Boston Beer, the parent of alcoholic beverage brands like Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard, pulled its earnings guidance Wednesday amid a big slowdown in sales of Truly, its hard seltzer brand.
At the end of July the company pointed to “decelerating growth trends” in hard seltzer sales to justify its weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue for the second quarter, which sent its stock tumbling 26% at the time. Those results also led the company to cut its full-year forecast, lowering its expected adjusted earnings to between $18 and $22 per share for 2021, versus its prior outlook of $22 to $26 per share.
Shares of the alcoholic beverage company fell 9.5% in after-hours trading.
“The Company now expects to incur hard seltzer-related inventory write-offs, shortfall fees payable to third-party brewers and other costs that will be expensed during the remainder of fiscal 2021,” the company said in a press release Wednesday.
The market for hard seltzer products has been among the most sought after by legacy beverage brands during the pandemic. In August Constellation Brands and Anheuser-Busch InBev launched hard seltzer products under the Bud Light and Corona brands.
In a related move in the same month, Boston Beer partnered with Pepsi to create a hard Mountain Dew product.
–CNBC’s Amelia Lucas contributed to this report.