What Boston Beer’s Q2 results tell you about the state of hard seltzer, flavoured malt beverages, and the formats that are replacing them

Boston Beer published Q2 2026 results on 23 July 2026. Depletions fell 6%, shipments fell 4.5%, and net revenue of $568.3 million was down 3.3%. Gross margin expanded 60 basis points to 50.4%. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $3.65. The company maintained its full-year Non-GAAP EPS guidance of $8.50 to $10.50 while narrowing the gross margin range upward to 48.5%–50%. These are the numbers. But the more commercially interesting story is not what the numbers say about this quarter in isolation – it is what the combination of brand-level performance, the 16.4% advertising investment increase, and the signals tracked across the wider category in 2026 tells you about where Boston Beer is heading and why.

The portfolio bifurcation that the results confirm

Five of Boston Beer’s core brands declined in Q2 2026: Twisted Tea, Truly Hard Seltzer, Samuel Adams, Hard Mountain Dew, and Dogfish Head. Two grew: Sun Cruiser and Angry Orchard. The company’s shipment volume of approximately 2.0 million barrels was down 4.5%, with the decline driven entirely by the five contracting brands partially offset by the two growing ones. This is not a uniform category story. It is a portfolio story.

Twisted Tea is the most commercially significant of the declining brands and the one that deserves the most attention. Through the worst of the hard seltzer correction from 2023 onwards, Twisted Tea held. While Truly fell from the peak of the hard seltzer boom, Twisted Tea continued to grow as flavoured malt beverages found a consumer base distinct from hard seltzer’s. Q2 2026 is the first quarter in which Twisted Tea is explicitly named as a declining brand. The mechanism is the same one that affected hard seltzer before it: a softer consumer discretionary environment, a category that attracted more competition as it grew, and a consumer base that is now exercising more choice about which flavoured malt beverage they buy rather than defaulting to the market leader.