Busch Light is flying off shelves right now. Why?

ST. LOUIS — One of the hottest beers in the country right now is an old St. Louis staple.

From mid-May to mid-June, Busch Light sales volume jumped 4% over last year, putting it among the industry’s top three fastest-growing franchises. 

“It’s kickin’ butt,” said Benj Steinman, president of trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights.

It’s also a sign of the times: Beer drinkers, wearied by rising prices, are starting to pick cheaper “value” beers over pricier “premium” brands. And Busch Light is the obvious choice for savings: It’s the country’s best-selling value beer, and Anheuser-Busch has worked hard to keep it that way. 

It’s not enough to offset A-B’s struggles with larger legacy brands Budweiser and Bud Light, which continue to shed market share. But Busch Light’s winning streak is nevertheless welcome as executives work to sell more beer and grow revenues after a lackluster decade. 

Busch Light was first introduced here in the spring of 1989, when a six-pack went for $3.49.

It was a derivative of Busch beer intended to bolster A-B’s lineup of light brews, then a rapidly growing segment of the industry. It was expected to generate a quarter of the sales of its namesake. Instead, it outsold it.

It has continued to defy expectations in recent years. At a time when light beer heavyweights like Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coors Light have seen sales plummet, Busch Light has managed to grow its market share in each of the past three years, and it’s well on its way to a fourth despite a decline in beer sales industrywide.  

In some ways, these are times made for Busch Light, which can retail for 20% less than Bud Light in St. Louis. Inflation is at its highest level in 40 years, eating away at consumers’ buying power.

And Busch Light generates a significant portion of its sales at a place where people are really getting pinched right now: the gas station.

Bud Light and Miller Lite drinkers are more likely to choose Busch Light when they’re paying $6 per gallon to fill up their tanks, said Harry Schuhmacher, editor of trade publication Beer Business Daily.

“If they’re living paycheck to paycheck, they’re definitely going to go that route,” he said.

It’s not all about the price, though.

Anheuser-Busch has also done a good job marketing its top sub-premium brand in ways its competitors haven’t matched, analysts said.

Influencers promote Busch Light on TikTok and Instagram as a staple of the outdoors, country life and Americana. Anheuser-Busch also paid to make it the official beer of the Country Music Association Festival and the star of a Super Bowl commercial with smooth jazz legend Kenny G airing in markets like Nashville, Tennessee, and Buffalo, New York, where the company said interest is growing.

Busch Light also got in on the flavored beer game with Busch Light Apple, and put cans in special packaging as part of a campaign to support farmers. Last year, the beer cans were dressed up as corn cobs; this year, they featured the John Deere logo and a big green tractor.

“That comes up every time I talk with a distributor,” said Steinman, the Beer Marketer’s Insights president. “The John Deere promotion worked.”

The next big promotion remains a mystery for now.

But with inflation expected to take a while to die down and brewers, including Anheuser-Busch, planning price increases to compensate, Busch Light may not need one.

“When prices go up, people are going to trade down,” Schuhmacher said.

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