Contrasting Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM) and Heritage Distilling (NASDAQ:IPST)

Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM) and Heritage Distilling (NASDAQ:IPST) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk and profitability.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

81.1% of Boston Beer shares are held by institutional investors. 26.1% of Boston Beer shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 13.2% of Heritage Distilling shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Boston Beer and Heritage Distilling, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Boston Beer	2	10	1	0	1.92
Heritage Distilling	1	0	0	0	1.00

Boston Beer currently has a consensus target price of $247.28, suggesting a potential upside of 14.77%. Given Boston Beer’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Boston Beer is more favorable than Heritage Distilling.

Profitability

This table compares Boston Beer and Heritage Distilling’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Boston Beer	4.38%	12.29%	8.93%
Heritage Distilling	2,132.99%	-13.65%	-10.11%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Boston Beer and Heritage Distilling”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Boston Beer	$2.14 billion	1.07	$59.69 million	$8.48	25.41
Heritage Distilling	$8.40 million	1.81	$710,000.00	($22.15)	-0.07

Boston Beer has higher revenue and earnings than Heritage Distilling. Heritage Distilling is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Boston Beer, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Boston Beer has a beta of 1.04, suggesting that its share price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Heritage Distilling has a beta of 6.04, suggesting that its share price is 504% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Boston Beer beats Heritage Distilling on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Boston Beer

The Boston Beer Company, Inc produces and sells alcohol beverages primarily in the United States. The company's flagship beer is Samuel Adams Boston Lager. It offers various beers, hard ciders, flavored malt beverages, and hard seltzers under the Samuel Adams, Twisted Tea, Truly, Angry Orchard, Dogfish Head, Angel City, and Coney Island brand names. The company markets and sells its products to a network wholesaler in the United States, as well as wholesalers, importers, or other agencies that in turn sell to retailers, such as grocery stores, club stores, convenience stores, liquor stores, bars, restaurants, stadiums, and other e-commerce retail outlets. It sells its products in Canada, Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, the Pacific Rim, Mexico, and Central and South America. The Boston Beer Company, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Heritage Distilling

Heritage Distilling Holding Company Inc. is a craft distiller of premium brands, including whiskeys, vodkas, gins, rums and ready-to-drink canned cocktails. Heritage Distilling Holding Company Inc. is based in GIG HARBOR, Wash.