Boston Beer Company Inc (SAM) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Boston Beer Company Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

您好，歡迎參加波士頓啤酒公司 2024 年第四季財報電話會議。此時，所有參與者都處於只聽模式。正式演講結束後將進行問答環節。（操作員指示）提醒一下，本次會議正在錄音。

It is now my pleasure to introduce you Mike Andrews, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

現在我很高興向大家介紹副總法律顧問兼公司秘書 Mike Andrews。謝謝您，先生。你可以開始了。

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome. This is Mike Andrews, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Boston Beer Company. I'm pleased to kick off our 2024 fourth quarter earnings call. Joining the call from Boston Beer are Jim Koch, Founder and Chairman; Michael Spillane, our CEO; and Diego Reynoso, our CFO.

謝謝。下午好，歡迎。我是波士頓啤酒公司副總法律顧問兼公司秘書麥克安德魯斯。我很高興開始我們 2024 年第四季財報電話會議。波士頓啤酒公司創辦人兼董事長 Jim Koch 也參加了此次電話會議；我們的執行長 Michael Spillane；以及我們的財務長 Diego Reynoso。

Before we discuss our business, I'll start with our disclaimer. As we state in our earnings release, some of the information we discuss and that may come up on this call reflect the Company's or management's expectations or predictions of the future. Such predictions are forward-looking statements. It's important to note that the Company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements.

在我們討論業務之前，我先說一下免責聲明。正如我們在收益報告中所述，我們在本次電話會議上討論的一些資訊以及可能出現的一些資訊反映了公司或管理層對未來的預期或預測。此類預測屬於前瞻性陳述。值得注意的是，公司的實際結果可能與這些前瞻性陳述中的預測有重大差異。

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the Company's most recent 10-Q and 10-K. The Company does not undertake to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

有關可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述中的結果大不相同的因素的更多信息，包含在公司最新的 10-Q 和 10-K 報告中。無論是因為新資訊、未來事件或其他原因，本公司均不承諾公開更新前瞻性聲明。

I will now pass it over to Jim for some introductory comments.

現在我將把它交給吉姆來做一些介紹性的評論。

Thanks, Mike. I'll begin my remarks this afternoon with a few introductory comments, and then hand over to Michael, who will provide an overview of the business. Michael will then turn the call over to Diego, who will focus on the financial details of our fourth quarter results, as well as our outlook for 2025. Immediately following Diego's comments, we will open up the line for questions.

謝謝，麥克。今天下午我將以幾句介紹評論開始我的發言，然後交給邁克爾，他將概述業務情況。然後，邁克爾將把電話轉給迭戈，迭戈將重點介紹我們第四季度業績的財務細節以及我們對 2025 年的展望。在 Diego 發表評論後，我們將立即開放問答熱線。

As I look back on 2024, our depletion trends continue to improve and our multiyear margin enhancement plans delivered 200 basis points of gross margin expansion which supported our non-GAAP EPS growth of 31%. We achieved this EPS growth while increasing advertising investments in our brands.

回顧 2024 年，我們的消耗趨勢持續改善，我們的多年利潤率提升計畫實現了 200 個基點的毛利率擴張，支持了我們的非 GAAP EPS 成長 31%。我們在增加品牌廣告投入的同時實現了每股盈餘的成長。

Our business continues to be highly cash generative with 2024 free cash flow of $173 million or $14.70 per share which allowed us to repurchase $239 million in shares in 2024. The improvements in our operational and financial performance occurred in a dynamic environment with inflation impacting near-term consumer behavior. We've also experienced greater competition in the fourth category, sometimes called beyond beer, as consumers seek variety and more players enter the category.

我們的業務繼續保持較高的現金創造能力，2024 年的自由現金流為 1.73 億美元，即每股 14.70 美元，這使我們能夠在 2024 年回購價值 2.39 億美元的股票。我們的營運和財務表現的改善發生在通貨膨脹影響短期消費者行為的動態環境中。隨著消費者追求多樣性以及越來越多的參與者進入第四類產品（有時也稱為超越啤酒產品），我們也經歷了更激烈的競爭。

Over the long-term, we expect the beer category to remain highly relevant to our consumers with significant growth opportunities in the fourth category as lines continue to blur between beer, wine and liquor. There are some factors such as health and wellness and cannabis that are somewhat impacting the total alcoholic beverage category. But as I previously said, the beer industry is best positioned to take advantage of the growth in the fourth category.

從長遠來看，我們預計啤酒類別仍將與我們的消費者保持高度相關，隨著啤酒、葡萄酒和烈酒之間的界限越來越模糊，第四類將具有巨大的成長機會。健康和大麻等一些因素對整個酒精飲料類別產生了一定影響。但正如我之前所說，啤酒產業最有能力利用第四類的成長。

These products are typically sold in a can, need to be in the cold box and beer companies have the production capabilities to produce them and beer wholesalers have the infrastructure to service them. The Boston Beer Company is well positioned given our proven track record of innovation and our manufacturing infrastructure and our best-in-class sales force and strong wholesaler relationships.

這些產品通常以罐裝形式出售，需要放在冷藏箱中，啤酒公司有生產能力來生產它們，啤酒批發商有為其提供服務的基礎設施。波士頓啤酒公司憑藉其卓越的創新記錄、製造基礎設施、一流的銷售團隊和強大的批發商關係，佔據了有利地位。

Our priority for 2025 are to support our category leading brands to improve their market shares, launch strong innovation and continue to expand our gross margins. As we've worked through our plans, we decided to step up our level of advertising investment across the portfolio to improve our market share trends, ensure the successful national launch of Sun Cruiser and return to long-term volume growth.

我們 2025 年的首要任務是支持我們的品類領先品牌提高其市場份額、開展強有力的創新並繼續擴大我們的毛利率。在製定計劃的過程中，我們決定增加整個產品組合的廣告投資力度，以改善我們的市場份額趨勢，確保 Sun Cruiser 在全國範圍內成功上市，並恢復長期銷售成長。

As Diego will discuss further in his remarks, we're continuing to execute our multi-year productivity plans across our three focus areas of procurement savings, network optimization and brewery performance. These efforts ensure that we have fuel for investment in our brands and allow us to enhance our gross margin despite potential volatility in the volume environment.

正如 Diego 將在他的演講中進一步討論的那樣，我們將繼續在採購節約、網路優化和啤酒廠性能這三個重點領域執行我們的多年生產力計劃。這些努力確保我們有動力投資我們的品牌，並使我們能夠在銷售環境可能出現波動的情況下提高毛利率。

In summary, we made solid progress in 2024, but are not yet where we want to be. I'm confident that we have the right strategy and team in place and that the additional investments we are making this year position us well to improve market share. As Michael will discuss, we're focused on end-to-end execution and being strong operators to deliver long-term sustainable growth.

總而言之，我們在 2024 年取得了紮實的進展，但尚未達到我們想要的水平。我相信我們擁有正確的策略和團隊，今年所做的額外投資將使我們能夠提高市場份額。正如邁克爾將要討論的，我們專注於端到端的執行，並成為強大的運營商，以實現長期可持續增長。

Our 2025 financial guidance provides a range of outcomes to incorporate the dynamic consumer demand environment and our intention to lean further into investments in our brand when we see faster returns on volume to close. I'd like to thank the Boston Beer team, our distributors and our retailers for their efforts and support that enabled our progress in 2024.

我們的 2025 年財務指引提供了一系列結果，以融入動態的消費者需求環境，並且當我們看到更快的成交量回報時，我們打算進一步投資於我們的品牌。我要感謝波士頓啤酒團隊、我們的經銷商和零售商的努力和支持，使我們在 2024 年取得了進步。

And now I'll pass the call to Michael.

現在我將把電話轉給麥可。

Thanks Jim and good afternoon everyone. As I reflect on 2024, I'm pleased with the progress our team has made to become better operators. When I joined as CEO, I saw multiple areas of opportunity to improve trends across our entire portfolio of core brands while continuing to drive best-in-class innovation.

謝謝吉姆，大家下午好。回顧 2024 年，我很高興看到我們的團隊在成為更好的營運商方面取得了進步。當我加入並擔任執行長時，我看到了多個機會領域，可以改善我們整個核心品牌組合的趨勢，同時繼續推動一流的創新。

We spent the last few quarters improving our processes and systems and have indications that our efforts are beginning to impact our results positively, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment. Depletion trends have improved in the fourth quarter and year-to-date 2025 as we focus on all of our brands.

過去幾個季度，我們一直在改進流程和系統，有跡象表明，儘管宏觀經濟環境充滿挑戰，但我們的努力開始對我們的業績產生積極影響。由於我們專注於所有品牌，2025 年第四季及年初至今的消耗趨勢有所改善。

For example, the increased focus on our Angry Orchard brand in both on and off-premise channels have seen the brand significantly improve depletion trends over the last 13 weeks while gaining market share in measured off-premise channels. We remain committed to driving top line growth and margin expansion through the power of our innovation engine and improving our end-to-end execution to get our products in the hands of drinkers.

例如，透過增加店內和店外通路對 Angry Orchard 品牌的關注，該品牌在過去 13 週內顯著改善了消耗趨勢，同時在可衡量的店外通路中獲得了市場份額。我們將繼續致力於透過創新引擎的力量推動營收成長和利潤率擴張，並改善端到端的執行，以便將我們的產品送到飲酒者手中。

As we work through our 2025 and long-term plans, we've determined that more advertising investment is needed for our portfolio to reach its potential and return to volume growth. We expect these investments to have good returns over time and are fortunate enough to have a strong balance sheet which provides flexibility to fully support our brands and innovation pipeline.

在製定 2025 年及長期計劃的過程中，我們確定需要進行更多的廣告投資，以使我們的產品組合發揮其潛力並恢復銷售成長。我們預計這些投資將隨著時間的推移帶來良好的回報，並且很幸運地擁有強大的資產負債表，這為全面支持我們的品牌和創新管道提供了靈活性。

Our strategic priorities continue to be nurturing our core brands, developing margin accretive innovation and modernizing our supply chain while driving efficiency and operating expenses all while investing in our brands. As a diversified beyond beer company, we are continuing to focus on achieving the potential of all our brands and in a disciplined fewer things better strategy.

我們的策略重點仍然是培養我們的核心品牌，開發利潤增值創新和現代化我們的供應鏈，同時提高效率和營運費用，並投資於我們的品牌。作為一家多元化的啤酒公司，我們將繼續致力於發揮所有品牌的潛力，並實施嚴謹的「少即是多」的策略。

Consistent with this strategy in 2025, while we would continue to support our core brands, our 2025 innovation efforts will be focused on vodka based hard tea Sun Cruiser, the continuing expansion of Samuel Adams, American Light and high ABV offerings in hard tea and Hard Seltzer.

與 2025 年的這項策略一致，我們將繼續支持我們的核心品牌，同時我們 2025 年的創新工作將集中在以伏特加為基礎的硬茶 Sun Cruiser、Samuel Adams、American Light 和高 ABV 硬茶和 Hard Seltzer 產品的持續擴展上。

The high ABV offerings we launched last year have been incremental to our brands and we believe that they are bringing new drinkers by sourcing demand from spirits. Our planned advertising investment will be across all our core brands and we will also support the national expansion of Sun Cruiser. We've also made some changes to our compensation programs to move away from having a total volume target to incentivizing selling across our families of brands and channels.

我們去年推出的高酒精度產品對我們的品牌來說是一個增量，我們相信它們將透過滿足烈酒需求來吸引新的飲酒者。我們計劃的廣告投資將涵蓋我們所有的核心品牌，我們也將支持 Sun Cruiser 的全國擴張。我們也對薪酬計畫進行了一些改變，不再以總量目標為目標，而是激勵我們各個品牌和通路的銷售。

I'll now provide an overview of the plans for our brand portfolio in 2025 beginning with our core brands. Twisted Tea continues to grow share of the FMBs and total beer market while it remains the clear leader in the hard tea category with an 84% market share and over 50% of the dollar growth of the category in 2024. New entrants to the hard tea category remain at low single digit market share levels.

