OK, it makes a nice headline: “8 beers Americans no longer drink.”
Problem is the first example is Budweiser. Yes, sales shrunk 30 percent in five years, and that amounts to 7 million barrels (at 31 gallons a barrel) lost. But A-B InBev still sold 18 million barrels of Bud. So it’s not like nobody drinks it.
Beyond the questionable headline the numbers from 24/7 Wall St. are quite interesting; most notably the demise of Michelob. And the 72 percent drop in sales from 2006 to 2010 to 175,000 barrels just begins to tell the story.
Look deeper and you’ll find that in 1988 Michelob commanded 66 percent of the “super-premium” category (the beers people pay more for, like “microbrews” today) despite losing 46 percent of its sales between 1980 and 1988. Anheuser-Busch sold sold 8 million barrels of Michelob in 1980, 4.3 million in 1988.
And last year 175,000.
I’m trying to figure out how to put that in perspective. How about this? It took A-B only eight days in 1980 to sells a much Michelob as it sold in all of 2010.
Do you suppose “super-premium” beers are being pushed out of the competition? Seems like they always competed with imports only, now there is just too much choice. Step up from Bud and you sort of step over Michelob.
And, do Miller or Coors even have a super-premium beer any more? I can’t even recall if Coors ever did.
I suspect many big corporate products (not only beer) sell mostly via marketing. Look, for example, at the crappy films produced by Hollywood that sell millions of tickets.
Anyway, once the marketing budget goes, I suspect the products quickly disappear. Why the marketing budget went is, I think, an interesting question.
There is also what I might call brand fracturing. Michelob was one beer but now it is a word associated with many fluids. How many Buds have their been? I blame Canada and the introduction of our (collective?) invention of “ice” beer back in the, what, late 80s that added a third alternate to the regular and lite versions of a beer. Soon, we have Bud Draft Lite Ice Dry Lime (wheat or not) to confound the drinker. Does the buyer of Bud Lite really consider they are rejecting Bud or are they accommodating themselves with their brand of comfort?
They standardized the bottle taking all of the uniqueness from the brand. Once you lost the cool bottle with the annoying paper around the cap, what was left?.. the liquid?
Amber Bock was a successful line extension, but creating the “Michelob Brewing Company” later was a misguided idea. People who like(d) drinking Michelob weren’t interested in expanding their pallet to include ales. Even that might have worked if AB hadn’t tried to be all things to all people with the Michelob brand. Michelob Ultra was (maybe still is) a very successful product but it completely contradicts what they seemed to be trying to do with Michelob Brewing Company line extension into ales.
Their only hope now is to bring back to old lava lamp shaped bottle and dump all the brand extensions.
Steve – Coors has a “super premium beer.” It’s called Blue Moon White.
Philip Van Munching provides some insight in “Beer Blast” into the beginning of the demise of Michelob, and deals to an extent with the question you asked, Mike.
But the book came out in 1997, when A-B was exploring two routes for its “specialty” extensions – the Michelob and American Originals. So not a complete story.
Scoats, you might recall they tried they brought the “tear drop” bottle back about 4 years ago (may have been use a Super Bowl spot on it) and made Michelob all malt again. A nice beer. But perhaps it was too late to focus on the liquid.
I don’t know if Michelob was all-malt when I was growing up, but I remember my grandfather drinking it and it having a markedly different flavor than the beers my dad and other relatives drank. I rediscovered it as a grown-up and enjoyed it in its adjunct formulation, getting grief from folks when I’d order it in Mexican restaurants and buying a sixer now and again. Liked the all-malt version. But honestly haven’t seen Michelob in Chicago-area supermarkets or liquor stores in a couple of years. I mean, I’m not looking for it, but it’s distinctive. I see/saw Michelob Ultra in its many variants, but straight Michelob? Nope. Definitely haven’t seen the paper/foil wrapped-cap version in forever.
And it will continue to taste better and better in memory! Much like Genesee Twelve Horse Ale, which at this point in my memory tastes so wonderful, wow. Yes, I know better. I think. Maybe. I loved that stuff.
Also, the Van Munching book is fantastic and eye-opening.
Stan — I hope you’re just kidding, because we know that Blue Moon doesn’t fit the profile of the “super premium” that once covered the likes of Michelob and Jacob Best.
What about Miller 100% Barley Reserve, which came in a strikingly faceted bottle?
Michelob was all-malt until 1960, when it was also first bottled. They switched to rice as an adjunct, usually said to be 20% and 80% 2-row barley, at the same time. Before that it had been a relatively rare, draught-only beer which A-B claimed that bottling/pasteurizing would “…work to the disadvantage of its elusive fragrance and taste.”
A-B’s early ’50’s take on Michelob at
http://sites.google.com/site/jesskidden/michelob%2C1953
I remember having a fresh draught Mich’ on an AB tour of their Columbus OH brewery in the 1970’s. “Wow, what’s that aroma? Damn, it’s HOPS!” After that I always believed the industry urban legend that the while the pasteurized bottled product sold well, it was a “failure” as far as the beer’s quality went.
Seems to me the old “domestic super-premium” beer segment that Michelob long dominated is essentially dead (along with all the other US brewers’ “also ran” brands like Andeker, Signature, Augsburger, Erlanger, Matt’s Premium, Hamm’s Waldech, even Miller’s questionable Lowenbrau, etc). MillerCoors themselves uses the term “Above Premium” for what might once have been categorized as “super-premium” or “specialty” beers. Of course, they also use “Craft” to describe Blue Moon, Henry Weinhard’s and Leinenkugel.
Steve – I was/am serious. Jess, although the beers are obviously different in many ways and the breweries have their own terms Symphony IRI still tracks the “domestic super premium” category (with the Blue Moon beers, Shock Top, Leinenkugel, etc.). Steve, the term simply refers to price.
“the term simply refers to price.”
To the marketing arms, yes — to we old-timers we’ll always think of that long list Jess provided (though we Midwest natives may not put Augsburger in there — Special Export, maybe!).