could lose whatever it is, 13 MMbpd of oil a day. Yeah. All the 10% of the 20% of natural gas and 10% of the aluminum. Yeah. If all this I mean, all bets are off- Yeah. -if that happens. Right. Yeah, that's. You're, you don't hedge, right? There's some Yeah, exactly. We don't hedge. All right. We have a couple minutes left, and I wanted to ask, my final question for you was I would love to hear your thoughts about the broader consolidation trends, you know, in this challenging inter- industry. You know, for example, Brown-Forman. You know, what an iconic American company, fifth generation of family involvement, you know, was in discussions recently, may or may not still be in discussions with, you know, Pernod, a French company. You know, do you think that this is just an acknowledgement that it's really difficult to go it alone, you know, when the pie is shrinking and not growing? You know, how do you think about that for the broader alcohol industry? Um- Think about it for your company. Yeah. You know- Yeah. -up there in the stratosphere with me. I mean, it's just a normal evolution when, you know, the pie's not growing and people need to, you know, EPS growth out of it. You merge, you strip out overhead. That's a smart thing to do. I guess I view, just for Boston Beer- Yeah. -which is what I know about, I mean, I believe we're in a unique position in the beer industry, in that we are, big enough to have the capabilities that we need to succeed. We're important to our distributors. Yeah. We're important to retailers. We have, you know, internal scale and capabilities against the things that matter to us. We, you know, we have the largest sales force in the beer business, which gets us into, you know, we can execute on premise- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. -'cause retailers, I mean, 'cause distributors don't really do that. We've got salespeople that go into bars. Yeah. We've got a very large, you know, innovation capability. Yeah. It's not just one or two people anymore. Yeah. There's comparably big effort. We are at scale at the things that we need to be at scale. I believe, you know, we have a different culture. You know, I started my career working for big companies many years ago at BCG, and I realized, you know, they're culturally handicapped in lots of ways. I don't know that we would be better off- Yeah. -inside of a corporate culture. Okay. That's helpful and interesting. Well, best of luck to you, and it's so nice seeing you, and thank you again for your time. Always a pleasure. Appreciate it, Jim. You always have good questions. Yeah. Well, thanks. Y- you- Nice seeing you. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today.