現在，我將從核心品牌開始，概述我們 2025 年的品牌組合計畫。Twisted Tea 在 FMB 和整個啤酒市場的份額持續增長，同時它仍然是硬茶類別的明顯領導者，擁有 84% 的市場份額，並在 2024 年佔據該類別美元增長的 50% 以上。硬茶類別的新進入者的市場份額仍保持在個位數的低水平。

The category remains attractive and we see multiple growth opportunities, but do expect volume to naturally decelerate to single digits as the brand grows off a much larger base. Our lead styles Twisted Tea Original and Twisted Tea Half & Half along with Twisted Tea variety packs drove our growth in all gain distribution in 2024. We expect that to continue in 2025.

這個類別仍然具有吸引力，我們看到了多個成長機會，但隨著品牌在更大的基礎上發展，預計銷量將自然減速至個位數。我們的主打產品 Twisted Tea Original 和 Twisted Tea Half & Half 以及 Twisted Tea 多種包裝推動了我們 2024 年全收益分銷的成長。我們預計這種情況將在 2025 年持續下去。

Twisted Tea brand support started this year strong with its sponsorship of college football and the college football playoffs. We also added a new retail program to drive display activity leading into the Super Bowl, including recently activated sponsorship of DraftKings and our continued sponsorship of Bussin' With The Boys podcast. To further drive awareness during the year we are sponsoring top rate boxing and producing content and in-store advertising designed for Hispanic audience where the brand is underpenetrated.

Twisted Tea 品牌今年開始大力支持大學橄欖球和大學橄欖球季後賽。我們還增加了一個新的零售計劃來推動超級盃前的展示活動，包括最近啟動的對 DraftKings 的贊助以及我們對 Bussin' With The Boys 播客的持續贊助。為了進一步提高品牌知名度，我們贊助了頂級拳擊比賽，並製作了專門針對品牌尚未普及的西班牙裔觀眾的內容和店內廣告。

Twisted Tea Light continues to be highly incremental and grew 43% in measured off-premise channels in 2024 while having less than a quarter of the points of distribution of Twisted Tea Original. High ABV, Twisted Tea Extreme had strong performance in trial markets in 2024 and is now adding more states during 2025 to complete its national expansion.

Twisted Tea Light 繼續保持高速成長，2024 年在可測量的非現場通路中成長了 43%，但其分銷點還不到 Twisted Tea Original 的四分之一。酒精度數較高的 Twisted Tea Extreme 在 2024 年的試銷市場中表現強勁，目前計劃在 2025 年期間增加更多州，以完成其全國擴張。

Turning to Hard Seltzer, the Hard Seltzer category continues to face headwinds with category dollars down 4% in the fourth quarter. The repositioning of our Truly portfolio to focus on light flavors is now mostly complete.

談到硬氣泡水，硬氣泡水類別繼續面臨阻力，第四季度類別銷售額下降了 4%。我們的 Truly 產品組合重新定位為以清淡口味為重點，目前已基本完成。

Our higher ABV Truly Unruly offering has performed above our expectations and we expect it to be a key contributor in improving the trajectory of Truly. Unruly is the number one growth driver among high ABV brands in the US beer market and as I mentioned earlier, we believe it is bringing new drinkers to the category.

我們推出的更高 ABV 的 Truly Unruly 的表現超出了我們的預期，我們預計它將成為改善 Truly 發展軌蹟的關鍵因素。Unruly 是美國啤酒市場高酒精品牌中的第一大成長動力，正如我之前提到的，我們相信它正在為該類別帶來新的飲酒者。

In 2025 we are investing more in advertising behind Truly and Truly Unruly going into peak summer selling season. Brand messaging will shift from emphasizing functional attributes to a more compelling new brand message that will be fully in place ahead of our peak summer selling season.

2025 年，我們將加大對《Truly》和《Truly Unruly》的廣告投入，迎接夏季銷售旺季。品牌訊息將從強調功能屬性轉變為更引人注目的新品牌訊息，並將在夏季銷售旺季之前全面到位。

Truly will continue to sponsor US soccer, while expanding into new platforms via our recently announced partnership with Barstool Sports, which was activated earlier this month, and includes the sponsorship of Pardon My Take, the number one sports podcast in the country, and Chicks in the Office, a leading entertainment and pop culture podcast.

Truly 將繼續贊助美國足球，同時透過我們本月初宣布的與 Barstool Sports 的合作擴展到新的平台，其中包括贊助該國排名第一的體育播客 Pardon My Take 和領先的娛樂和流行文化播客 Chicks in the Office。

The barstool partnership is 360 degrees across podcast, social and digital and retail activations. We believe this Barstool partnership and our other brand investments will bring the Truly brand back to life in new culturally relevant ways and can be leveraged at retail with differentiated selling programs that better resonate with drinkers and are a great fit with Truly Unruly.

barstool 合作關係涵蓋播客、社交、數位和零售活動等各個方面。我們相信，與 Barstool 的合作以及我們的其他品牌投資將以新的文化相關方式為 Truly 品牌注入新的活力，並可在零售中利用差異化的銷售計劃，更好地引起飲酒者的共鳴，並與 Truly Unruly 完美契合。

While we continue to expect the majority of our growth to come from beyond beer, our traditional beer and cider brands are important parts of the portfolio. For Samuel Adams we will support our industry leading seasonal offerings in our award winning non-alc Just the Haze while focusing on our number one brand priority, the national launch of Samuel Adams American Light. American Light is made with high quality American ingredients and earned the title of Best Light Beer in America in the World Beer Awards. Our campaign, the most premium light beer in America, will start with a focus around March Madness and the On-Premise Channel.

雖然我們仍然預計我們的大部分成長將來自啤酒以外的領域，但我們傳統的啤酒和蘋果酒品牌是我們產品組合的重要組成部分。對於 Samuel Adams，我們將支持我們屢獲殊榮的非酒精飲料 Just the Haze 中領先業界的季節性產品，同時專注於我們的首要品牌重點，即 Samuel Adams American Light 的全國推出。American Light 採用優質美國原料釀造，並在世界啤酒大獎中榮獲「美國最佳淡啤酒」稱號。我們的活動是美國最優質的淡啤酒，重點將圍繞瘋狂三月和本地管道。

Also in the first quarter, Dogfish Head is launching Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale, a musical collaboration beer with a legendary band with artwork featured in the iconic Steal Your Face label. This national launch, announced earlier this month, is the largest launch in Dogfish Head history and is supported by media and local marketing programs that we will expect drive awareness for this distinctive beer and the Dogfish Head brand.

此外，在第一季度，Dogfish Head 推出了 Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale，這是一款與傳奇樂團合作的音樂啤酒，其藝術作品印在標誌性的 Steal Your Face 標籤上。本月稍早宣布的全國發表會是 Dogfish Head 史上規模最大的發表會，並得到了媒體和當地行銷計畫的支持，我們期望這將提高人們對這種獨特啤酒和 Dogfish Head 品牌的知名度。

Turning to innovation, our Vodka iced tea innovation Sun Cruiser, which was launched late in the 2024 summer season, is performing well and bringing new drinkers to our portfolio. Based on its strong performance in New England and Mid Atlantic, Sun Cruiser distribution is expanding and is expected to be fully national in the first half of 2025. Sales per point continues to trend positively and Sun Cruiser is performing well in the image and trial driving on-premise channel. We're encouraged by the feedback from wholesalers, retailers and drinkers.

談到創新，我們在 2024 年夏季末推出的伏特加冰茶創新產品 Sun Cruiser 表現良好，為我們的產品組合帶來了新的飲用者。基於在新英格蘭和中大西洋地區的強勁表現，Sun Cruiser 的分銷範圍正在擴大，預計將於 2025 年上半年全面覆蓋全國。每點銷售持續呈現正向趨勢，Sun Cruiser 在圖像和試駕內部通路中表現良好。批發商、零售商和飲酒者的回饋令我們感到鼓舞。

We'd point out that Sun Cruiser initially launched in markets that have large mixed of independent retailers and has performed well in the on-premise channel, neither of which is reflected in measured channel data. In 2025, we are focused on driving awareness of this new brand by increasing marketing investments and expanding the product offering in a disciplined way.

我們要指出的是，Sun Cruiser 最初是在擁有大量獨立零售商的市場推出的，並且在內部通路中表現良好，但這兩者都沒有反映在測量通路數據中。2025 年，我們將致力於透過增加行銷投入和有紀律地擴大產品供應來提高這個新品牌的知名度。

Our brand investments are focused on increasing our sales force and local marketing programs as well as Let The Good Times Cruise television and digital campaign with media investment in key sports moments such as the Super Bowl, AFC Conference Championship, MLB Opening Day and the PGA Tour Golf.

我們的品牌投資主要集中在增強銷售隊伍和本地行銷計劃，以及「讓美好時光巡遊」電視和數位宣傳活動，並在超級盃、美聯大會冠軍賽、美國職棒大聯盟開幕日和美巡賽高爾夫等關鍵體育賽事上進行媒體投資。

Also for Sun Cruiser, we have added several new packs and SKUs to meet the growing demand, including a new lemonade variety pack and 24 ounce offerings for our most popular styles. We expect Sun Cruiser to be an important growth driver for our portfolio, particularly as we move out of the lower seasonality month and into the spring shelf resets. We are targeting that our points of distribution will more than triple between the end of 2024 and the peak summer selling season.

此外，對於 Sun Cruiser，我們增加了幾種新包裝和 SKU 以滿足不斷增長的需求，包括新的檸檬水品種包裝和我們最受歡迎的款式的 24 盎司產品。我們預計 Sun Cruiser 將成為我們投資組合的重要成長動力，特別是當我們走出淡季月份並進入春季貨架重置時。我們的目標是，到 2024 年底至夏季銷售旺季，我們的分銷點數量將增加兩倍以上。

With respect to Hard Mountain Dew, we are encouraged to see depletion trends turn positive in the second half of 2024, although off of small volume base. We will also be extending the product line with Hard Mountain Dew Code Red launching in March. We expect growth for Hard Mountain Dew in 2025, but it will be a multiyear effort for this product to become a meaningful part of our volume mix.

就硬激浪而言，儘管銷售基數較小，但我們仍預期 2024 年下半年的消耗趨勢將轉為正面。我們還將擴大產品線，並於三月推出 Hard Mountain Dew Code Red。我們預計 2025 年硬激浪將實現成長，但要讓該產品成為我們銷售組合中有意義的一部分，還需要多年的努力。

In summary, our company has a long history of innovation. We're excited about the national expansion of Sun Cruiser and continuing to develop additional new products which we will trial in 2025 to see the innovation pipeline for 2026 and beyond.

總而言之，我們公司有著悠久的創新歷史。我們對 Sun Cruiser 的全國擴張感到非常興奮，並將繼續開發更多新產品，我們將在 2025 年進行試用，以了解 2026 年及以後的創新管道。

Turning to profitability, we've made good progress in our productivity initiatives for 2024 and have multiyear plans to continue to transform our supply chain. The capital investments we've made in our breweries and systems will allow us to continue to make progress on productivity and gross margin expansion in 2025 and beyond, which Diego will discuss in more detail in his remarks.

談到盈利能力，我們在 2024 年生產力計劃方面取得了良好進展，並製定了多年計劃以繼續改​​造我們的供應鏈。我們對啤酒廠和系統的資本投資將使我們在 2025 年及以後繼續在生產力和毛利率擴張方面取得進展，Diego 將在他的演講中更詳細地討論這一點。

With respect to the non-advertising selling and brewing costs, we're continuing our efforts to better align internal costs and revenue. The investments we are making in increased advertising this year will dampen our 2025 operating income growth, but are an intentional strategy to strengthen brand equities in end market activation, which we believe will pay back the volume improvements over time.

對於非廣告銷售和釀造成本，我們將繼續努力更好地協調內部成本和收入。我們今年在增加廣告方面的投資將抑制我們 2025 年的營業收入成長，但這是一種有意加強終端市場活化中的品牌資產的策略，我們相信隨著時間的推移，這將帶來銷售成長的回報。

In summary, I'd like to thank our team for the solid finish to the year and partnership in driving strong operating plans for 2025. I'm encouraged with the progress we're making to be a more focused organization. Although we still have work to do to be sharper in our execution, there are multiple areas of opportunity ahead for Boston Beer and I look forward to sharing our progress with you as we go through the year.

總而言之，我要感謝我們的團隊在今年取得的圓滿成功，並感謝我們攜手推動 2025 年強勁的營運計畫。我們在成為一個更專注的組織方面所取得的進展令我感到鼓舞。儘管我們仍需努力提高執行力，但波士頓啤酒未來仍有許多機遇，我期待今年與您分享我們的進展。

I am confident that there are multiple levers to support value creation through a combination of higher revenue growth and greater profitability over the long-term and 2025 will provide a stronger foundation to leverage the differentiated innovation, sales force and culture that are the hallmarks of Boston Beer's competitive advantage.

