Professor Good Ales

Anyone else think they’re “kind of” missing the point, again?- The Professor

Written by David Kesmodel for /online.wsj.com

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV is redesigning the Budweiser can for the first time in a decade, seeking to reinvigorate sales of the storied brew.

The company unveiled a new, bolder look Wednesday that makes the Budweiser “bowtie” symbol the centerpiece of the label and goes much heavier on the color red than previous versions.

The company’s 12th design since it began selling Budweiser in cans in 1936 comes as Anheuser tries to arrest the brand’s protracted decline in the U.S. and expand sales of the brew overseas.

Shipments of Budweiser to wholesalers, a measure of sales volume, fell 7.3% last year in the U.S. after a 9.5% decline a year earlier, according to newsletter Beer Marketer’s Insights.

“Our intent was to find a design that was very powerful and positive for both old and new Budweiser drinkers,” said Rob McCarthy, vice president for Budweiser.

The brewer has been trying to entice U.S. drinkers in their 20s and 30s who have gravitated to other beers to sample Budweiser. It used a special-edition “patriotic” can design over the Fourth of July holiday to woo consumers.

Budweiser is the No. 2-selling beer in the U.S. after the company’s Bud Light, but industry watchers say rival Coors Light likely will overtake Budweiser this year.

The new Budweiser can maintains the Budweiser creed, which dates to the late 1870s and begins, “This is the famous Budweiser beer.”

The company said the new packaging will hit U.S. stores this summer and will roll out in overseas markets later this year.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer maker by sales, was formed by the 2008

Talk about being “late to the party.” Does this mean they’ll put their own name on it, or will it be attempts to hide the source like Plank Road Brewery, or coming up with another, seemingly unrelated name, like Blue Moon? The Professor would like to think this is going to finally be a fair fight. He’s not willing to bet any money on it.- The Professor

Written by Kim Bhasin for businessinsider.com

 

Three years ago, SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing Co. merged in order to take on industry giant Anheuser-Busch. It has been all about cost-cuttingfor the company since.

Now, MillerCoors’ newly appointed CEO Tom Long thinks it’s finally time to change course, and laid out his plans in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.

He revealed that the brewer’s plan is past “stage one,” which was the streamlining process it went through over the past few years. Now, Long is focused on growth.
Continue reading “Why MillerCoors Is Starting To Focus On Craft Beer”

Written by Kathleen Callahan for nhbr.com

Beer, it’s been said, is recession-proof. Or at least that’s what Bill Herlicka set out to prove in 2009 when he opened White Birch Brewing in Hooksett.

At the time, he was working as a project manager at one of the world’s largest investment companies, managing budgets in the millions of dollars; by night, he was a home-brewing beer aficionado, concocting everything from Russian Imperial Stouts to hoppy Belgian ales.

So when he sensed a round of layoffs looming at work, he figured it was as good a time as any to try his hand at professional brewing.

“Life is too short to do something you don’t love to just plug along,” he said. “I want to wake up and feel like I’m excited about going in to work.”

Starting small, he opened White Birch in June of that year. By August, the beer – which he brewed in 15- to 20-gallon batches – was ready to be poured.

“We had to figure out how to grow – we didn’t want to open the business like so many breweries do,” said Herlicka, who hit the road, trekking to beer festivals across New England to give away samples, hear feedback and meet his future customers. “It was either find an audience, or go home with the Cadillac of homebrewing systems.”

In its first calendar year, White Birch went from brewing one barrel a day to two, sometimes stretching capacity to three when demand was strong (a barrel, by the way, is 31 gallons). Now, two years later, White Birch has traded up to a seven-barrel system, and its ales are available in stores and bars throughout New England and into New York City and Philadelphia.

White Birch was New Hampshire’s first nano brewery, but not its last, especially not in the wake of a newly enacted state law that expands the barrier to market entry for small brewing operations. And, say lawmakers who introduced this year’s legislation, more bills are already on the horizon for next year.

“We’re in the golden age of beer right now,” said Herlicka.

While definitions vary, craft beer is more easily defined by what it is not. Craft breweries are not owned by giant beverage corporations and do not produce more than 6 million barrels of beer a year. Unlike their mass-produced counterparts, craft beer often isn’t filtered and doesn’t contain preservatives or adjuncts like rice and corn. Made with premium ingredients like malted barley, wheat and rye, craft beer is brewed for style and distinction, not mass appeal.

Fast-growing segment
Continue reading “This Time Around, N.H.’s Craft Beer Industry Shows Signs of Staying Power”

Thanks to Tom Becham for the photo and courtesy failblog.org

Picture courtesy 2leep.com

That’s quite a toast!