Millennials are shunning beer because they say it makes them ‘fat’

Source: Business Insider

Almost a third of millennials say they’re cutting back on alcohol, up from the 21% who said they were drinking less alcohol in 2018, according to a survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Beer is being hit the hardest, with 27% of the millennials who say they are cutting back saying that they are drinking less beer.

The top reason the millennials surveyed provided for drinking less beer was due to calorie concerns or believing that “beer makes me fat.”

Companies are responding by trying to rebrand beer as a healthy option, as well as investing in wine and hard seltzer.

Millennials are cutting back on alcohol, and beer is being hit the hardest.

31% of millennials polled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch said they are drinking less alcohol than before, up from 21% in 2018. BAML surveyed 1,000 millennials in the US and UK, publishing results in a note on Monday.

Among millennials who are drinking less, 35% said they were drinking less of all kinds of alcohol. 27% said they were drinking less beer – more than the 26% who said they were drinking less spirits and 12% who said they were drinking less wine.

Beer sales have slipped in the US in recent years, with sales by volume dropping by 1% in the US from 2017 to 2018, according to Euromonitor data shared with Business Insider.