Beer and beverage public relations is the work of earning trusted coverage, expert endorsements and reviews that shape what drinkers choose at the bar, on the shelf and in the search box. The stakes show in the numbers: non-alcoholic beer grew 23% in 2025, per Beer Institute data cited by Food Dive, while one partnership controversy cut Bud Light's dollar sales by 26.8% in a single week of August 2023, according to Fox 9.
A brand with no PR program meets both kinds of change unprepared: the category moves, and one mistake becomes the story. This page is the drinks chapter of the food and beverage PR guide.
Originally published July 2014. Updated October 2026.
Why is beer and beverage PR different from other consumer PR?
Beer and beverage PR differs from other consumer PR because the buying decision happens in seconds, at a bar, a supermarket shelf or a restaurant table. Drinkers rarely research a pint or a seltzer for long before they choose.
The research that does happen has moved toward AI answer engines. Buyers ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews questions such as "best craft beers in Brooklyn," "alcohol-free aperitifs for dinner parties" and "low-calorie ready-to-drink cocktails." A brand named in that answer reaches the buyer before any shelf or menu does.
Alcohol adds a constraint other categories lack. Labeling and advertising claims are regulated at federal and state level, and industry codes add rules on where and how brands may advertise, so every claim in a pitch or a press release should be checked with counsel before it goes out.
How is beverage marketing different from beverage PR?
Beverage marketing pays for attention through ads, sponsorships and promotions, and beverage PR earns attention through coverage, expert voices and reviews. For alcohol, marketing is the more restricted of the two, so many brands lean on PR and social content to reach drinkers. The rules that shape alcohol marketing come from three places: the federal government, industry codes and each platform's own policy.
- Federal rules: in the United States, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau regulates alcohol labels and advertising claims, and state agencies add their own rules.
- Industry codes: trade groups publish voluntary advertising codes, including the Beer Institute's marketing code for beer and the Distilled Spirits Council's code for spirits. These codes cover audience age and content.
- Platform policy: social platforms restrict alcohol ads and require age gates, which is why the page on alcohol brand social media sets out a framework that works inside those limits.
Treat these as starting points and have counsel review current rules before launch, because they change. The drinks case studies on this site show how brands work inside them, including Red Bull, poppi and Liquid Death and Heineken's The Closer campaign.
What is changing in the beer and beverage category?
The biggest change is that adults are drinking less alcohol and choosing more non-alcoholic options. Food Dive reported, citing Gallup, that the share of U.S. adults who say they drink was at its lowest in nearly 90 years in 2025, and that the non-alcoholic beer category grew 23% that year.
Brewbound reported a clear seasonal pattern. During Dry January 2025, non-alcoholic beer took a record 4.2% share of beer grocery sales, with dollar sales up 23.5%, while the total beer category fell 3.2% in dollars in food stores.
These numbers give a PR team three angles to pitch: moderation, occasions beyond nights out, and brands that make the non-alcoholic choice feel like a first choice and not a compromise.
How did Athletic Brewing build a category brand?
Athletic Brewing built a category brand by focusing on non-alcoholic beer alone and by getting the product into both retail and bars. Food Dive reported in 2024 that Athletic, founded in 2018, held more than 19% of non-alcoholic beer, was sold at more than 50,000 retailers and 25,000 on-premise venues, and had closed a $50 million round led by General Atlantic. Food Dive's later report cited Circana data putting Athletic at 20.7% of off-premise non-alcoholic beer sales.
The sources describe the results, not the full cause, so the lessons below are interpretation and not reported fact. A single-category brand gives journalists and AI engines one clear thing to say about it. A presence in bars gives the brand credible tasters, not only shoppers. And the founder's origin story gives reviewers a human source to quote.
Larger brands responded. Food Dive noted that Heineken has seen success with its 0.0 product and that celebrity-backed entrants have launched, which means a new non-alcoholic brand now competes for the same editors and the same AI answers.
What does a beer and beverage PR program include?
A beer and beverage PR program includes five practices: founder voice, ingredient transparency, on-premise relationships, crisis planning and Citation Share tracking. Each gives reviewers, journalists and AI engines something specific to quote.
| Practice | Why it works | First action |
|---|---|---|
| Founder voice | A named founder is a source people can quote, and the origin story is a fact that reviewers repeat | Publish a founder page with credentials, recipe origin and brewing tradition |
| Ingredient transparency | Clean labeling, sourcing and certifications give reviewers concrete quality claims to cite | Publish an ingredient and process page with third-party certifications |
| On-premise experts | Bartenders, chefs and sommeliers are credentialed voices whose quotes validate the product | Invite five to taste the product and comment on the record |
| Crisis planning | Recalls, contamination events and marketing controversies stay searchable for years | Write a holding statement and a recall protocol before launch |
| Citation Share tracking | It shows how often AI engines name the brand when buyers ask category questions | Run twenty buyer questions monthly and log which brands appear |
The last row is the measurement piece. Citation Share is the percentage of AI engine answers to category buyer questions that name a brand, and the method for tracking it is the same one described in AI brand monitoring. Track it against two direct competitors and compare it with retail velocity to test whether the two move together in your category.
