Behind light beer’s new challengers—Kelce brothers, Hulk Hogan and others take on Bud Light and Coors Light

The view from the summit of Light Beer Mountain may be precarious. But there’s suddenly a lot of climbers at the base. While mainstream megabrands have long been shedding market share (none as prolifically as Bud Light), a barrel of would-be challengers are now playing in a similar space, several fueled by celebrity athlete backing. These brands are riding the health and wellness trend, a switch back to beer from hard seltzers, and a “dad culture” responding to simple brand propositions and easy-drinking, classic styles, observers say. Super Bowl ad review The best and worst commercials from the Big Game Click here Many of the brewers of these new lights—Travis and Jason Kelce-backed Garage Beer, Troy Aikman’s Eight Elite Lager, and Hulk Hogan’s Real American Beer among them—make no secret of their debt to light lager megabrands, and the marketing that made them famous. Even craft brewers have thrown themselves into classic beer styles lately, with craft light lagers growing by 54.2% for the 12 weeks ended Dec. 28, according to Nielsen IQ data from Bump Williams Consulting. And it’s not only new brands. Nineteenth-century lagers like Lone Star and Rainier, today regional brands belonging to Pabst Brewing, have also been performing well lately, data shows, as has Anheuser-Busch InBev's value-priced Busch Light. Garage Beer saw dollar sales soar by 563% for the 12 weeks ending Dec. 28, primarily due to geographic expansion. But some others have struggled including Eight Elite (-8% in dollars for the 12 weeks) and the buzzy Montucky Cold Snacks (-30%), the light lager brand acquired by Gallo last year. “I think that this level of widespread and diverse interest in so many lager brands across the U.S. is evidence that consumers of all types still have that desire for ‘classic’ beer—it now just comes down to price, quality, taste, attributes and ultimately, relevance,” Dave Williams, president of Bump Williams Consulting, said in an email. The light beer market is considerably less volatile than it was in 2023, when Bud Light hemorrhaged sales in the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney controversy and competitors large and small realized sales gains. The 12-week dollar sales figures show Bud Light (-4.8%), Coors Light (-3.5%) and Miller Lite (-3.4%) in a tight range, settling back into the kind of slow deterioration they had been experiencing (with some exceptions) for years. “I don’t think it’s odd that innovators are trying to take on the big light brands that are in decline—I think that’s exactly why they are doing it,” said Jenn Litz-Kirk, executive editor of industry trades Beer Business Daily and Craft Business Daily. “These new lifestyle-oriented light brands see an opportunity to take share from the leading guys who are losing.” ‘Smart-dumb’ It was only a matter of time before the celebrity-owner trend that permeated the spirits world arrived in beer, and it’s natural that those celebrities are athletes. Sports and beer have teamed up for as long as each has existed. Today Patrick Mahomes famously supports Coors Light, JJ Watt is a Miller Lite “All-Star” and Peyton Manning plugs Bud Light, including in a 2025 Super Bowl ad. And only a year before becoming one of the faces of Garage Beer, Travis Kelce was appearing in a Bud Light ad. Garage Beer was founded in 2018 by Covington, Kentucky-based craft brewer Braxton Brewing, which spun the brand off to investors led by Andy Sauer in 2023. Sauer, who had connections with Travis Kelce through another venture, sold a significant stake in Garage to Travis and Jason Kelce in June 2024. Kevin George, Garage’s chief marketing officer, said the Kelces were looking for something “new and different” when they found Garage. The brand’s evocative name was part of its magic. “Garage beer is a thing,” George said. “It’s about sitting around with your friends, having that fridge in the garage that stays colder than any other fridge you’ve ever had.” The same notion of a hangout among friends carries the Kelces’ “New Heights” podcast, the second-most popular sports podcast (and 88th most popular podcast overall) according to Spotify. Garage Beer is a prominent part of the set, and has more recently sponsored “They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce,” the late-night talk show which debuted on ESPN in January. But Garage’s marketing has primarily been local and social, finding opportunity in what George calls “the zeitgeist around dad culture” and in small-scale sports activations such as local sports TV shows that have helped build awareness as it expands to new markets. “We’d rather sponsor an adult men’s hockey league than buy