我相信，透過長期更高的收入成長和更高的獲利能力，有多種槓桿可以支持價值創造，而 2025 年將為利用差異化創新、銷售團隊和文化提供更強大的基礎，這些都是波士頓啤酒競爭優勢的標誌。

I'll now pass the call to Diego for a detailed review of the fourth quarter and our 2025 guidance.

我現在將電話轉給 Diego，讓他詳細審查第四季和我們的 2025 年指引。

Thank you, Michael Good afternoon everyone. Before I discuss the fourth quarter results in detail, I'd like to give an overview of the full year 2024 performance. Revenue was up slightly year-over-year driven by shipments down 2% at the midpoint of our guidance, 2 points of price realization and solid progress on lowering product returns.

謝謝，邁克爾，大家下午好。在詳細討論第四季業績之前，我想先概述一下 2024 年全年的業績。由於出貨量在我們預期的中位數下降了 2%，價格實現了 2 個點，並且在降低產品退貨方面取得了堅實的進展，收入同比略有增長。

We delivered 200 basis points on gross margin expansion with gross margin reaching 44.4% excluding contractual prepayments and shortfall fees. The gross margin was 46.1%. Non-GAAP EPS of $9.43 was up 31% year-over-year and above the midpoint of our guidance range. EPS growth was driven by stabilizing our revenues, strong delivery on our productivity plans and lower share count while also increasing investment in our brands.

我們的毛利率擴大了 200 個基點，扣除合約預付款和差額費用後，毛利率達到了 44.4%。毛利率為46.1%。非公認會計準則每股收益為 9.43 美元，年增 31%，高於我們預期範圍的中點。每股盈餘的成長得益於穩定的收入、強勁的生產力計劃執行和較低的股份數量，同時增加了對我們品牌的投資。

Turning to the fourth quarter results, depletions in the fourth quarter were flat and shipments decreased 0.5% from the prior year, primarily due to declines in Truly Hard Seltzer that were partially offset by growth in our Twisted Tea, Sun Cruiser and Hard Mountain Dew brands. We believe distributor Inventories as of December 28, 2024 averaged approximately four weeks on hand and was at an appropriate level for each of our brands compared to 5 and 1/2 weeks on hand at the end of the third quarter.

回顧第四季的業績，第四季的消耗量持平，出貨量較上年同期下降 0.5%，這主要是由於 Truly Hard Seltzer 銷量下滑，但被 Twisted Tea、Sun Cruiser 和 Hard Mountain Dew 品牌的成長部分抵消。我們認為，截至 2024 年 12 月 28 日，分銷商庫存平均約為四周，對於我們每個品牌來說都處於適當水平，而第三季末的庫存為 5 週半。

Revenues for the quarter increased 2.2% due to price increase. The comparison against an international sales tax adjustment in the prior year and lower returns, partially offset by a slight decline in shipments and an increase in excise tax. Our fourth quarter gross margin of 39.9% increased 230 basis points year-over-year and is the highest fourth quarter gross margin delivery since 2020.

由於價格上漲，本季營收成長了 2.2%。與前一年的國際銷售稅調整相比，回報率較低，但出貨量略有下降和消費稅增加部分抵消了這一影響。我們第四季的毛利率為 39.9%，年增 230 個基點，是 2020 年以來第四季最高的毛利率。

As we mentioned on our last earnings call, the majority of our shortfall fees are booked in the fourth quarter. Excluding shortfall fees and third party production prepayments, gross margin was 42.9%. Advertising, promotional and selling expenses for the fourth quarter of 2024 increased $10.9 million or 8.5% year-over-year, due to increased brand and selling costs partially offset by decreased freights to distributors from improved efficiencies and lower volumes.

正如我們在上次收益電話會議上提到的那樣，我們的大部分短缺費用都是在第四季度入帳的。不包括短缺費用和第三方生產預付款，毛利率為42.9%。2024 年第四季的廣告、促銷和銷售費用年增 1,090 萬美元，或 8.5%，原因是品牌和銷售成本增加，但效率提高和銷售下降導致分銷商的運費減少，部分抵消了這一增長。

Brand and selling costs increased $12.2 million due to higher media and higher salaries and benefits. Our increased media and production investments in the fourth quarter were across our brand portfolio, but with a particular focus on Sun Cruiser and Twisted Tea. We expect these investments will increase awareness and help Drive volume in 2025.

由於媒體費用增加、工資和福利增加，品牌和銷售成本增加了 1,220 萬美元。我們在第四季度增加了對媒體和製作的投資，涉及我們的品牌組合，但特別關注 Sun Cruiser 和 Twisted Tea。我們預計這些投資將提高知名度並有助於在 2025 年推動銷售。

General and administrative expenses increased $4 million, or 9.1% year-over-year, primarily due to increased indirect taxes and professional fees. In the fourth quarter, as previously announced, we recorded $26 million or $1.70 per share in contract settlement costs due to the amendment of a supplier contract. This amendment provides increased production flexibility and more favorable termination rights.

一般及行政開支較去年同期增加 400 萬美元，增幅 9.1%，主要由於間接稅和專業費用增加。正如之前所宣布的，在第四季度，由於供應商合約的修改，我們記錄了 2600 萬美元或每股 1.70 美元的合約結算成本。該修正案提供了更大的生產彈性和更有利的終止權。

We reported non-GAAP loss per diluted share of $1.68 per diluted share, which excludes the contract settlement costs I just discussed. The year-over-year increase in our loss per diluted share was primarily driven by lower share count and higher investment in advertising, promotional and selling expenses, partially offset by higher revenues and gross margin expansion.

我們報告的非公認會計準則每股攤薄虧損為 1.68 美元，其中不包括我剛才討論的合約結算費用。我們每股攤薄的虧損年增率主要是由於股數減少以及廣告、促銷和銷售費用投入增加，但被收入增加和毛利率擴大部分抵銷。

Now I'd like to further discuss the progress on our gross margin initiatives we've discussed on previous calls. The key operational drivers of our gross margin are volume, commodities, labor costs and our productivity efforts around procurement savings, brewery performance and waste and network optimization. We've made strong progress on our productivity initiatives, particularly in procurement savings and more disciplined inventory management that resulted in significantly lower returns.

現在我想進一步討論我們在之前的電話會議上討論過的毛利率計劃的進展情況。我們毛利率的關鍵營運驅動因素是銷售、商品、勞動力成本以及我們在採購節約、啤酒廠性能和廢物和網路優化方面的生產力努力。我們在生產力計劃方面取得了長足的進步，特別是在採購節約和更嚴格的庫存管理方面，這導致回報率大幅降低。

In 2025 and beyond we expect more equal contribution from all three savings buckets for which I'll provide some color. We continue to see opportunities for procurement savings on packaging and ingredients, primarily due to price negotiations and recipe optimization. As an example, we will benefit from lower negotiated pricing on cans and certain ingredients beginning in 2025.

到 2025 年及以後，我們預計三個儲蓄桶的貢獻將更加平等，我將對此提供一些說明。我們繼續看到在包裝和原料採購方面節省成本的機會，這主要歸功於價格談判和配方優化。例如，從 2025 年開始，我們將受益於罐頭和某些成分的較低協商價格。

Brewery performance and absolute volume, as well as the mix of internal versus external third party production impacts our ability to leverage fixed cost at our breweries. Our 2025 plan embeds expected improvements in OEEs driven by process improvements at our breweries including faster changeover times between products.

啤酒廠的表現和絕對產量以及內部和外部第三方生產的組合影響著我們利用啤酒廠固定成本的能力。我們的 2025 計劃將 OEE 的預期改進納入其中，這得益於我們啤酒廠的流程改進，包括縮短產品之間的轉換時間。

We had a 74% internal and 26% external domestic volume mix in 2024 and we plan to make meaningful progress in increasing volumes at our internal breweries during 2025, while balancing relationships, using external productions in geographies where it's most efficient and to support key selling seasons.

2024 年，我們的國內產量結構為內部產量佔 74%，外部產量佔 26%，我們計劃在 2025 年取得重大進展，提高內部啤酒廠的產量，同時平衡關係，在效率最高的地區使用外部生產，並支持關鍵的銷售季節。

With more consistent and predictable volumes and improved supply chain processes and systems, we have more savings opportunities in waste and network optimization. In 2024 we implemented an automated customer ordering and inventory management system that along with other improvements in our supply chain processes we believe will help further reduce waste and optimize our network.

透過更一致和可預測的數量以及改進的供應鏈流程和系統，我們在廢棄物和網路優化方面擁有更多的節約機會。2024 年，我們實施了自動化客戶訂購和庫存管理系統，加上我們供應鏈流程的其他改進，我們相信這將有助於進一步減少浪費並優化我們的網路。

In addition, as I previously discussed, we have contractual agreements to access third party production capacity, which impact our gross margin through shortfall fees and production prepayments that are expensed over the estimated life of the related agreements. Together, these contractual items negatively impacted gross margin by 165 basis points in 2024 and are expected to have 100 to 140 basis points negative impact in 2025. Excluding these two items, the midpoint of our gross margin guidance for 2025 would be approximately 47.2%.

此外，正如我之前所討論的，我們簽訂了獲取第三方生產能力的合約協議，這將透過短缺費用和生產預付款影響我們的毛利率，這些費用將在相關協議的預計有效期內支出。綜合起來，這些合約項目對 2024 年的毛利率產生了 165 個基點的負面影響，預計對 2025 年的毛利率將產生 100 至 140 個基點的負面影響。除去這兩項，我們 2025 年毛利率預期中點約為 47.2%。

As I discussed earlier, we recently amended the terms of one of our contracts and we will continue to reassess our capacity needs and commitments with partners as contract terms expire. The multiyear operational improvements we are making in our business, together with the diminishing impacts of the contractual items, give us the confidence that we have a strong pathway to improve our gross margin over time to high 40s to 50% dependent on volume, product mix and commodity inflation.

正如我之前所討論的，我們最近修改了其中一份合約的條款，合約條款到期後，我們將繼續重新評估我們的產能需求和與合作夥伴的承諾。我們多年來在業務中不斷進行的營運改進，加上合約專案影響的減少，讓我們有信心，隨著時間的推移，我們擁有一條強有力的途徑將毛利率提高到 40% 至 50% 的高位，具體取決於產量、產品組合和商品通膨。

Now I'll discuss our 2025 guidance in detail. Our fiscal week depletion trends for the first eight weeks of 2025 are flat from 2024. We are currently planning 2025 depletions and shipments to be between a decrease of low single digits to an increase of low single digits year-over-year. Where we land within this range will be impacted by the pace of improvement in the overall consumer environment and the time it takes our marketing initiatives to drive market share improvements. We expect price increases of between 1% and 2%.

現在我將詳細討論我們的 2025 年指導方針。2025 年頭八週的財政週消耗趨勢與 2024 年持平。我們目前計劃 2025 年消耗量和出貨量年將介於低個位數下降到低個位數成長之間。我們在這個範圍內的位置將受到整體消費環境改善速度以及我們的行銷措施推動市場份額提高所需時間的影響。我們預計價格上漲幅度在 1% 至 2% 之間。

Full year 2025 reported gross margins are expected to be between 45% and 47%. We expect to cover commodity and inflationary impacts with pricing. As Jim and Michael discussed earlier, we expect to increase our advertising level to support our brands. The investments in advertising, promotional and selling expenses are expected to increase between $30 million and $50 million. We expect most of these increases to occur in the first half of the year. This does not include any changes in freight costs for the shipment of products to our distributors.

預計 2025 年全年毛利率將在 45% 至 47% 之間。我們希望透過定價來覆蓋商品和通膨的影響。正如 Jim 和 Michael 之前討論的那樣，我們希望增加廣告水平來支持我們的品牌。預計廣告、促銷和銷售費用的投資將增加 3,000 萬至 5,000 萬美元。我們預計大部分成長將發生在上半年。這不包括將產品運送給我們的分銷商的運費的任何變化。

We estimate our full year 2025 effective tax rate to be approximately 29% to 30%. We're currently targeting full year 2025 earnings per diluted share of between $8 and $10.50. As you model out the year, please keep in mind the following factors. Our business is impacted by seasonal volume changes, with the first quarter and the fourth quarter being the lower volume quarters and the fourth quarter typically our lowest absolute gross margin rate of the year.

