The Beloved American Beer Brand Becoming Less And Less Affordable

Samuel Adams is one of those beers that is familiar, dependable and award-winning, making it one of the most popular beers in America. Because of how generally adored it truly is, shoppers have been unable to ignore that its price has been slowly creeping up over the past few years. A report by FinanceBuzz documented a 71% increase in Samuel Adams prices from 2015 to 2025, outpacing the 41% average increase in beer prices and the general rate of inflation across all categories. Fortunately, the explanation for this doesn't require any guesswork.

The Consumer Price Index's "Beer at home" category has faced annual increases since 2020, in part due to rising costs of ingredients, cans, bottles, and transportation. The Boston Beer Company, which produces Samuel Adams, has confirmed the same upward trend in its public earnings reports. Samuel Adams' brewing style has its roots in European inspiration (an interesting point to note when looking at the differences between American and German beers) by using German noble hops, which the company notes are rarer and more expensive than most other varieties. Once those higher ingredient and packaging costs meet state taxes and regional pricing, it becomes very easy to see why the same six-pack is pricier today than it was five or 10 years ago.

The inflation of our food and drink has become one of the most visible trends in everyday life, and so beer prices are moving right along with it. Everything from weekly grocery staples to the cost of restaurant meals is rising — even fast food has become more expensive. Beer has been swept up in the same current, shaped by the general rise in operating expenses that affects basically every aisle of the supermarket. Regional price differences add another layer to what we see as shoppers because beer taxes vary dramatically from state to state, and these taxes directly influence how much a beer ends up costing at the register.

All of this creates a pretty straightforward picture. Yes, Samuel Adams beer prices have risen — in fact, all beer prices have risen, but they aren't growing in isolation. This is part of a larger, well-recorded climb in food and beverage costs across the country. It isn't necessarily that Samuel Adams beer itself has shifted categories or changed some core part of its identity that makes it more upmarket — it's that the market around it shifted. And as long as everything involved in getting food and drink onto shelves continues to grow more expensive, the price of that bottle of beer is only going to move with it.