a sign on AT&T Stadium,” said George, noting that Kelces can build awareness on a larger scale. George’s marketing experience includes a stint as CMO of Beam Suntory, as well as VP-general manager for Unilever’s deodorant and health care unit, where he was known for spearheading unconventional marketing campaigns for Axe body spray. Jason Kelce is behind much of Garage Beer’s creative, including a ridiculous digital ad that flipped the script on the exploitative beer advertisements of yesteryear. “If you look back at some of the marketing that was done in the ’90s in beer, it was fun, and it was really good,” George said. “We try to do that. We try to be what we call smart-dumb. Clever, but a little fun.” NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today More than Troy’s brand It’s less locker room, more training table over at Eight Elite, Troy Aikman’s light beer aimed competitively at Michelob Ultra instead of Bud Light. The brand takes its name from the uniform number of the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current Fox Sports broadcaster, and markets itself around better ingredients and a better-for-you profile, executives say. Eight is now moving to publish its ingredients on its packaging—it’s a short list including only water, organic malt and hops. The beer boasts 90 calories and 2.6 grams of carbs per 12-oz. serving (Michelob Ultra has 95 calories and 2.6 carbs). “For us, being transparent around the ingredients that are in our beer is a big part of how we are marketing the brand,” said Charlotte Hatterick, marketing director for Eight. “Before I joined the category, I didn’t realize that a lot of these mass brands were brewed with corn syrup, rice and sugar.” The ingredient panel will be going onto new slim cans—a considerable plant investment but one that executives said would better relay Eight’s proposition as it begins its fourth year in operation. Premium competitors such as Michelob Ultra and Modelo Oro also serve in slim cans. Attention to details like these offer support beyond Aikman, who remains an important figure in point-of-sale marketing, Eight execs said. Aikman also carries considerable weight in Eight’s North Texas home market (the brand is also big in Oklahoma, where Aikman attended high school and a year of college). “We don’t want this just to be Troy’s brand,” said Hatterick. “We want the liquid to stand on its own.” The brand had a “grassroots” launch relying on sampling, word-of-mouth and other earned media during its first two years. Now it’s moving to paid social, paid search and YouTube ads, Hatterick said. “In addition, we’ll be running some TV and have a significant buy in radio,” she added. AB InBev’s still-ascending Michelob Ultra has about 77% share of the super-premium light beer market in Texas, providing Eight Elite a big target. “They’re a lifestyle brand and even though they’re a superior light beer we’re an elite light beer,” said David Reny, Eight’s CEO. “And we have a point of difference with better-for-you ingredients and messaging.” And while beer is flat or falling “it’s a massive industry,” Reny said. “There’s opportunity there monetarily for anyone that can carve out a piece of the pie.” Eight Elite’s low-calorie, easy-drinking formulation has been a natural in Texas, the country’s biggest beer state, and biggest light beer state. “It’s hard to have a double IPA in Houston, Texas when it’s 102 degrees, but a light beer is still refreshing on that day,” Reny said. While the brand saw an 8% sales decline in the 12 weeks ended Dec. 28, Hatterick attributed it to lapping a 2023 incentive program it chose not to repeat in 2024, as well as a loss of some distribution points in April 2024 that affected sales for the rest of the year. Crash and burn Executives at AB InBev have long made the distinction that it’s not “lager” or “light” that is necessarily struggling but “mainstream” lagers and lights. This has occurred over years amid an explosion of alternatives like seltzers, flavored malt beverages and canned cocktails, and a trend among consumers to seek out more premium brands and microbrews. In a conference call in October, AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris said the company was focused on stabilizing mainstream brands—and that Busch Light was defying the trend. “For a while, we didn’t see a brand in the mainstream gaining share in such a consistent way [as Busch Light],” Doukeris said. The Mulvaney controversy—which involved conservative backlash over Bud Light’s partnership with the transgender influencer—underscored the surprising ease with which consumers found they could switch to other brands, indicating differentiation between them might not have been as strong as suspected. Terry Bollea, known to