Boston Beer Earnings July 23: Can Twisted Tea Outrun a Shrinking Seltzer Business?

TL;DR

• Boston Beer reports after Thursday's close, July 23, with the Street at roughly $579 million in revenue, down about 1.5% on the year, and near $4.99 in EPS.
• Q2 is the seasonally huge quarter (summer sells beer and hard tea), so a revenue decline here is the whole worry: the top line is shrinking in its best selling window.
• The single question: is Twisted Tea still growing fast enough to paper over the long slide in hard seltzer. The EPS line says margins are fine; the revenue line says demand is not.
• Read and trade below.

The Board

A revenue decline in the peak summer quarter is the whole worry.

One Growth Engine, One Melting Ice Cube

Boston Beer is really two companies now. Twisted Tea is the growth engine, a genuinely dominant brand still taking share of the flavored-alcohol shelf. Truly and the rest of the hard-seltzer franchise are the melting ice cube, past their 2021 peak and still bleeding volume as the seltzer fad normalizes.

A 1.5% revenue decline in the peak summer quarter means the math has flipped the wrong way: the ice cube is now melting slightly faster than the engine can grow. That is a very different story than the one the stock told on the way up.

Why The EPS Is High And The Story Is Still Hard

Do not let the $4.99 fool you into a bull case. Boston Beer has spent two years cutting costs, dialing back the seltzer overproduction that wrecked margins, and buying back stock. That protects earnings per share even as the top line stalls. It is quality management of a demand problem, not a demand solution.

The read-through matters beyond one beverage maker: this is the same rotation into defensive consumer names playing out at the product level, where staples that can hold price are rewarded and volume-losers are not. Boston Beer needs to prove it is the former.

The Options Angle

• SAM is a low-float, high-dollar stock, so options premiums are chunky and the shares gap. A summer print that confirms Twisted Tea's momentum can squeeze, because sentiment is bearish and positioning is light.
• Trade the volume line, not the EPS line. Depletions and shipments (how fast product moves off shelves) tell you demand. EPS tells you how well they are managing the decline, and the market re-rates on the former.
• A covered call fits a "fairly valued, going nowhere" thesis. If you think SAM grinds sideways while the two brands fight to a draw, renting out upside collects income while you wait for the next new product to matter.

The One-Line Read

Boston Beer's Thursday print is a race between Twisted Tea and a melting seltzer business in the one quarter that should flatter both, so watch the volume trend, not the healthy-looking EPS, because margins can mask a demand problem for exactly as long as it takes the top line to force the issue.