By Laura Cooper

Nick Fink wants to conquer the summer beer occasion.

Fink has been chief executive of one of the country's biggest beer companies, Constellation Brands, since April. A lot of that time has been spent figuring out how to boost a category lashed by shifts in spending and consumers being less prone to buy brews.

In his first interview as CEO, Fink pointed to large containers of single brews designed to share for affordability-minded consumers or small "pony" beers for people taking GLP-1 drugs. That means the maker of brews like Modelo, Pacifico and Corona needs to be flexible to meet consumers where they are, he said.

The summer selling season is crucial for beer, and his first one is getting help from drinking occasions like FIFA World Cup matches.

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Fink, 51 years old, about the current beer market, consumers' responses to high gas prices and his vision for growing a company that also has brands including Casa Noble tequila and Kim Crawford wines.

WSJ: You're joining the beer industry at an interesting time. How are you tackling the beer industry's problems?

NICK FINK: For me it starts with the consumer and understanding the occasion in which they consume your product.

My competition is who else my consumer may drink in that particular occasion. So it's hot out. I'm by the pool, there's a cooler. What else is in the cooler? That is my competitive set and that's my occasion.

We don't have to win every single one of them. We have to pick the ones we want to win and take the portfolio into those occasions.

WSJ: How are you seeing consumers change their spending behavior? Has there been a rebound among Hispanic consumers, a key demographic for the company ?

FINK: The K-shaped economy, we absolutely saw that continue to come through. [We] saw places where the consumer was perceiving value and they were continuing to spend. Then you saw other places where they were certainly looking for greater value.

As it applies to Hispanic consumers, it was much of the same but more exacerbated. Markets that might be more sensitive to gas prices, like Texas and Florida, were places where we saw more pullback. A market like New York, for example, where people are able to access public transportation I would say is more positive.

WSJ: Is lower-priced beer selling better?

FINK: Certainly you saw the more premium end perform super well at the start of the quarter before there were some affordability challenges. As things have eased you have sort of seen it come back.

What's been so interesting with this early summer is between the World Cup, the [New York] Knicks — just the photos I was seeing out of New York, unbelievable. [Young adults], they are coming together, socializing and relearning perhaps that behavior that many haven't experienced in a post-Covid world. They're doing it around beer.

What's the cost of a beer relative to the price of a fancy cocktail? It's less than half the cost.

WSJ: What impact are you seeing from GLP-1s on the business?

FINK: Any time you see change, call it a technology-driven change or something new, I think you'd be wrong to stick your head in the sand and say this doesn't impact us.

The data today doesn't point to enormous dislocation. That isn't to say that consumer behavior may change, and so how we adapt to that change will be really important.

I've heard consumers say actually I'm drinking more beer because I'm less tolerant of a high [alcohol by volume] spirit.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

Write to Laura Cooper at laura.cooper@wsj.com