Bud Light to Launch Hard Soda

The product launches are the latest in a series of crossover ventures as alcohol and soft drink companies push into one another’s turf in search of growth. Consumer demand has soared over the past few years for nonalcoholic seltzers such as LaCroix and alcoholic ones such as White Claw that are low on calories and offer just a hint of flavor. Now some consumers are migrating toward stronger flavors, industry experts say, and brewers are trying out new fizzy drinks.

Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda will have no sugar or caffeine. Anheuser-Busch describes it as “light like a seltzer and bold like soda pop.” Each can will contain 100 calories and 5% alcohol, the company said. Hard Mountain Dew similarly will have no sugar or caffeine.

Hard sodas are flavored malt beverages—essentially beer. They represent a very small segment of the beer market, industry analysts say. There was a brief spike in demand for them in 2015 and 2016, led by Not Your Father’s Root Beer, but in the flavored malt-beverage category, hard sodas have since taken a back seat to hard teas such as Boston Beer’s Twisted Tea, said Harry Schuhmacher, editor and publisher of Beer Business Daily.

“To me, that means a gap has opened for a sweet-tasting offering in the hard cola space,” he said.

For AB InBev, the new drinks are the latest attempt to use its Bud Light brand to push beyond beer after several false starts with other hard-seltzer brands.

Write to Jennifer Maloney at [email protected]