Is The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (SAM) overvalued or undervalued?
Updated Nov 10, 2026 · hand-researched model · educational, not advice
At a recent price of $216.82, The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (SAM) sits inside our range of estimates: our valuation lenses put the business somewhere between $148.58 and $369.97 per share. For a cyclical we value through the cycle we publish a range only (peer multiples and our researched mid-cycle DCF): where in the cycle the business sits decides where in that range it lands, and a single figure would claim we know that precisely. This is an educational model, not a price target or a recommendation.
The valuation discounts The Boston Beer Company, Inc.'s projected free cash flows at a weighted-average cost of capital (WACC) of 9.3%, with a long-run terminal growth rate of 2.0%. About 72% of the enterprise value comes from the terminal value — the portion beyond the explicit forecast window — which is typical for a stable, cash-generative business and a reminder that small changes in the discount rate or terminal growth assumption swing the intrinsic value meaningfully.
Running the DCF in reverse — solving for the growth the current price already assumes — the market is implying roughly 2.1% annual revenue growth for SAM. Our base case instead compounds to about -0.2% a year over the same forecast, so the market is pricing in materially faster growth than our base case. The reverse-DCF is a quick sanity check: it reframes 'is this stock cheap?' as 'do I believe the growth the price requires?' rather than arguing over a single point estimate of fair value.
Sensitivity matters more than any single number. Across a reasonable band of discount-rate assumptions, SAM's modeled DCF value ranges from about $116.61 to $213.16 per share. If that range still sits below today's price, the market is optimistic relative to the model across the whole band; if it brackets the price, the stock is roughly fairly valued on our assumptions. Use the interactive slider to see exactly where your own cost-of-capital view lands.
How to read this page: the DCF fair value is what The Boston Beer Company, Inc. would be worth if its cash flows grow as modeled and are discounted at the stated WACC. The assumptions table shows every input and its source; the reverse-DCF shows what the market believes; the sensitivity band shows how fragile the answer is. None of this is investment advice — it is a transparent, auditable framework for forming your own view of SAM's intrinsic value. Figures update as new filings and prices come in.
The assumptions behind SAM's DCF
| Input | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Base-year revenue | $1,965,000,000 | Boston Beer Q4/FY2025 earnings release, 8-K Ex-99 (accession 0001193125-26-067142, filed 2026-02-24): Net revenue (after excise taxes) $1,964,994K for the 52 weeks ended 2025-12-27, -2.4% vs FY2024 $2,012.9M. Shipments -4.7%, depletions -4%; price and mix partly offset volume. Revenue is now 6% below the FY2022 peak of $2,090.3M (FY2023 $2,008.6M, FY2024 $2,012.9M, FY2025 $1,965.0M) - the hard-seltzer and Twisted Tea volume unwind. Calendar-ish 52/53-week fiscal year ending the last Saturday of December. CROSS-CHECK, H1 2026: net revenue $1,002.3M, -3.8% YoY (Q2 $568.3M, -3.3%) on shipments -5.6%. TTM to 2026-06-27 = $1,925.4M. UNCHANGED as the base - the decline belongs in the Year-1 forecast. |
| Base EBIT margin | 7.4% | Boston Beer FY2025 10-K (accession 0001193125-26-067467, filed 2026-02-24): us-gaap:OperatingIncomeLoss FY2025 $144,882K / net revenue $1,964,994K = 7.37%. A CLEAN YEAR: FY2025 carries only $7.0M of brewery-asset impairment and no contract-settlement or brand-impairment charges (FY2024's 3.77% GAAP margin was depressed by a $42.6M Dogfish Head intangible impairment and $26.1M of contract settlement costs). Built as gross profit $952.6M (48.5%) - advertising, promotional and selling $610.0M - G&A $190.8M - impairment $7.0M. EXCLUDES ~$8.6M of interest/other income (pretax $153.5M) because the cash that earns it is in the net-debt bridge. CROSS-CHECK, H1 2026 UNDERLYING: GAAP operating loss $119.7M + Ardagh litigation expense $192.6M + litigation legal fees $5.4M = $78.3M, 7.8% of H1 revenue, against $115.8M (11.1%) for H1 2025 - down because advertising rose $28.7M (incl. $11.1M of freight) on lower revenue. Note seasonality: Q4 is always a loss quarter (Q4 2025 -$33.0M). |
| Forecast revenue growth | -2% → -1% → 0% → 1% → 2% | Assumption — TickerWorth's 5-year explicit forecast |
| Risk-free rate | 5.2% | US 10Y Treasury constant maturity (FRED DGS10): 5.24% on 2026-10-01, the latest published observation; program-wide input shared by every researched model in this run. |
| Beta | 0.82 | yfinance published beta (5Y monthly): Published 5Y-monthly beta 0.819, read 2026-10-06, rounded to 0.82; used as published, not normalized. Cross-check: STZ in this tracker carries 0.80. One could argue a single-category, sub-$2B small cap with a controlling shareholder deserves a higher beta (or a size premium); I do not add one, which keeps the value slightly HIGHER than a size-adjusted rate would. Each +0.1 of beta takes roughly $9/share off. |
| Terminal growth | 2.0% | Assumption — estimate (below the 2.5% house default, with stated reason): 2.0%, HALF A POINT BELOW THE 2.5% HOUSE DEFAULT - a deliberate departure, and it LOWERS the value by ~$7.70/share versus the default. Reason: this is a business whose shipments have fallen three years running (FY2023 -6.2%, FY2024 -2.4%, FY2025 -4.7%; H1 2026 -5.6%, per the Q4 earnings releases) in a US beer category that is itself shrinking in volume; its revenue is 6% below FY2022. A perpetuity at roughly nominal GDP would assume SAM grows with the economy forever, which nothing in its last three years supports. 2.0% is roughly price (1-2% a year, per guidance) with flat volume - itself an assumption that the volume decline ends. Compare STZ in this tracker at 2.5%: Constellation is still gaining dollar share; Boston Beer is losing it. Stays far below the 9.34% WACC. |
| Diluted shares | 10M | Boston Beer Q2 2026 10-Q (accession 0001193125-26-314203, filed 2026-07-23): Q2 2026 weighted-average diluted shares 10,358K, which counts BOTH classes: Class A (listed) and Class B (unlisted, all held by founder Jim Koch, 2,068,000 shares, convertible 1:1 into Class A and carrying the right to elect a majority of the board). Each Class B share participates equally in earnings with Class A (FY2025 10-K), so both are counted. Shares outstanding on 2026-07-17: 8,223,681 Class A + 2,068,000 Class B = 10,291,681. The count falls every year (FY2023 12.26M -> FY2025 10.94M) because of buybacks ($202.4M in FY2025); a further $25M 10b5-1 plan runs 2026-09-28 to 2026-12-25. |
| Market price | $216.82 | Delayed quote · as of 2026-11-10 04:57 UTC |
Explore more
Most undervalued stocks (per our valuation) · Undervalued Consumer stocks · All valued stocks · Interactive SAM valuation & downloadable modelTickerWorth is an educational DCF tool, not a licensed investment adviser. Figures are estimates derived from public filings and market data and can be wrong.