Michelob Ultra dethrones Modelo Especial to become America’s new top-selling beer brand

Michelob Ultra notched a major milestone, surpassing all its rivals to become the top-selling beer in America, according to recent data.   

Executives credited its rise to the top, which included surpassing Modelo Especial, in large part because of its heavily capitalizing on the sports industry’s biggest events. 

Anheuser-Busch Chief Commercial Officer Kyle Norrington told FOX Business that the beer, one of a slew of brands under the Anheuser-Busch InBev umbrella, became the NBA’s first-ever global beer sponsor, and is the official beer sponsor of the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026 and LA 2028 games. It also garnered a more than 30-year partnership with the PGA Tour. 

“This approach has turned Michelob ULTRA into an absolute rocket ship, and we’ve got tremendous opportunity ahead of us,” Norrington said. 

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Circana, a company providing data to consumer-packaged goods companies, highlighted in its latest read that Michelob Ultra has claimed the top spot for the latest 52 weeks in retail channels. The beer has also claimed the top spot in bars and restaurants during that same period, according to data from NielsenIQ. 

Scott Scanlon, executive vice president of category insights at Circana, said the Michelob Ultra brand “stands out as the growth leader in the industry, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.” 

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This effectively ends Constellation Brands’ reign at the top. The brewer of Modelo claimed the No. 1 spot in June 2023, when Modelo Especial surpassed Bud Light on a dollar-sales basis following the backlash over Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney marketing campaign. 

The backlash against Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch InBev started in early April 2023, not long after the company created and sent custom beer cans to Mulvaney to mark “365 days of girlhood.” That move and the company’s response to it sparked calls to boycott the brand, causing sales to take a hit.

Since then, Modelo Especial has consistently held the lead. Through 2025, it remained the top-selling beer brand in tracked off-premise channels, according to NIQ data compiled by Bump Williams Consulting.

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But Norrington noted that Michelob Ultra’s rise had been long in the making. Since its launch in 2002, the brand has marketed itself around the active and social lifestyles of its drinkers. Its current partnerships with the NBA, PGA, Olympics and World Cup underscore how it has consistently honed in on this demographic. 

In 2019, Anheuser-Busch identified Michelob Ultra’s expansion as one of its top priorities, recognizing it as a longtime growth driver for the company.

Michelob Ultra had already been the top-selling draft beer at bars and restaurants across the U.S., according to Norrington, positioning the brand for growth across all other retail channels. 

Draftline Technologies, which monitors more than 1 million tap lines, previously told FOX Business that the beer already grabbed the largest share of U.S. draft lines on Nov. 1 and continued to hold the top spot through the end of 2024.  

Jennifer Hauke, founder of Draftline Technologies, wasn’t surprised, telling FOX Business that the beer brand was on a path to become the No. 1 brand on draft (by total taps) “for a number of years.”