Big Brewers

Heineken Redesigns Bottles, Reduces Number Of Sizes

December 7, 2010

Heineken announced at the beginning of December that next year they’ll be launching redesigned bottles and cans along with a big reduction in the number of sizes they’ll be selling worldwide. The packaging redesign is cosmetic, but the package size reduction is more worrying. According to the press release, “[t]he restyling aims to streamline the [...]

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ABI Suing Baseball Over Exclusive Beer Rights

November 12, 2010

Today in U.S. District Court, for the Southern District of New York, Anheuser-Busch InBev filed a lawsuit asking for a declaratory judgment against Major League Baseball. In “Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Properties, Inc.,” ABI alleges that MLB “reneged on a renewal of its beer sponsorship rights this year and demanded ‘exponentially higher’ fees.” [...]

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Busch Jumps On Cold Indicator Label Bandwagon

October 19, 2010

For many years, Coors has been the brewery obsessed with cold. But that may be changing, as Anheuser-Busch InBev is debuting their own cold-activated labels on bottles of Busch Light. ABI is calling their version of the cold-activated label an “ice-cold easy indicator.” According to an article today by AdAge: An “ice-cold easy indicator” thermometer [...]

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Customer Satisfaction With Beer Continues To Fall

October 19, 2010

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) today released their latest findings for a variety of products, and beer again continued to drop. I should point out, however, that the ACSI tracks only the big brands. As far as I can tell, they do not track any craft brewers. Since they refer to “Corona, Heineken, and [...]

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ABI’s Free Beer Gambit

September 22, 2010

USA Today is reporting that Anheuser-Busch InBev‘s plan to reverse slumping sales trends is to give away their beer. Not all of it, of course, but part of a new marketing barrage to begin next Monday includes stepping up sampling significantly, to record levels of free beer giveaways. According to the article, Latest ad strategy [...]

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ABI Announces Price Hike

September 20, 2010

KDAF-TV in Dallas, Texas is reporting that Anheuser-Busch InBev is increasing the price on a number of their products this week due to “slumping sales.” The price increases will be anywhere from 50 cents to $2.00 on packages ranging from six-packs to 30-packs. MillerCoors will also take a similar price increase in October. To me [...]

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Beer Production & Consumption Worldwide

August 31, 2010

Here’s another interesting infographic that nicely shows both the production and consumption of beer worldwide. It’s interesting to see the relationship between the two for each nation side by side. You can then easily work out how much beer they export or how much beer is imported into each country. One caveat, it shows Europe [...]

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Is A-B Eyeing The Craft Brewers Alliance?

August 17, 2010

In a provocative article today, the business-oriented website, TheStreet.com, which describes itself as the “leading digital financial media company,” pondered whether Anheuser-Busch InBev might possibly be considering buying the Craft Brewers Alliance (CBA). The piece, by Miriam Reimer, entitled Anheuser-Busch Takeover Target: Craft Brewers Alliance?, certainly had the wags wagging on the blogosphere today. There’s [...]

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MillerCoors Launches Craft & Import Division

August 13, 2010

While MillerCoors had already announced their intention to start up a new division dedicated to its smaller brands and imports, today they announced that Tenth and Blake Brewing Co. was open for business. There’s no website yet, but there is a Facebook page. Here’s the press release: Tenth and Blake Beer Company Opens for Business [...]

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A Done Deal: NAB Buys Magic Hat & Pyramid

August 11, 2010

The deal that was rumored late last month is now completed. North American Breweries has bought the Magic Hat, Pyramid and Portland breweries. The deal includes three breweries, five alehouses and one retail store. From the press release: According to Rich Lozyniak CEO of North American Breweries, the new beers add craft brewing credibility, and [...]

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The Fate Of Mega-Brands

July 19, 2010

The always insightful Harry Schumacher has a thoughtful, well-reasoned piece on the question Are Mega-Brands in Permanent Decline? Definitely worth a look.

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What (Pete) Brown Can Do For You

July 6, 2010

Okay, I’m just having a bit of fun with UPS’ slogan and Pete Brown, UK beer writer. But today Pete has a nice overview of each of the big six beer companies that do business in the UK, entitled The Big Boys. It’s definitely worth a read. He talks primarily about their marketing efforts in [...]

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Two Possible Buyers Emerge In Bass Sale

June 28, 2010

The UK’s Publican recently included a report from the Scotsman regarding the emergence of the two likeliest candidates to buy Bass from ABI. A North American brewing giant and small regional UK brewer have emerged as the front-runners to buy beer brand Bass in this country .It is believed brewing major Molson Coors and Well’s [...]

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International Brewers Buying Breweries In China

May 28, 2010

The English version of the Chinese newspaper, The People’s Daily, had an interesting article about international breweries investing heavily in the world’s biggest beer market: China. Entitled, Big Brewers Fermenting Deals in Southwest, it details, for example, how MolsonCoors has “recently spent $40 million to buy a 51 percent stake in a new joint venture [...]

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A-B InBev To Sell Off British Beer Brands

May 26, 2010

The Times of London is reporting that Anheuser-Busch InBev is looking for buyers to sell off some of its most iconic British beer brands, including Bass, Boddington’s and Flowers. In the article, Buyer Sought for Beer That Britain Forgot, it appears the asking price for Bass is £10-15 million ($15-21 million in dollars), though that [...]

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Pabst Sale Update

May 26, 2010

Additional information about the recently announced sale of Pabst Brewing by billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos is seeping out, and again primarily the information is coming from Harry Schuhmacher, from Beer Business Daily (proving once again everyone in the beer business should subscribe to his daily newsletter). The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the sale [...]

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