millions under his pro wrestling name Hulk Hogan, was paying close attention. “When I saw Bud Light crash and burn, I immediately knew they didn’t understand their audience; their marketing was a no-go,” the former WWE champion and Donald Trump ally said in a recent Beernet Radio podcast. “Then I saw the seas open up. I saw an open lane for an American beer.” A jacked Hulk Hogan flies an American flag on each can of Real American Beer, which launched last June intending to fill the Bud Light fissure. The brand, co-founded and co-owned by Hogan, expanded to 20 states in its first six months. Much of the credit for the rapid rollout belongs to Hogan, whose legendary enthusiasm has been a hit with retailers and distributors in more than 50 cities, said Terri Francis, CEO of Real American Beer. “It’s been a whirlwind that underscores two things: a beer that genuinely tastes good, and a brand that strikes an emotional chord with consumers,” Francis, a former AB InBev executive, said via email. “People try Real American Beer, realize it’s super crushable and come back for more. Add in a team that has both deep beer-industry knowledge and scrappy startup energy, and you get the kind of growth story we’re seeing now.” The brand is already demonstrating a feisty willingness to fight Bud Light on its own turf. When Brendan Whitworth, AB InBev’s U.S. CEO, suggested the beer industry change the nomenclature from “domestic” to “American,” Real American used social media to point out that AB InBev is a Belgian company. Recent news: Budweiser wins USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter Gordon Roth, VP of operations and strategy for Real American, and marketing director Keely Mulligan are also AB InBev veterans. Real American began 2025 with a slam—becoming an official beer partner of WWE, with its logo appearing on the ring mat watched by millions each week on “Monday Night Raw,” now on Netflix. WWE also made an undisclosed investment in the brand and said it would offer support in the form of sharing original short-form content on its social and digital channels, which reach more than 700 million users globally. WWE is also making its trademarks and talent available for use on in-store point-of-sale materials and promotional displays. Wrestling fans roundly booed Hogan during a recent appearance on “Raw” meant to announce the beer deal—some evidently felt the pitch came off as self-promoting; others may have been turned off by Hogan’s social transgressions, or outspoken support of President Trump. Francis said the goal, however, is for Real American Beer to bring people together and not divide them. “People want to see themselves in the brands they choose—and we’ve built Real American Beer around values like grit, pride and hardworking spirit,” Francis said, adding the brand was “unapologetically” American. “We want to bring people together across all walks of life around a great-tasting beer—because that’s the real American spirit.” Long diatribe There’s a reason many craft brewers are now pursuing lighter styles. “Metabolism-wise, it’s hard for older drinkers who cut their teeth on craft beer to hang with a 300-calorie, 7% ABV beer,” Sam Calagione, founder of the craft brew brand Dogfish Head, said at a recent event introducing 30-Minute IPA, a beer with 95 calories, 3.6 grams of carbohydrates, and 4% alcohol by volume per 12-ounce serving—figures that out-light brands like Coors Light (102 calories, 5 grams carbs and 4.2% ABV). Acknowledging there’s been a pushback against what might be considered the pretentiousness of craft drinkers, Dogfish is describing the beer using simpler terms than it might once have. “If we were coming out with this beer 12 or 15 years ago, you’d see a bigger call-out to the hops, and the character of pineapple, and we’d be talking about the esoteric nomenclature of craft beer,” Calagione said. “Today’s drinker is just like, ‘I want to understand that proposition. I’m into TikTok—you need to turn me on in four seconds. I don’t need a long diatribe about how special your ingredients are.’” Dogfish parent Boston Beer Co. is making another run at light beer. It launched Sam Adams American Light last year in select markets to fulfill what it saw as a need for an “upgraded” easy-drinking beer (two previous versions of Sam Adams light beers, Lightship and Sam Adams Light, were discontinued). The brand anticipates expansion of American Light to all 50 states this March and has called on “Your Cousin from Boston” to help sell it (Goodby Silverstein & Partners is the agency). New creative is due in March, a spokesperson said.

Behind light beer’s new challengers—Kelce brothers, Hulk Hogan and others take on Bud Light and Coors Light

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