我們預計 2025 年全年有效稅率約為 29% 至 30%。我們目前的目標是 2025 年全年每股攤薄收益在 8 美元至 10.50 美元之間。在製定年度模型時，請記住以下因素。我們的業務受到季節性銷售變化的影響，第一季和第四季是銷量較低的季度，第四季通常是我們一年中絕對毛利率最低的季度。

We expect first half of 2025 shipments to be at the high end of our full year guidance range due to the timing, estimated demand and wholesale inventory levels for certain brands and styles, primarily driven by Sun Cruiser, Hard Mountain Dew and Truly Unruly. As I mentioned earlier, advertising investments will be more heavily weighted to the first half of the year with a significant step up in the first quarter. The benefits of lapping CEO transition costs incurred in 2024 is offset by an increase in estimated incentive compensation at target for 2025 compared to 2024 achievement.

我們預計 2025 年上半年的出貨量將達到全年指導範圍的高端，這是由於時間、估計需求和某些品牌和款式的批發庫存水平，主要受 Sun Cruiser、Hard Mountain Dew 和 Truly Unruly 的推動。正如我之前提到的，廣告投資將更集中在上半年，第一季的投資將大幅增加。2024 年產生的 CEO 過渡成本所帶來的利益，將被 2025 年目標激勵薪酬預計相對於 2024 年實現的增加所抵銷。

Turning to capital allocation, we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $212 million and an unused credit line of $150 million, which provides us with ample flexibility to continue to invest in our base business, fund future growth initiatives and return cash to our shareholders through a share buyback program. For the full year of 2025, we expect capital expenditures of between $90 million and $110 million. These investments will be primarily related to our own breweries to build capabilities and improve efficiencies.

談到資本配置，本季末我們的現金餘額為 2.12 億美元，未使用的信用額度為 1.5 億美元，這為我們提供了充足的靈活性，可以繼續投資於我們的基礎業務，資助未來的增長計劃，並通過股票回購計劃向股東返還現金。我們預計 2025 年全年資本支出將在 9,000 萬美元至 1.1 億美元之間。這些投資主要與我們自己的啤酒廠有關，以增強能力並提高效率。

The increase in 2025 estimated capital expenditures compared to 2024 is driven by an investment in our Pennsylvania Brewery infrastructure for wastewater treatment. During the 52-week period ended December 28, 2024 in the period from December 30, 2024 through February 21, 2025, we repurchased shares in the amounts of $239 million and $29 million respectively, for a total of $268 million of repurchases since January 2024. As of February 21, 2020 25, we had approximately $398 million remaining on the $1.6 billion repurchasing authorization.

2025 年預計資本支出與 2024 年相比有所增加，這是由於我們對賓州啤酒廠廢水處理基礎設施的投資所致。在截至 2024 年 12 月 28 日的 52 週期間（即從 2024 年 12 月 30 日至 2025 年 2 月 21 日期間），我們分別回購了 2.39 億美元和 2900 萬美元的股票，自 2024 年總額為 1 月的回購 2.68 億美元。截至 2020 年 2 月 21 日，我們的 16 億美元回購授權還剩餘約 3.98 億美元。

This concludes our prepared remarks and now we'll open the line for questions.

我們的準備好的演講到此結束，現在我們將開始提問。

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝。我們現在將進行問答環節。（操作員指示）

Kaumil Gajrawala, Jefferies.

傑富瑞的 Kaumil Gajrawala。

Hey guys, a couple of questions I guess. One of the maybe most important ones is you mentioned a new compensation plan focusing or shifting maybe focus from volume, but no details after that. Can you maybe just talk about what that change was and how you're compensating now versus where you were before and what sort of behaviors and intentions you are looking to encourage?

嘿夥計們，我想問幾個問題。其中最重要的一點是，您提到了一項新的薪酬計劃，重點可能不再是數量，而是數量，但沒有透露之後的細節。您能否談談這種變化是什麼，與以前相比您現在如何彌補，以及您希望鼓勵什麼樣的行為和意圖？

Sure. Thanks for the question, this is Michael. What we wanted to do and we've talked about it on the last couple of calls, but we want to align our incentives with our business objectives. And as we talked about a few times in the past, we want to make sure that all of our brands reach their potential and so our new incentive plans will drive the behavior that our team will bring equal effort to all of our brands and drive sales across the portfolio, which we see as a much more sustainable revenue stream.

當然。感謝您的提問，我是麥可。我們想要做什麼，我們在最近的幾次電話會議中已經討論過，但我們希望將我們的激勵措施與我們的業務目標結合起來。正如我們過去多次談到的那樣，我們希望確保我們所有的品牌都能發揮其潛力，因此，我們的新激勵計劃將推動我們的團隊為所有品牌付出同等的努力，並推動整個產品組合的銷售，我們認為這是一個更可持續的收入來源。

Got it. Meaning I guess people get paid for groups of brands within the portfolio or the whole thing, or pieces of it, or maybe beyond beer versus beer?

知道了。意思是，我猜人們會因為產品組合中的品牌組或整個品牌、部分品牌，或是超越啤酒與啤酒之間的差異而獲得報酬？

Yes. So within the portfolio, for instance, Angry Orchard or Twisted Tea or Sun Cruiser or our beer families would have incentives against those.

是的。因此，在投資組合中，例如 Angry Orchard 或 Twisted Tea 或 Sun Cruiser 或我們的啤酒家族都會對這些產品有激勵措施。

Okay, got it.

好的，明白了。

Versus case by case.

與逐案處理相反。

Right, I think I get it. And then Diego, thanks for all the details on gross margin. Some of this, the new negotiations on procurement, the re-amended contract, is this all complete or it's the sort of intention to do some of these things over the, over the course of 2025?

好的，我想我明白了。然後是 Diego，感謝您提供有關毛利率的所有詳細資訊。其中一些，關於採購的新談判，重新修改的合同，這些都完成了嗎，還是打算在 2025 年期間完成其中一些事情？

No, as we mentioned before, I think we have a plan or we had a plan over five years, obviously when we were starting the third year of that plan, so we still have work to do. There are some of the buckets like procurement savings that I think we've done a lot, but we still think we can improve, but there are other areas like our distribution footprint that we're just starting right now. So there's more work to come and that's going to be the basis of our gross margin improvement.

不，正如我們之前提到的，我認為我們有一個計劃，或者我們有一個五年計劃，顯然當我們開始該計劃的第三年時，所以我們還有工作要做。在某些方面，例如採購節省，我認為我們已經做了很多，但我們仍然認為我們可以改進，但在其他方面，例如我們的分銷足跡，我們現在才剛剛開始。因此，我們還有更多的工作要做，這將成為我們毛利率提高的基礎。

Okay, got it. Thank you.

好的，明白了。謝謝。

Rob Ottenstein, Evercore ISI.

Rob Ottenstein，Evercore ISI。

Great, a couple of questions. First, I was wondering if you could talk about how the beer demand, how the year has started in terms of beer demand. The numbers we see in the scanner look pretty bad. I know it's been a very cold winter, historically speaking, so I'd love to understand how you're thinking of the start of the year?

很好，有幾個問題。首先，我想知道您是否可以談談啤酒需求情況，今年的啤酒需求如何。我們在掃描器中看到的數字看起來非常糟糕。我知道從歷史上看，今年的冬天非常寒冷，所以我很想了解您對今年年初有何看法？

You mentioned your depletions are running flat, which is not what we see in the scanner data. I am wondering is that sort of retailers buying ahead of price increase? Kind of why there is a disconnect between the two? And then I have one other question which I'll follow-up afterwards.

您提到您的消耗正在趨於平穩，但這並不是我們在掃描器資料中看到的。我想知道這類零售商是否會在價格上漲前進行採購？為什麼兩者之間會有脫節？然後我還有一個問題，我稍後會跟進。

Well, part of it is the coverage of each one of the data points. Right? So that's why we tried to consistently look at our depletion. So I'd say over the last, say six months it's been a little bit bumpy overall in the market. Right? You've had small periods that have been good, some periods have been bad. I think overall we're happy with where we're starting because we're starting from a flat depletion point of view. And we think that that will continue as we go to the back end of the quarter. That's one.

嗯，部分原因是每個數據點的覆蓋範圍。正確的？這就是為什麼我們試圖持續關注我們的消耗。所以我想說，在過去的六個月裡，整個市場有點不穩定。正確的？您經歷過一些短暫的良好時期，也經歷過一些糟糕的時期。我認為總體而言，我們對我們的起點感到滿意，因為我們是從平坦損耗的角度出發的。我們認為，進入本季末，這種情況將會持續下去。那是一個。

Now within that, as you just mentioned, beer is not as strong as beyond beer. And the good news for us is in cases like Twisted Tea, Sun Cruiser, that's a positive start to where we are in the year. We do have some challenges, obviously when we have beers like Sam in the beer category. But overall, if you put them all together, we're starting from where we thought we would be starting the year, if that answered your question?

現在，正如您剛才提到的，啤酒的強度不如啤酒。對我們來說，好消息是，像 Twisted Tea、Sun Cruiser 這樣的案例，為我們今年的表現開了個好頭。我們確實面臨一些挑戰，尤其是當我們在啤酒類別中看到像 Sam 這樣的啤酒時。但總的來說，如果把它們放在一起，我們就是從我們認為開始新的一年的地方開始的，這回答了你的問題嗎？

Yes, but we are seeing, at least in the scanner data that we have, which is Circana. And maybe it's wrong, maybe we have the wrong numbers, whatever, but we are seeing negative volumes for Twisted Tea. So I'm trying to get my head around that a little bit.

是的，但至少在我們擁有的掃描器數據中我們看到了，即 Circana。也許是錯的，也許我們的數字是錯的，無論如何，我們看到 Twisted Tea 的銷量為負。所以我正在嘗試稍微理解這一點。

Well, again, I go back to the coverage. There's a significant part of our business that's not covered by Circana. That's why we look at our overall depletions as a better forecast. That being said, we'll see it in the next couple of months and we'll see where it comes out for the next quarter.

好吧，我再次回到報道上。我們的業務中有很大一部分尚未被 Circana 覆蓋。這就是為什麼我們將整體消耗視為更好的預測。話雖如此，我們將在接下來的幾個月內看到它，並將看到它在下個季度的表現。

Great, and then in a very different vein, super excited about Sun Cruiser. So wondering if you kind of step back and look at that brand versus Surfside and you look at kind of the trajectory of Sun Cruiser, how you've been getting distribution and the velocity, how it's building, do you think it can be as big as Surfside? Bigger, I mean, how do you kind of benchmark the two based on the data that you're seeing? Thank you.

太棒了，然後從非常不同的角度來說，我對 Sun Cruiser 感到非常興奮。所以想知道，如果您退一步看看該品牌與 Surfside 的對比，看看 Sun Cruiser 的發展軌跡，看看您如何獲得分銷和速度，它是如何發展的，您認為它能像 Surfside 一樣大嗎？更大，我的意思是，您如何根據所看到的數據對兩者進行基準測試？謝謝。

So we have great confidence that one, we like the way it's tracking. We had tremendous success in New England and outperformed anyone else that was in the space. And we're now rolling those, that kind of, those learnings across the country. They started way before us. You know, they had probably a year and a half, two years of an earlier launch. So we are focusing on reaching our potential with the brand.

所以我們非常有信心，我們喜歡它的追蹤方式。我們在新英格蘭取得了巨大的成功，並且超越了該地區的任何其他公司。現在我們正在全國推廣這些經驗。他們比我們更早開始。你知道，他們可能提前了一年半到兩年的時間才發布。因此，我們專注於發揮品牌的潛力。

As we did discuss, we'll probably be three times the points of distribution by the time we get into the middle of selling season here or the beginning of selling season for 2025. So we're very comfortable and again, we've mentioned increased marketing dollars. We have a great marketing plan and that's done within the region. So we're confident that we're going to have great success with Sun Cruiser.

正如我們所討論的，到我們進入銷售季節中期或 2025 年銷售季節開始時，我們的分銷點可能會增加三倍。所以我們非常放心，而且我們再次提到增加行銷費用。我們有一個出色的行銷計劃，並且已在該地區實施。因此，我們有信心 Sun Cruiser 將會取得巨大的成功。

Terrific. Thank you very much.

