Shipments of beer and beerlike alcoholic beverages made by the nation's five major breweries inched up in May for the second straight month, as their new "third-category" brews offset slumping sales of beer and other products, according to industry data released Friday.
Shipments of the new, malt-free alcoholic brews jumped almost four times the 6.25 million cases recorded the previous year. But its market share fell slightly to 16.1 percent from 19.4 percent the previous month.
On the other hand, shipments of real beer fell 6.0 percent to 21.50 million cases, while those of "happoshu," a low-malt beer, plunged 22.6 percent to 11.07 million cases.