Boston Beer's (SAM  ) has lost its gamble on the prominence of the hard seltzer craze, with Q2 sales badly missing expectations and future guidance being reigned in considerably.

The hard seltzer craze was undoubtedly a strong one, driven in large by the landmark success of White Claw's viral marketing (I can still recall a time where my social media feeds were dominated with memes involving the seltzer). Mark Anthony Brands, which owned the virally popular seltzer brand, dominated the market at the height of the craze with just short of a 60% market share. Boston Beer came in just behind with 22% of the market share. However, the strong social media fad surrounding flavored malt beverages such as White Claw and Truly appears to be fizzling out.

The cooling of the social media craze has come about mainly because of the "re-opening" of the economy, which has coincided with a considerable increase in competition for the already dominated market. The popularity of flavored malt beverages was primarily centered around being an "off-premises" beverage that could be bought at a store and taken home, with the coronavirus pandemic being a significant driver of sales and social media engagement. With on-premises sales surging as the economy continues to recover, the explosive growth the flavored malt beverage market once benefitted from appears to be finally cooling.

Despite Mark Anthony Brands possessing a far larger market share, Boston Beer was in a much more precarious position from the fizzling out of the seltzer craze. The firm's Samuel Adams brand of beer, at one point the company's flagship product, has struggled for years to reverse slowing sales. The company's gamble on Truly, it's hard seltzer brand, appears to have been born largely out of apparent necessity. While Truly may have provided a lucrative opportunity amid the craze, Boston Beer's heavy investment in the brand's production (with seltzer having well surpassed the production volume of the company's other products) has only caused the firm's financial future to become much less promising.

Boston Beer stock plunged last week on news of its missed Q2 earnings, with the firm losing just short of a quarter of its share price in a pre-market plummet on Friday, opening at $725 after closing on Thursday at $956.26. The stock has remained mostly flat through the week, opening at $715.37 on Wednesday.