Beer is the new wine. Where does that leave the blue-collar
brews that have ruled cooler and barroom for more than a
century?
Ten days from now Anheuser-Busch InBev unleashes a new beer,
Budweiser Black Crown, with a deeper flavor and more alcohol than
traditional Bud. The company charged its twelve domestic brewers
with devising a variant of the King of Beers. Among the dozen
creations, drinkers universally preferred the 6-percent-alcohol
deep-amber lager produced by Anheuser-Busch’s Southern California
brewery. But when given a choice beyond that dozen, drinkers
increasingly prefer something other than Budweiser.
The new brand is the latest gimmick — Bud Light Lime, Budweiser
Select, Budweiser American Ale — employed by Anheuser-Busch to
reclaim a market that no longer exists. “Anheuser-Busch would call
them innovations, not gimmicks,” Eric Shepard of Beer
Marketer’s Insights explains. “AB peaked at a 49.6 percent
share in 2003. They are just a little over 46 now. They’re doing
what they can to stop the erosion.”
AB claims a smaller piece of a smaller pie. Beer sales, like
many beers, are stagnant. U.S. consumption fell for three
consecutive years starting in 2009. And the three beers dropping
most precipitously all live under the Anheuser-Busch roof. Between
2006 and 2011, Budweiser Select experienced a 61 percent decline,
Michelob Light moved 66 percent fewer beers, and Michelob, a
high-end beer to the high school me, lost 72 percent of its sales.
Weekends were made for Michelob, indeed.
“People don’t drink their father’s beer,” Shepard explains. They
sure don’t. The legalization of home brewing, tax breaks for small
brewers, and consumer demand for variety has increased the number
of U.S. beer producers from less than 100 in the late 1970s to more
than 2,000 today. There are more people making beer. There are
fewer people drinking it. Coincidence?
Beer drinkers have come half circle. Store-bought singles, once
the domain of skid-row drunks, now find companions among beer
snobs.
A recent trip to the local liquor store revealed something
called Hoppin’ Frog Hop Heathen at $11.49 for a 22 oz. bottle.
Clown Shoes Vampire Slayer, complete with a drawing of a man
driving a stake through Dracula’s heart on its label, retails for
$8.49 for a bottle containing less than two normal-sized beers. A
Mephistopheles Stout, featuring a picture of the man downstairs on
the packaging, goes for the hellish price of $10.99 for a 12
oz. bottle. Other brands — Arrogant Bastard Ale and Supremely
Self-Righteous Ale — seem to really understand their audience.
Who buys? People insecure about their standing as sophisticates.
The subliminal message behind the cartoonish packaging, gonzo
names, and inflated prices is that you are superior to the man who
drinks Miller Lite. Consumers aren’t buying a beer but status.
Microbrew labels may resemble a child’s juice box but their pricing
looks like a bottle of champagne’s. Elitism doesn’t come cheap.
Americans increasingly drink beer as though it were wine. The
craft beers may compliment free-range hen pâté. They don’t
compliment a stomach after a four-hour session of power drinking.
We flee from Budweiser as though Hepatitis C were among its
ingredients.
Budweiser has gotten in with the wrong crowd — Schaefer,
Stroh’s, and Milwaukee’s Best. Perhaps that’s why it lost its top
sales spot to Bud Light just as Schlitz lost it to Bud. When
drinkers spot you at the left end of the cooler, they tend to leave
you there. In the beer aisle — as in the school cafeteria — who you
sit with sadly matters. Anheuser-Busch still dominates. But for how
long?
Budweiser Black Crown may appeal to Budweiser drinkers. It won’t
win back that six percent (and growing) craft-beer drinking share
of the market that would sooner bedizen themselves in the fashions
of K-Mart than publicly imbibe a Busch.
They make beer like they used to. Beer drinkers are another
matter.