了不起。非常感謝。

Michael Lavery, Piper Sandler.

麥可拉弗里、派珀桑德勒。

Thank you. Good evening. We've heard some of the categories, stress factors you've cited, and I guess cannabis is one that still feels mostly anecdotal, even if reasonable, especially for beverages, it would seem maybe like a more natural substitution. There are some states, Minnesota, Louisiana, a couple others in particular, where the Delta-9-THC beverages are much more developed. Have you seen those states have particular pressure on your categories and brands or is there anything you can point to substantiate how that's a driver, you know, and really what's shaping the consumer substitution or trade off there?

謝謝。晚安.我們聽說過您提到的一些類別和壓力因素，我想大麻雖然合理，但仍然感覺主要是軼事，特別是對於飲料而言，它似乎是一種更自然的替代品。在一些州，特別是明尼蘇達州、路易斯安那州和其他幾個州，Delta-9-THC 飲料的開發程度更高。您是否發現這些州對您的產品類別和品牌施加了特別的壓力，或者您能否指出什麼來證實這是如何產生的驅動因素，以及真正影響消費者替代或權衡的因素是什麼？

I'll answer that in two forms. One is, we've spent a fair amount of time developing great product in Canada and we have a great brand up there TeaPot that's cannabis based. And we are ready with a Delta-9 product if we chose to bring it to market. We haven't necessarily seen any outlying impact against the rest of our portfolio and in those markets and we are assessing it. If we saw that the opportunity was there where we felt we could scale a profitable business in that space in the United States, we are prepared to do so. We just haven't seen that at this time.

我將以兩種形式回答這個問題。一是，我們花了大量時間在加拿大開發優質產品，並且我們在那裡擁有一個以大麻為基礎的優秀品牌 TeaPot。如果我們選擇將 Delta-9 產品推向市場，我們已經準備好了。我們尚未看到對我們投資組合中的其他部分以及這些市場產生任何異常影響，我們正在對其進行評估。如果我們發現有機會，並且覺得可以在美國擴大該領域的獲利業務，我們就會準備好這樣做。只是目前我們還沒看到這一點。

And I would just add to that that also we follow very closely the legalities across the US and we will always put that in front as part of our biggest part of our decision. So as that evolves, we will continue to look at it. And as Michael says, whenever it's available from a legal point of view, we're ready with a product in Canada.

我想補充一點，我們也非常密切地關注美國各地的法律法規，並且我們將始終將這一點放在我們決策最重要的位置。因此，隨著事態的發展，我們將繼續關注。正如麥可所說，只要從法律角度來看可行，我們就會準備好在加拿大推出產品。

And I guess, I was curious, maybe not as much from an opportunity standpoint, but a risk and maybe just thinking of those states as where there's a bit of an end market example. When you think of some of the category headwinds on alcohol, how much evidence is there that cannabis is a driver from market data or is it really hard to pinpoint it?

我想，我很好奇，也許不是從機會的角度來看，而是一種風險，也許只是把這些州視為一個終端市場的例子。當您考慮酒精類產品面臨的一些不利因素時，有多少證據表明大麻是市場數據中的一個驅動因素，還是很難確定它？

Jim, do you want to comment on that?

吉姆，你想對此發表評論嗎？

Yes, you know, the traditional, if I can call it that, the channel to market for marijuana has been through dispensaries and they are not particularly friendly to beverages for a bunch of reasons. You know, you have to lock stuff up at night. Beverages take up a lot of space. Easier to sell bud, it's easier to sell gummies. Delta-9 is a different animal in like the states where you mentioned and this is all state-by-state, so it's kind of Wild West out there. You've got Minnesota where you could basically sell a can with 70 milligrams of THC in a Toys''R''Us.

是的，你知道，傳統的（如果我可以這麼稱呼的話）大麻的銷售管道是透過藥房，而由於多種原因，藥房對飲料並不是特別友好。你知道，晚上你必須把東西鎖起來。飲料佔用很多空間。賣花蕾更容易，賣軟糖也更容易。Delta-9 在您提到的各州表現不同，而且各州的情況各不相同，所以那裡的情況有點像是狂野的西部。在明尼蘇達州，你可以在玩具反斗城出售一罐含有 70 毫克四氫大麻酚的玩具。

It's just completely unregulated though. And then you got California where it has to go through dispensaries and maybe even is totally outlawed. Massachusetts has to go through dispensaries. So there's a huge spectrum of access to market for hemp based THC beverages. There's been a lot of movement on it in even the last three or four months. And I've seen attitudes of, for example, beer wholesalers shift to hey, if it's coming, I want it.

但它完全不受管制。然後到了加州，這種藥物必須透過藥局才能獲得，甚至可能是完全禁止的。馬薩諸塞州必須通過藥房。因此，大麻 THC 飲料的市場准入範圍非常廣泛。甚至在過去的三、四個月裡，這方面也取得了很大的進展。我發現，例如，啤酒批發商的態度發生了轉變，他們說，嘿，如果有貨來，我就想要。

And six months ago they were, I don't want to touch this, it's illegal and it could jeopardize my permits, my banking relationships, stuff like that. So it's too early to see an impact on beer consumption in the Avatar States that you mentioned, Louisiana and Minnesota. But it's a much bigger threat than weed was because you've got it in total wine, you've got it in liquor stores in Louisiana, it's in grocery stores. It's there next to beer and that's the first time that's happened.

六個月前他們就說，我不想碰這個，這是非法的，可能會危害我的許可證、我的銀行關係等等。因此，現在判斷這對您提到的「阿凡達」路易斯安那州和明尼蘇達州的啤酒消費量的影響還為時過早。但它的威脅比大麻大得多，因為在葡萄酒中、在路易斯安那州的酒類商店、在雜貨店裡都有它。它就在啤酒旁邊，這是第一次發生這種事。

So, it's just too early to tell, but to me it is a more serious challenge to beer and beer occasions. And of course, the farm bill only got reauthorized for a year. That can all get wiped out if they just take the legalization of hemp-based THC out of it. And it was certainly never meant to provide a precursor to, taking the THC molecule, isomerizing it from its relatively harmless or almost no psychoactive impact in hemp to something that's the exact same molecule as you're getting from cannabis.

所以，現在說還為時過早，但對我來說，這對啤酒和啤酒場合來說是一個更嚴峻的挑戰。當然，農業法案僅獲得一年的重新授權。如果他們取消大麻中四氫大麻酚的合法化，那麼這一切都將被消滅。而且它絕對不是要提供一種前體，將大麻中相對無害或幾乎沒有精神活性影響的 THC 分子異構化為與大麻中完全相同的分子。

That's super, super helpful. Can I just have a quick follow up on aluminum too? You mentioned renegotiating some purchasing contracts there that's favorable. Could that change with tariffs or would that, or would that even protect you despite what happens with any tariff changes?

這非常非常有幫助。我可以快速跟進一下鋁的情況嗎？您提到重新談判一些有利的採購合約。這種情況會隨著關稅而改變嗎？或者無論關稅如何變化，這種情況都會保護您嗎？

We have a pass through of aluminum. So if you raise the tariffs, our cans, the aluminum in our can would cost more money. But, tariffs at the level that people are discussing at this point are a very small part of our cost structure. So if there's a 20% tariff on raw aluminum, it's really not that relevant. So, I, so far we don't see tariffs as, having a significant impact. And so we're not, it's not, there's lots of other stuff out there, but we don't hedge and so we absorb the pass through.

我們有鋁通過。因此，如果提高關稅，我們的罐頭，以及罐頭中的鋁的價格就會更高。但是，人們目前正在討論的關稅水準只是我們成本結構中很小的一部分。因此，如果對原鋁徵收 20% 的關稅，那其實並沒有那麼重要。所以，到目前為止，我們還沒有看到關稅產生重大影響。所以我們不是，不是，那裡有很多其他的東西，但我們不會對沖，所以我們會吸收通過的東西。

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

好的，太好了。太感謝了。

Eric Serotta, Morgan Stanley.

摩根士丹利的 Eric Serotta。

Great, thanks guys. First question on Twisted. I think there was a comment maybe for the first time or maybe you had it last quarter about that Twisted growth should naturally slow to the single digits now that it's off of a much larger base. It seems new to me, perfectly logical. But I remember in the past you guys would talk about Twisted long-term low double digit growth rate over 20 plus years, wondering, what has anything changed other than the much larger base are you thinking of in the context of competition or shelf space and the second question is really for Jim.

太好了，謝謝大家。關於 Twisted 的第一個問題。我認為這可能是第一次出現這樣的評論，或者可能是上個季度出現過這樣的評論，即 Twisted 的增長應該自然放緩至個位數，因為它現在的基礎要大得多。這對我來說似乎是新的，完全合乎邏輯。但我記得過去你們會談論 Twisted 20 多年來長期低兩位數的增長率，想知道除了更大的基數之外，還有什麼變化，你是否考慮過競爭或貨架空間方面的問題，第二個問題實際上是問吉姆的。

In light of the health and wellness concerns that you highlighted, and in light of, what's going on politically and from a regulatory environment, do you think that the company and the industry are doing enough to advocate in Washington and in the states, and do you think that the company and industry are doing enough from an innovation standpoint to adapt to what's potentially a shift in the consumer environment?

鑑於您強調的健康和保健問題，以及當前政治和監管環境的形勢，您是否認為公司和產業在華盛頓和各州做出了足夠的倡議？您是否認為公司和產業從創新的角度做出了足夠的努力來適應消費者環境可能發生的轉變？

Jim, why don't you take that one first, and then we'll come back to Twisted Tea.

吉姆，你為什麼不先喝那個，然後我們再回來喝 Twisted Tea。

Okay, great. I do have concerns about the, the health and wellness issues. There's certainly been over the last four or five years. It began with the WHO, and it's now come to the United States in terms of the nutritional guidelines that have to be updated every five years, the consensus that moderate consumption of alcohol, follows a J-curve.

好的，太好了。我確實擔心健康和保健問題。過去四、五年來確實存在這種情況。這一觀點始於世界衛生組織，如今已傳入美國，成為每五年更新一次的營養指南，共識是適量飲酒遵循 J 型曲線。

So if you consume it in moderation, that's healthy, particularly, with respect to cardio benefits. That consensus has come apart. And you've really got the National Academy of Sciences, which is a primary recommender within the federal government for nutritional guidelines, continuing to support the fact that moderate consumption of alcohol is healthy and it becomes unhealthy when you go beyond a drink or two a day, maybe a little less for women.

因此，如果適量食用，對健康是有益的，尤其是對心臟健康有益。這一共識已經破裂。而且，美國國家科學院是聯邦政府營養指南的主要推薦機構，它繼續支持這樣的觀點：適量飲酒有益健康，而如果每天飲酒量超過一兩杯，就會變得不健康，對於女性來說，飲酒量可能要少一些。

So the alcohol industry is now having to counter, a bunch of people who basically taken existing research and rejiggered the numbers and come to a different conclusion. I'd say we have very strong advocacy from the Beer Institute and from the big brewers. I think the same thing is true with discus and the distilled spirits industry and certainly the wine industry.

因此，酒精產業現在必須反擊一群人，他們基本上採用現有研究並重新調整數據，得出不同的結論。我想說我們得到了啤酒協會和大型啤酒製造商的大力支持。我認為七彩神仙魚、蒸餾酒產業以及葡萄酒產業也存在同樣的情況。

They're advocating very strongly, not just publicly, but going to Congress people and questioning this introduction of an underage drinking group, putting in their evidence to say that there's no safe level of alcohol. So, it's. So far, I think we've been good advocates, and we will see, but it's a challenge we didn't face in the last five years.

他們不僅在公開場合強烈呼籲，還向國會議員質疑引入未成年飲酒團體的做法，並提供證據證明酒精含量沒有安全限度。原來如此。到目前為止，我認為我們一直是很好的倡導者，我們會看到，但這是我們在過去五年中沒有面臨的挑戰。

Great, and then I'll just -- I'll grab the Twisted Tea question. So we think it's the right number to plan for that business to grow in the single digits. But we are leaning into it. We're -- keep in mind, we're the market leader. There's no clear number two emerging after a great onslaught of competition. Last year, nobody got more than low single digits. We're increasing our investment. Twisted Tea Light is highly incremental and has a significant opportunity for more points of distribution. It has less than a quarter of the points of Twisted Tea Original. We're targeting new drinkers in underpenetrated demographics, specifically Hispanics and African Americans.

