It’s official! Bud Light is no longer the top selling beer in the United States. Budweiser had enjoyed this title for decades, but then they went woke with a can for Dylan Mulvaney’s “365 days of womanhood”. Ever since that, sales of Bud Light have gone into the toilet, the stock price has tanked and the value of the company has lost billions. America’s #1 beer is now Modelo Especial, a pilsner-style lager that began nearly 100 years ago in Mexico.
Bud Light sales plunged in May, toppling the beer brand from its longtime perch as the nation’s best-selling brew.
Parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) sold $297 million worth of Bud Light for the four weeks ending May 28 — a 23% drop from the same time period the year before, according to consumer behavior data analytics firm Circana. Modelo Especial ranked No.1 in May, with $333 million in sales — a 15% increase from 2022.
The sales drop for Bud Light follows a promotion debacle with TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, a trans rights activist and actress, that sparked an uproar among conservatives including singers including Kid Rock and Travis Tritt, who called for a boycott of the popular beer.
The company’s attempt to distance itself from the campaign caused further backlash, this time from the LGBTQ+ community, with some bars pulling all Anheuser-Busch products from their menu.
ABI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.