First it was Diet Coke pushing Pepsi out of the way to take over second place on the bestselling soda list, now it looks like beer behemoth Budweiser might lose its coveted number-two slot to Coors Light.

At least that’s the prediction of MillerCoors Chief Marketing Officer Andy England, who recently predicted that the silver bullet would soon overtake Budweiser to become second only to Bud Light in U.S. sales.

He also optimistically says that Miller Lite will leap frog over Bud, leaving the king of beers of the medals podium entirely.

“[W]ith brand Bud in decline and Coors Light heading for its seventh consecutive year of domestic volume and share growth, that would be like, well, trying to stop a train,” Advertising Age quotes England as saying.

According to Beer Business Daily, Coors Light currently has 8.5% of the beer market share, a hair behind Budweiser’s 8.7%, while Miller Lite lags a bit behind at 7.5%. Bud Light has everyone beat by a mile with 19.1% of the market.

Once the biggest brew in the country, Budweiser has seen a steady decline in sales over the last two decades. Last fall, Anheuser-Busch InBev N.V., LLC, DDS, etc., even went so far as to hand out 500,000 free samples of Bud in an attempt to renew awareness of the beverage.

“They’re in trouble because they don’t know how to talk to consumers,” one brand expert told USA Today at the time about Budweiser. “They no longer know how to create an emotional bond.”

Coors Light Cold Train Hurtling Toward Bud [AdAge.com]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.