太好了，然後我就——我會回答 Twisted Tea 的問題。因此，我們認為規劃該業務以個位數成長是正確的數字。但我們正傾向於此。請記住，我們是市場領導者。經過激烈的競爭，還沒有出現明顯的第二名。去年，沒有人的得分超過個位數。我們正在增加投資。Twisted Tea Light 具有高度增量性，並且具有獲得更多分銷點的巨大機會。它的積分還不到 Twisted Tea Original 的四分之一。我們的目標是尚未普及的人口群體中的新飲酒者，特別是西班牙裔和非裔美國人。

And then we're leaning in on brand support which we talked about, which is new sponsorship deal with DraftKings, Bussin' With The Boys, top ranked boxing and other retail activations. And the high ABV Twisted Tea Extreme is tracking really well. So we know it's a really important part of our business. We're not taking anything for granted. We would be thrilled if it's higher than single digits, but we're planning in our guidance for single digits.

然後，我們傾向於我們討論過的品牌支持，即與 DraftKings、Bussin' With The Boys、頂級拳擊和其他零售活動達成的新贊助協議。高 ABV 的 Twisted Tea Extreme 效果確實很好。所以我們知道這是我們業務中非常重要的一部分。我們不會將任何事視為理所當然。如果高於個位數，我們會很高興，但我們的指導目標是個位數。

Great and just one last question. What's the latest you guys are seeing in terms of interaction between spirits based Hard Teas and Twisted?

太好了，只剩最後一個問題了。你們最近在烈酒類硬茶和 Twisted 茶之間的相互作用方面看到了什麼？

We're seeing it as a new like for between Sun Cruiser and Twisted Tea. We see very minimal to no cannibalization and we see it as a new drinker.

我們將其視為 Sun Cruiser 和 Twisted Tea 之間的新對手。我們看到的蠶食現象非常少甚至沒有，我們把它看作是一種新的飲酒者。

And same with Surfside and Twisted?

Surfside 和 Twisted 也一樣嗎？

Yes.

是的。

Okay, I'll pass it on. Thanks.

好的，我會傳達的。謝謝。

Frankly there has to be some interaction. We're not really seeing it because what Michael alluded to their position differently, they're priced differently, the packages look and feel different, but it can't be zero. So yes, there's going to be some. I don't have a good estimate, but there has to be some interaction between them and that's both Surfside and Sun Cruiser.

坦白說，必須有一些互動。我們並沒有真正看到這一點，因為邁克爾暗示他們的立場不同，他們的定價不同，包裝的外觀和感覺也不同，但它不可能是零。是的，會有一些。我沒有一個很好的估計，但它們之間必須有一些相互作用，那就是 Surfside 和 Sun Cruiser。

Makes sense, thank you.

有道理，謝謝。

Nadine Sarwat, Bernstein.

納丁·薩瓦特，伯恩斯坦。

Thank you. Two from me, the first one, sticking to the Twisted Tea conversation, we've spoken about that deceleration. You've given us the commentary on single digit growth, but that's still, growth versus some of the weak data we're seeing today. What gives you confidence that the brand has more room to grow? And in particular, any particular consumer insights that you're able to share would be helpful.

謝謝。我要說兩點，第一點，繼續關於 Twisted Tea 的對話，我們已經討論過這種減速問題。您已經向我們介紹了個位數成長，但與我們今天看到的一些疲軟數據相比，這仍然只是成長。是什麼讓您相信品牌還有更大的發展空間？特別是，您能夠分享的任何特定消費者見解都會很有幫助。

And then maybe one for Jim, lots of questions on the call on these long-term structural issues. Cannabis moderation, I know there are questions on cyclical factors and pressure on the consumer, but Jim, if you were to look five years out, what would you expect per capita alcohol consumption to look like in the U.S. versus today balancing all of these factors that we're trying to parse out? Thank you.

然後也許還有吉姆的問題，電話中有很多關於這些長期結構性問題的問題。大麻適度，我知道存在關於週期性因素和消費者壓力的問題，但是吉姆，如果你展望五年後，你認為美國人均酒精消費量與今天相比會是什麼樣子，平衡所有這些我們試圖分析的因素？謝謝。

So Jim, why don't you take those just probably smoother?

那麼吉姆，為什麼不把它們做得更順暢一些呢？

Okay, let me start with the second one and then I'll get back to Twisted Tea. It's a, I don't have a crystal ball. But you ask a specific question, so I'll try to give you a specific answer. My sense is that we've got a number of new factors that didn't exist. Call it three years ago because for a long, long, long time, decades, almost going back to post prohibition, per capita alcohol consumption in the United States has been pretty steady. Haven't been big swings and it's, so the total alcohol consumption has kind of grown with the population. I'm not sure that will continue, but it's not going to be, dramatically disrupted.

好的，讓我先從第二個開始，然後再回到 Twisted Tea。是的，我沒有水晶球。但你問了一個具體的問題，所以我會試著給你一個具體的答案。我的感覺是，我們已經發現了一些以前不存在的新因素。之所以說是三年前，是因為在很長很長的一段時間裡，幾十年來，幾乎可以追溯到禁酒令之後，美國的人均酒精消費量一直相當穩定。並沒有出現大幅的波動，所以酒精總消費量是隨著人口的成長而成長的。我不確定這種情況是否會持續下去，但它不會受到太大的影響。

It's something where if per capita alcohol consumption goes down 2%, that's like cataclysmic. So, and there's no single major factor, but you've got a bunch of stuff that's well under 1% in terms of its effect on per capita consumption. And I would list those as, a trend towards moderation, particularly among Gen Zs.

如果人均酒精消費量下降 2%，那將是一場災難。因此，並沒有單一的主要因素，但有許多因素對人均消費的影響遠低於 1%。我認為這是一種趨於溫和的趨勢，尤其是在 Z 世代。

There are new health concerns that have cropped up in the last year and they're in the mainstream press. They even showed up on my aura ring not to drink alcohol because it was going to disturb my sleep. So it's getting diffused through the population at a level that hasn't been there before. There is weed, we've been around for a long time and it's been legal for a long time. And in the states where it was first legalized, like Colorado and Washington, it really didn't affect beer. But the hemp derived THC beverages are a new animal and they bear watching.

去年出現了一些新的健康問題，並引起了主流媒體的注意。他們甚至出現在我的氣場環上，告訴我不要喝酒，因為這會影響我的睡眠。因此，它在人群中的傳播程度達到了前所未有的程度。大麻已經存在很久了，而且合法化已經很長時間了。在科羅拉多州和華盛頓州等首次將啤酒合法化的州，它實際上並沒有影響啤酒。但從大麻中提取的四氫大麻酚飲料是一種新產品，值得關注。

And then there's the GOP drugs that are reducing everybody's, caloric consumption. So you add all those together and, it could be, instead of total alcohol consumption, instead of growing, 1% a year, it could be down 1% a year. It's something like that. It's not, sudden or catastrophic, but there could be, an erosion. And then you're talking about Tea and how are we going to grow it? Is that to recap what you were asking?

然後還有共和黨的藥物正在減少每個人的熱量消耗。所以如果你把所有這些加在一起，那麼，酒精消費總量可能不是每年增長 1%，而是每年下降 1%。就像那樣。它不是突然發生的或災難性的，但可能會造成侵蝕。然後您談到茶以及我們如何種植茶？這是在重述你所問的問題嗎？

Yes. The single digit growth that you guys are talking about, what gives you confidence that it has more room to grow, especially some of the scanner data that we've seen today? Any consumer insights that you could share that gives you that confidence?

是的。你們談論的個位數成長，是什麼讓你們有信心它還有更大的成長空間，特別是我們今天看到的一些掃描器數據？能分享哪些消費者見解讓您有這樣的信心嗎？

Yes. Well, I mean, I'll start with a background of it's grown double digits for over 20 years, which of course does not, past performance is not an indicator of future performance. And we're basically saying that time period is over and, it's a big brand. It's one of the top 10 brands in all of beer. Maybe it's 11 depending on the data you look like look at.

是的。嗯，我的意思是，我先從它 20 多年來兩位數的成長背景說起，當然，過去的表現並不能預示未來的表現。我們基本上是說那個時代已經過去了，它是一個大品牌。它是所有啤酒中排名前十的品牌之一。也許是 11，這取決於您所查看的數據。

But it is mature and our growth efforts are around increasing the advertising and other marketing support with sponsorships and podcasts and things like Top Rank Boxing plus more advertising support and then introducing products at the higher and lower alcohol. For all these years its everything's been 5% and now we have Twisted Tea Light and Twisted Tea Extreme. So those will bring in new drinkers. So those are our primary stimuli to basically turn around the scanner trends that you're seeing.

但它已經成熟，我們的成長努力集中在透過贊助和播客以及諸如 Top Rank Boxing 之類的東西增加廣告和其他行銷支持，加上更多的廣告支持，然後推出高酒精和低酒精產品。這些年來，所有產品的稅率都是 5%，現在我們有了 Twisted Tea Light 和 Twisted Tea Extreme。因此這些將會吸引新的飲酒者。因此，這些是我們扭轉您所看到的掃描器趨勢的主要刺激因素。

Yes. And just let me reiterate, the light product is less than a quarter of the distribution points of Twisted Tea Original and the High -- ABV is similar. So we see there's opportunity there to drive further distribution and last year was a tough year for competition. There were a number of known brands that came into the space and we held them off and we expect us to, we expect to grab some of that space back this year.

是的。我再重申一遍，淡味產品的分銷點不到 Twisted Tea Original 和 High 的四分之一——ABV 是相似的。因此，我們看到了進一步推動分銷的機會，而去年是競爭激烈的一年。有許多知名品牌進入該領域，我們阻止了它們，我們希望，我們希望今年能夠奪回一些空間。

Understood. Thank you very much.

明白了。非常感謝。

Bonnie Herzog, Goldman Sachs.

高盛的邦妮·赫爾佐格。

Hey. Thank you. Hi everyone. I actually wanted to ask about advertising. I'd love to hear a little bit more color on the step up of advertising that you're going to be doing this year. And really ultimately, what informed your decision I think you mentioned some tests that you did? So just any color on that and then any more color on, if there are certain channels this advertising is going to be focused on.

嘿。謝謝。大家好。我實際上想問的是有關廣告的問題。我很想聽聽您關於今年將要開展的廣告業務的更多細節。那麼最終是什麼促使您做出這個決定的呢？我想您提到您做過的一些測試？因此，只要有特定的管道，廣告就會集中在任何顏色上，然後再添加任何顏色。

And then finally you're not guiding much acceleration on your top line this year despite the stepped-up advertising. And then, thinking about the significant increase in advertising expected in the first quarter, I guess I'm trying to understand, timing, expectations or when you expect to see sort of some lift from the stepped up spend.

最後，儘管加強了廣告投放力度，但今年的營收成長並沒有太大。然後，考慮到第一季預計的廣告支出大幅增加，我想我試圖了解時間、預期或何時預計會看到支出增加帶來的某種提升。

Thanks for the question, Bonnie. Okay, go ahead, Jim.

謝謝你的提問，邦妮。好的，繼續吧，吉姆。

I think, let's see, I think the reason you're, we haven't incorporated top line growth out of the advertising. We're being cautious and our approach to the stepped-up advertising is that we will fund advertising that works. Instead of saying we're going to spend this money no matter what we're saying, we're going to spend it especially in the first quarter and then we are going to evaluate are we getting additional revenue from it.

我想，讓我們看看，我認為你這樣做的原因是，我們沒有將廣告中的營收成長納入其中。我們非常謹慎，對於加強廣告宣傳，我們的策略是為有效的廣告提供資金。我們不會說無論說什麼我們都會花掉這筆錢，而是在第一季花掉它，然後我們會評估我們是否能從中獲得額外的收入。

That shows some promise to get a payback on the advertising. And if we don't think we're getting a payback from the advertising. We will stop running it. And we believe we've gotten a better handle on tracking whether the advertising is stimulating sales, which is always the big question with advertising. Going back to [Sean Watermaker] who said, half my advertising, it doesn't work.