What can a beverage brand learn from the Bud Light case?
A beverage brand can learn that a single marketing partnership can move sales quickly and that a brand needs to know its drinkers before it picks a partner. In April 2023, Bud Light's promotion with Dylan Mulvaney led to a boycott of the brand and its parent company. By August, Fox 9 reported that Bud Light's weekly dollar sales were down 26.8% and volume down 30.3%, and that Modelo Especial had taken over as the best-selling beer in the United States with an 8.4% share of total beer sales.
The same report said Budweiser, another Anheuser-Busch brand, saw weekly dollar sales fall 10.5%, which shows the damage can spread to sister brands.
The case teaches process, whatever a reader thinks of the controversy. Map your core drinkers and the partner's audience before signing. Decide in advance who speaks for the brand and how fast. Prepare a statement and a plan for retailers and distributors, because they feel the effect first. The first statements are covered in the crisis statement template, and the broader recall and safety scenarios in product recalls.
How should a brand use bartenders, chefs and sommeliers?
A brand should use bartenders, chefs and sommeliers as ongoing, credentialed sources, not only as distribution contacts. Their quotes in earned coverage act as expert validation that journalists and AI engines can repeat.
Build the relationship in stages. Start with a tasting and a short written note for each person, with the founder present. Ask for an honest opinion on the record instead of an endorsement. Follow up with a seasonal serve, a pairing or a cocktail specification the expert can adapt, and credit the expert by name and venue whenever the brand uses the work.
How should a beverage brand plan for a crisis?
A beverage brand should plan for a crisis by publishing founder, ingredient and safety information before anything goes wrong, and by writing the holding statement in advance. Contamination, recalls, regulatory action and marketing controversies stay searchable for years, so accurate material needs to exist when journalists and engines look.
The light beer category, the subject of this page's 2014 edition, shows how hard a consumer narrative is to reverse once it sets. Brands in that category spent years trying to change what drinkers believed about them, which is much more work than preventing the belief.
What other food and beverage coverage is on this site?
- Food and beverage PR guide, the hub for the whole section
- Beverage PR success stories
- Alcohol brand social media
- Heineken The Closer campaign case study
- Restaurant PR and review generation for restaurants
- Supplements PR in 2026, for functional beverage adjacency
- Cannabis communications in 2026, for regulated-category adjacency
This page sits inside the public relations rules pillar as the beer and beverage vertical anchor. For the sequence of work, see the PR plan guide and the PR ROI guide. 5W's food and beverage team describes its work on the 5W food and beverage PR page. Disclosure: Ronn Torossian founded 5W.
Frequently asked questions
What is beer and beverage public relations?
Beer and beverage public relations is the practice of earning coverage, expert endorsements and reviews for drink brands, so that drinkers, retailers, journalists and AI engines have credible sources to cite.
What is the difference between beverage marketing and beverage PR?
Beverage marketing pays for attention through ads, sponsorships and promotions. Beverage PR earns attention through coverage, expert voices and reviews. Alcohol marketing is more restricted, so many alcohol brands rely more on PR and social content.
How is beer and beverage PR different in 2026 than in 2014?
Discovery has moved into AI engine answers. Buyers asking for a low-calorie cocktail or a craft beer in Brooklyn get a named-brand answer before they see a shelf or a menu. The 2014 playbook of earned coverage and credible voices still applies, and the AI answer layer sits on top of it.
Is non-alcoholic beer a good category for PR?
Yes, because the category is growing and the story is clear. Food Dive reported 23% category growth in 2025, citing Beer Institute data, and Brewbound reported a record 4.2% share of grocery beer sales in Dry January 2025.
What happens when a beer or beverage brand faces a crisis?
The coverage stays searchable for years. Brands with a deep record of accurate founder, ingredient and safety material recover faster, because journalists and engines have something reliable to cite alongside the bad news.
How do you measure beverage PR?
Track placements by outlet type, expert quotes earned, sales around coverage, and Citation Share, which is the percentage of AI answers to category buyer questions that name your brand.
What should a beverage brand do first?
Publish a founder and ingredient page with sourcing and certifications, invite five bartenders, chefs or sommeliers to taste the product and comment on the record, and run twenty buyer questions through the main AI tools to record which competitors appear. Use that baseline to choose the first campaign, and write the holding statement before the campaign launches.
The names and scope of the federal agency and the two industry codes in the marketing section come from general knowledge and were not re-checked against current text, so verify them before relying on them.