這顯示廣告有獲得回報的希望。如果我們認為我們沒有從廣告中獲得回報。我們將停止運行它。我們相信，我們已經能夠更好地追蹤廣告是否能夠刺激銷售，這始終是廣告界的一大問題。回到肖恩沃特梅克 (Sean Watermaker) 所說的，我的一半廣告都沒有效果。

I don't know which half. I think we've gotten better on that through mixed media modeling and use of single source data at scale, which is something you can do now. There's just a lot more accountability around advertising. So we're saying we're going to, we believe our, all of our brands, as Michael keeps saying have, potential that we're not realizing. So we're going to see where we realize that potential and support those brands.

我不知道是哪一半。我認為我們透過混合媒體建模和大規模使用單一來源資料在這方面取得了更好的成績，這是現在就可以做到的。廣告方面需要承擔更多的責任。所以我們說，我們相信，正如邁克爾一直說的那樣，我們所有的品牌都具有我們尚未意識到的潛力。因此，我們將看看在哪裡實現這一​​潛力並支持這些品牌。

And channel wise, there is a migration for all of us off of the traditional, TV, cable TV and things that look like cable TV, over the top, and all the different acronyms to social and digital. So we're migrating to that. I think this year they will be the majority of our spend. And then there's also spend in there that's not totally, it's not technically advertising.

從通路角度來看，我們所有人都在從傳統電視、有線電視、類似有線電視的電視、Over-Top 電視以及各種不同的電視管道轉向社交和數位管道。所以我們正在往那個方向遷移。我認為今年它們將占我們支出的大部分。而且其中的支出也不完全是廣告，嚴格來說也不是廣告。

So you've got, some of the things that we've always done like not just media, but sponsorships, local marketing, point of sale, distribution incentive, brand ambassadors, podcasts. So there's a much broader, you could think of as market support or brand support that we hope will drive the top line, but we're not factoring much of that in yet.

所以，我們一直在做的一些事情不僅僅是媒體，還有贊助、本地行銷、銷售點、分銷激勵、品牌大使、播客。因此，你可以認為這是一個更廣泛的市場支持或品牌支持，我們希望這能夠推動營收成長，但我們目前還沒有將其考慮在內。

Okay, so that's all right.

好的，沒問題。

Yes, Bonnie. I just want to add one couple more things just in terms of specifics and wrapping that up. So it's really a balance of big properties and local activation. We've got some really specific local plans. We have the top 30 markets for our brands mapped out and specific plans against those. So I think what Jim was trying to talk about really is saying we're trying to improve the hit rate and the efficiency of our advertising as well as we're definitely getting deep and regional and we have activation that's both big and national and local and relevant that's tied to boots on the ground.

是的，邦妮。我只想就具體內容和總結再補充幾點。因此，這實際上是一種大型物業和本地激活之間的平衡。我們有一些非常具體的本地計劃。我們已經規劃出我們品牌的前 30 個市場，並針對這些市場制定了具體的計劃。所以我認為吉姆真正想說的是，我們正在努力提高廣告的命中率和效率，同時我們肯定會變得更加深入和區域化，我們既有大規模的、全國性的、地方性的、相關的激活活動，而且這些活動都與實地行動緊密相關。

Okay, that's helpful. And this may be a quick follow up on this then, because it's already the end of February and you did call out that you're going to really do significant spend in Q1. I mean, have you already done that? And the reason I'm asking is because you've also told us that your depletions are basically flat through February 21st, so I'm just trying to think through or is a lot of this spend coming in March?

好的，這很有幫助。這可能是對此的一個快速跟進，因為現在已經是二月底了，而您確實說過您將在第一季進行大量支出。我的意思是，你已經這樣做了嗎？我之所以問這個問題，是因為您也告訴我們，截至 2 月 21 日，您的消耗量基本上持平，所以我只是想想想，還是說其中大部分支出都發生在 3 月份？

No. So I'd start with three points. First of all, our depletions have been consistently improving. I think that's part of the reason we're doing this investment. Second of all, I think Michael and Jim both reference a series of activations you can already start seeing now. So we had really good presence at the super bowl with some of our new partnerships with Pardon – our interruption and a couple of the other new podcasts that we're using. We had really good activations across that weekend with Twisted Tea and especially Sun Cruiser. Hopefully you saw some of our advertising for Sun Cruiser in the Kansas City, Philadelphia game.

不。因此我想先談三點。首先，我們的消耗一直持續改善。我認為這是我們進行這項投資的原因之一。其次，我認為邁克爾和吉姆都提到了一系列您現在已經可以開始看到的激活。因此，我們透過與 Pardon 建立的一些新合作夥伴關係（我們的中斷以及我們正在使用的其他幾個新播客）在超級盃上取得了非常好的成績。那個週末我們與 Twisted Tea 和 Sun Cruiser 一起舉辦了非常精彩的活動。希望您看到了我們在堪薩斯城費城比賽中為 Sun Cruiser 製作的一些廣告。

So, there are a lot of things that you can already see over the next last few weeks. Now, as you well know, advertising is not an immediate action into the purchasing. We're building brands for a long term, so we're comfortable that the investments that we're putting in now are going to drive to where we are guiding for the year.

因此，在接下來的幾週內，您已經可以看到很多事情。現在，如您所知，廣告並不是立即引發購買的行為。我們正在為長期品牌建立而努力，因此我們相信，我們現在所投入的投資將能夠達到我們今年所預期的目標。

Okay, that's helpful. And then just maybe one final question for me on Truly. Can you guys give us a sense of maybe how much Truly volume was down last year? I know it's shrinking in your portfolio.

好的，這很有幫助。最後，我還有一個關於 Truly 的問題。你們能否告訴我們去年 Truly 的銷售量下降了多少？我知道你的投資組合正在縮水。

Just kind of want to get a sense of where volume came in – for the full year. And then maybe what's implied in your guidance this year for Truly? I mean, does your guidance imply declines or are you expecting maybe just more flat volume for Truly? I know you've got some initiatives still behind Truly, so just curious how to think about that? Thank you.

只是想了解全年銷售量的狀況。那麼，您對今年 Truly 的指導可能暗示了什麼？我的意思是，您的指導是否意味著下降，或者您是否預計 Truly 的銷量可能只是持平？我知道您確實還有一些計劃，所以我很好奇您是怎麼看待這些計劃的？謝謝。

Yes. So look, we don't usually go into that much detail by Brad, but what we can say is we were not happy with the volume performance of Truly last year. We are being conservative in our forecast for 2025. So we're not in our guidance, not assuming it's necessarily going to grow, but we think we have the plans to improve the trend significantly. So right now we're just being a little bit conservative as we see some of the results of some of our investments. So we're not planning flat, we're planning it to still be low, but we think we have the plans to turn that around during the year.

是的。所以看，我們通常不會向布拉德詳細介紹，但我們可以說的是，我們對去年 Truly 的銷售表現並不滿意。我們對 2025 年的預測比較保守。因此，我們並沒有給予指導，也沒有假設它必然會成長，但我們認為我們有計劃顯著改善這一趨勢。因此，現在我們看到一些投資的結果時，還是比較保守的。因此，我們並沒有計劃保持平穩，我們計劃仍然保持低位，但我們認為我們有計劃在今年扭轉這種局面。

But the trends are improving.

但趨勢正在改善。

That's great. Thank you so much. I'll pass it on.

那太棒了。太感謝了。我會傳達的。

Filippo Falorni, Citi.

花旗銀行的 Filippo Falorni。

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. So first on distribution, you mentioned you're planning to triple The TDP is for Sun Cruiser. Is this incremental distribution or is it part of the distribution you're getting on Sun Cruiser coming off Twisted Tea or Truly?

嘿，大家下午好。首先關於分銷，您提到您計劃將 TDP 增加三倍，用於 Sun Cruiser。這是增量分發還是您在 Sun Cruiser 上從 Twisted Tea 或 Truly 獲得的分發的一部分？

Incremental.

增量。

Okay, thank you. That's helpful. And then a follow up on the margins and the aluminum comment. I know you mentioned it's not a significant part, but in considering the negotiation that you're doing is an expectation of higher aluminum cost. In your gross margin guidance, how should we think about the puts and takes just for aluminum but also for commodities more broadly?

好的，謝謝。這很有幫助。然後跟進利潤率和鋁的評論。我知道您提到這不是一個重要的部分，但考慮到您正在進行的談判，預計鋁成本會更高。在您的毛利率指引中，我們應該如何看待鋁以及更廣泛的大宗商品的賣出和獲利？

Yes, so let me clarify part of that statement. I think as we're talking about our renegotiations, the contract we renegotiated was not for suppliers this quarter. That was more for a co-packer. We are looking at our materials within that aluminum is always a commodity that for us and every company will have a component that moves. As you can currently see today, we don't know what the tariffs are going to be. So as we've indicated, we haven't built in any specific impact on tariffs because we don't know what they are. They're not in place yet.

是的，那麼讓我澄清一下該聲明的部分內容。我認為，當我們談論重新談判時，我們重新談判的合約不是針對本季的供應商的。這對於聯合包裝商來說更為重要。我們正在研究我們的材料，鋁始終是一種商品，對我們和每家公司來說，它都是一個移動的組件。正如您今天所看到的，我們不知道關稅將會是多少。正如我們所指出的，我們沒有考慮關稅的任何具體影響，因為我們不知道它們是什麼。它們尚未到位。

Now the comment that Jim was making is compared to maybe other companies, we do have some exposure in aluminum and some exposure in flavors and ingredients, but it's significantly below most other of our competitors. Just given that our footprint is U.S., most of our, the rest of our raw materials, all our distribution costs are U.S. So again, there is some exposure, but it's not as big as you would think. How much it is, it depends on what the reality of those tariffs happen during the year, which I don't think any of us know at this point.

現在，吉姆所發表的評論與其他公司相比，我們確實在鋁、口味和成分方面有一些曝光，但明顯低於我們的大多數其他競爭對手。鑑於我們的業務範圍在美國，我們的大部分原材料、其餘原材料以及所有分銷成本都在美國。因此，存在一些風險，但並不像你想像的那麼大。具體金額取決於當年這些關稅的實際情況，我認為目前我們誰也不知道。

Got it. Thank you.

知道了。謝謝。

Bill Kirk, Roth Capital Partners.

羅斯資本合夥公司的比爾‧柯克 (Bill Kirk)。

Good afternoon. I wanted to keep going on Bonnie's increased advertising question, but maybe an industry wide perspective. So, industry wide, do shifting consumer habits maybe increase competition? Do those things necessitate more industry marketing spend to sell roughly the same number of industry cases each year? Like where are we at a. How much marketing industry wide is required to support the volume?

午安.我想繼續討論邦妮增加廣告的問題，但也許是從整個行業的角度來看。那麼，從整個產業來看，消費者習慣的轉變是否會加劇競爭？這些事情是否需要更多的行業行銷支出才能每年銷售大致相同數量的行業案例？就像我們現在在哪裡。需要多少全產業的行銷來支持這一銷量？

I wouldn't speak to an industry wide general statement. I'd say we've addressed our own portfolio and we see great opportunity to maximize the potential of our brands. And especially at a moment like this where some others may be retrenching, we see opportunity.

我不會對整個行業發表一般性聲明。我想說我們已經解決了我們自己的產品組合問題，並且我們看到了最大限度發揮我們品牌潛力的巨大機會。尤其是在其他人可能正在削減開支的當下，我們看到了機會。

Okay, and then you touched on Sun Cruiser. Go ahead, Jim. Sorry.

好的，然後您提到了 Sun Cruiser。繼續吧，吉姆。對不起。

No, I would just say, historically, I mean, we're, we overspend on advertising. We're, we view ourselves as a growth company, so we're willing to invest in our brands to grow them maybe at the expense of, EPS in the short run. So, and from our point of view, I don't see this as having changed in the last five years. We're going to continue to overspend in and over invest in our brands industry wide. I mean, we're 4.5% of the industry, so that's really a question to ask, Constellation and ABI and Molson Coors since they're the bulk of the spending.

不，我只想說，從歷史上看，我們在廣告上的支出過高。我們將自己視為一家成長型公司，因此我們願意投資於我們的品牌，以在短期內以犧牲每股收益為代價來發展它們。因此，從我們的角度來看，我認為這種情況在過去五年並沒有改變。我們將繼續在整個行業中對我們的品牌進行過度支出和過度投資。我的意思是，我們佔整個產業的 4.5%，所以這確實是一個值得問的問題，Constellation、ABI 和 Molson Coors 佔據了大部分支出。

Okay. And then on Sam Adams, we didn't really talk much about the brand family on the call. What are the plans to reinvigorate that brand? What can get the excitement back around some of the craft beer movement and styles? And what do you expect for spring resets for craft beer and Sam Adams?

好的。然後談到薩姆·亞當斯，我們在電話中並沒有真正談論太多關於品牌家族的事情。有什麼計劃來重振品牌？什麼可以讓精釀啤酒運動和風格重新受到人們的關注？您對精釀啤酒和 Sam Adams 的春季重置有何期待？

We're really excited around the potential for Sam Light. And as we mentioned before that we have a, we won a gold medal at the World Beer Fest and we're leaning in on the, the quality and the premium position, which is a little different for Sam. But we have some new marketing coming that we think will bring to light the benefits of the entire portfolio based on the care we put into the product.

我們對 Sam Light 的潛力感到非常興奮。正如我們之前提到的，我們在世界啤酒節上贏得了金牌，我們依靠品質和高端地位，這對 Sam 來說有點不同。但是，我們即將推出一些新的行銷手段，我們認為這些手段將基於我們對產品的精心投入，展現出整個產品組合的優勢。

And I would say we see maybe a long term unmet need for Samuel Adams American Light, which, wholesalers and retailers are starting to get behind. And the issue is for the beer industry, there's really no trade up from light beer. There's no high end light beer.

我想說，我們可能看到了 Samuel Adams American Light 長期未滿足的需求，批發商和零售商已經開始落後了。而對於啤酒產業來說，問題在於，淡啤酒其實沒有升級的趨勢。沒有高端淡啤酒。

Years ago there was Amstel Light, but that sort of got deprioritized by Heineken in favor of Heineken Light. And that didn't really provide the trade up opportunities for whatever reason. So we're thinking that there is a market need for there to be a trade up from Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coors Light and Michelob Light isn't that much, I mean, of a trade up.

幾年前，有阿姆斯特爾淡啤酒 (Amstel Light)，但喜力公司放棄了阿姆斯特爾淡啤酒，轉而青睞喜力淡啤酒 (Heineken Light)。但無論出於什麼原因，這實際上並沒有提供交易機會。因此，我們認為市場需要百威淡啤酒、米勒淡啤酒和庫爾斯淡啤酒的升級，而米凱羅淡啤酒的升級幅度並不大。

It's often sold at the same price. There's no, from regular strength beer you could trade up to a craft or an import. And many, many people did long term. We're thinking that behavior can be replicated with light beer. And Sam Adams American Light has these premium characteristics. It's got awards. It's the best light beer in America. The ingredients, the barley comes from the best place. We believe that barley's grown in the US which is in Montana. The hops are a new hop from Washington state. So it's all American ingredients, award winning and the most premium light beer out there.

通常以相同的價格出售。沒有，您可以從普通濃度的啤酒換成精釀啤酒或進口啤酒。許多人都長期這樣做。我們認為淡啤酒也能複製這種行為。而 Sam Adams American Light 就具備這些優質特性。它獲得了獎項。這是美國最好的淡啤酒。原料大麥均來自最好的產地。我們相信大麥生長在美國蒙大拿州。這種啤酒花是來自華盛頓州的一種新啤酒花。所以它全部採用美國原料，屢獲殊榮，是市面上最優質的淡啤酒。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指示）

Gerald Pascarelli, Needham and Company.

傑拉爾德·帕斯卡雷利（Gerald Pascarelli），尼德漢姆公司。

Great, thanks very much for the question. Just one follow up from me on Sun cruiser. So it looks like you're obviously making a big push into the market here, right between the stepped up investment spending, the increased points of distribution. So can you talk about like the longer term runway that you see for this brand? Maybe how initial repeat rates look thus far and just broadly, I guess what I'm trying to get at is how you think about ultimately needing to cycle or your competence in cycling. What looks like it's what looks like a pretty aggressive rollout this year. So any color there would be great. Thank you.

太好了，非常感謝您的提問。我對 Sun Cruiser 僅進行了一次跟進。因此看起來你們顯然正在大力進軍這個市場，恰好是在加大投資支出、增加分銷點之間。那麼，您能談談您對這個品牌的長期展望嗎？也許到目前為止初始重複率看起來如何以及大致如何，我想我試圖了解的是您如何看待最終需要騎自行車或您的騎自行車能力。看起來，今年的推出相當積極。所以任何顏色都很棒。謝謝。

Yes, I think we've learned a lot of great lessons in terms of the way the Truly brand was built and it's taken us some time to kind of get that back to a level where it's got a good run rate. We're still working on that. So we're being really careful about how we build Sun Cruiser. We're being really thoughtful about what markets we go into.

是的，我認為我們在 Truly 品牌的打造方式方面學到了很多寶貴的經驗教訓，我們花了一些時間才使其恢復到良好的運行率水平。我們仍在努力。因此，我們在打造 Sun Cruiser 時非常謹慎。我們正在認真考慮要進入哪些市場。

We're having the appropriate marketing ready and activations. We're launching Lemonade alongside it, which will come in the peak selling season here in March. It's already actually out in the marketplace. So it's we're not anniversary any numbers right now. So it is rolling in and actually we got a late start.

我們正在準備適當的行銷和激活活動。我們將同時推出 Lemonade，預計在三月的銷售旺季上市。它實際上已經上市了。所以我們現在還沒有任何週年紀念數字。所以一切正在順利進行，但實際上我們起步較晚。

As I think Jim said earlier, we didn't really get going on this until May of this year. So it's been a really solid rollout plan and we like the results. We won't share any specifics in terms of repay rates at this point, but we like the ramp of the business and we feel strongly that this is going to be a long term part of our portfolio.

我認為吉姆之前說過，我們直到今年五月才真正開始做這件事。所以這是一個非常可靠的推廣計劃，我們對結果感到滿意。目前我們不會分享有關償還率的任何具體信息，但我們喜歡業務的成長，並且我們強烈認為這將成為我們投資組合的長期組成部分。

Peter Grom, UBS.

瑞銀的 Peter Grom。

Thanks, operator. Good evening everyone. So just maybe following up on the gross margin, another -- the gross margin guidance specifically, another year of pretty solid expansion expected. Can you just walk through the puts and takes as we think about the bridges the next year, what kind of needs to happen at the high end versus the low end? And then just you offered a lot of color on phasing of marketing and I totally get that 1Q, Q4 see different levels in terms of absolute margin levels. But just any thoughts in terms of how we should be thinking about the phasing of margin expansion as we look out to 2025?

謝謝，接線生。大家晚上好。因此，也許只是跟進毛利率，具體來說是毛利率指導，預計今年還會有相當穩健的擴張。當我們考慮明年的橋樑時，您能否簡單介紹其中的利弊，即高端和低端分別需要發生什麼？然後，您就行銷階段提供了許多細節，我完全明白第一季度和第四季度在絕對利潤水平方面呈現不同的水平。但是，展望 2025 年，我們該如何考慮逐步擴大利潤率呢？

Yes. So two things again as I mentioned before, this is a multiyear approach. So what you're seeing is just the continuation of the programs. So from that point of view, the basis of the improvement kind of is the same. Now what changes is two things. As I mentioned before, of the three buckets, which ones are the buckets that we're advancing each year? But the second one is also what we really need to do from a gross profit point of view is optimize our facilities, make sure that we're leveraging our co-packers geographically to optimize our mix and make sure that we are getting the best cost we can for our products and our raw materials.

是的。正如我之前提到的，有兩件事，這是一個多年期的方法。所以，您所看到的只是程式的延續。因此從這個角度來看，改進的基礎是相同的。現在改變的是兩件事。正如我之前提到的，在這三個桶子中，哪些是我們每年都在推進的？但從毛利的角度來看，第二點也是我們真正需要做的，那就是優化我們的設施，確保我們在地理上利用我們的聯合包裝商來優化我們的產品組合，並確保我們的產品和原材料獲得最佳成本。

Right. So those three things continue to be the basis of what we do. Now, what needs to happen to move the range? There are two things. There are some of the programs that we have in our roadmap we're trying to accelerate. So, it could be optimizing warehouses that we're looking into. It can be getting the most out of our Kinaxis new ordering system that we reference in our in our comments.

正確的。因此，這三件事仍然是我們工作的基礎。現在，需要做什麼才能移動範圍？有兩件事。我們正在努力加速推進路線圖中的一些項目。因此，我們正在研究的可能是優化倉庫。它可以充分利用我們在評論中提到的 Kinaxis 新訂購系統。

So trying to accelerate the savings is part of the way that we can get from the lower end and the higher end. The second one is obviously, although volume is not necessarily critical to get to our lower end, it will help us accelerate the savings and get to our higher end. So those are two things that need to happen from the bottom to high-end.

因此，嘗試加速儲蓄是我們從低端到高端實現成長的一種方式。第二點顯然是，雖然數量對於我們達到低端市場來說不一定是至關重要的，但它將幫助我們加速節省並達到高端市場。所以這是從底層到高端都需要發生的兩件事。

Then to your second question, the phasing usually is simple. The worst quarter for gross margin is always Q4 because we have low production and therefore even with total production, our facilities are not full or remotely full even if we bring in most of the third party production. Q1 tends to be the second smallest one. Although this year we think it'll be a little bit better just given that we're producing some of our Sun Cruiser and some other products into the middle of the year.

那麼對於你的第二個問題，分階段通常很簡單。毛利率最差的季度始終是第四季度，因為我們的產量很低，因此即使我們引入大部分第三方生產，我們的設施也未滿負荷或遠未滿負荷。Q1 往往是第二小的一個。不過，我們認為今年的情況會好一些，因為我們將在年中生產一些 Sun Cruiser 和其他產品。

So, I would say in the first quarter you're probably going to have a little bit better absorption but in the first half of the year you'll have a little bit more investment and then the back end should look similar from an absorption point of view as last year. And the investment will depend on how we're seeing the reaction to our investment in the first half. So that's that those are the only differences I would see from a gross margin phasing approach.

因此，我想說，在第一季度，你的吸收情況可能會好一點，但在上半年，你的投資會多一點，然後從吸收的角度來看，後端應該與去年類似。投資將取決於我們對上半年投資的反應。所以，從毛利率分階段法來看，這些是我看到的唯一差異。

That that's super helpful. And then just maybe to close it out just on Bonnie's question, just on the phasing of marketing. So it sounds like when you look at the release and it sounds like you're expecting the $30 million to $50 million increase year-on-year entirely in the first half maybe, is that right? And if so, like how much are you actually anticipating spending in the first quarter relative to the second quarter? Obviously it has implications from an earnings perspective. So just trying to make sure we kind of get the phasing right.

這非常有幫助。然後也許我們就可以結束邦妮關於行銷階段的問題了。因此，聽起來，當您查看發布情況時，您預計上半年的銷售額可能會同比增長 3000 萬至 5000 萬美元，對嗎？如果是這樣，那麼您預計第一季的支出相對於第二季實際上是多少？顯然，從獲利角度來看，這具有影響。因此，我們只是想確保我們能夠正確地進行分階段。

Look, we are still, as we said, we have a base plan that we're investing against, but we're going to be moving that plan and that's why we're not giving very specific guidance on a quarter-by-quarter investment basis because there are certain part of the marketing plan that we have based. But there's a very flexible piece that we're investing in the geographies and the brands and the opportunities that we're seeing in the short-term. So can't really give you a very exact point at this point. I think we're going to have a much better view of that range and the phasing of that range by the end of Q1.

你看，正如我們所說的，我們仍然有一個投資基礎計劃，但我們將推進該計劃，這就是為什麼我們沒有給出逐季度投資的非常具體的指導，因為我們已經基於營銷計劃的某些部分。但我們在短期內對地域、品牌和機會進行投資具有非常大的靈活性。所以現在還無法給你一個非常準確的觀點。我認為，到第一季末，我們將對該範圍及其分階段有更好的了解。

Great, thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

太好了，非常感謝。我會傳達的。

And ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time and I would like to turn the floor back over to Jim Koch for any closing remarks.

女士們、先生們，現在沒有其他問題了，我想把發言權交還給吉姆·科赫，請他做最後發言。

Thanks to all of you for joining us for recapping 2024 and the start of 2025. And we will talk to you all in two months after the first quarter closes.

感謝大家與我們一起回顧 2024 年並迎接 2025 年的開始。我們將在第一季結束後兩個月內與大家交談。

And thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may not disconnect your lines at this time.

謝謝你。今天的電話會議到此結束。我們感謝您的參與。您現在不能斷開線路。