Today’s Honolulu Star Bulletin has a nice profile and interview with Rich Tucciarone, Director of Brewery Operations for Kona Brewing. Rich is a great guy and it’s nice to see him — and the brewery — getting some much-deserved ink in the mainstream press.
Rich Tucciarone (at right) with fellow Kona brewer Britt Antrim (at left) at last year’s GABF.
Yesterday the other Cannes film festival began, the 53rd annual International Advertising Festival, a.k.a. Cannes Lions. A total of 24,862 commercials were entered in this year’s festival. According to Advertising Age’s Bob Garfield, the best of the almost 25,000 ads was one by Guinness known as NoitulovE. Happily, AdAge has the commercial posted on their site so you can watch NoitulovE. Just press play part way down Garfield’s article.
Here’s Bob Garfield’s description of the ad:
In the end, the best commercial of the year is simply much better — much better than Sony and even much better than the four-star “Big Ad.” It’s from Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London, for Guinness, and it is in every way a masterpiece.
Three young blokes sit at a bar sipping pints of creamy Guinness. Then the film starts going in reverse — out of the pub, onto the street, into prehistory, dinosaur life and all the way back to primordial slime. All this to Sammy Davis Jr.’s swinging rendition of “Rhythm of Life.”
“The Rhythm of Life is a powerful beat, puts a tingle in your fingers and a tingle in your feet. Rhythm in your bedroom, rhythm in the street. Yes, The Rhythm of Life is a powerful beat. …”
And so on. Eventually, the three guys are devolved all the way back to prehistoric mudskippers, just crawling out of the seas, and the familiar tagline: “Good things come to those who wait.” They sure do. Be patient long enough and you’ll find a flawless DGI production to an irresistible piece of music propelling a brilliant, astonishingly witty new iteration of a longstanding, unique positioning. This isn’t just great advertising; it is perfect advertising.
Click on the picture above to watch the commercial. It’s also available from Guinness and ‘boards.
There was an interesting article in Friday’s New York Times travel section about microbreweries in Ireland.
Foster’s has sold its last remaining Chinese brewery, in Shanghai, to the Japanese Suntory for an estimated $15 million. Like Lion Nathan a few years earlier, also abandoned the Chinese market, which is the second larget beer market in the world.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald:
ABN Amro analyst David Cooke said Foster’s and Lion Nathan’s exit from China was largely a result of the two being out-muscled – and out-capitalised – in the race for Chinese beer drinkers by brewers such as Anheuser-Busch, SABMiller and Heineken.
“Foster’s and Lion Nathan didn’t have the deep pockets that the other players had,” Mr Cooke said.
The Shanghai sale came seven years after Foster’s signalled its first retreat from China with the sale of its Tianjin and Guangzhou brewing businesses. The sale also comes one month after Foster’s announced the sale of the Foster’s brand in Europe to Scottish & Newcastle for $750 million.
Foster’s said it would continue to market its flagship beer brands in China, pointing out that 90 per cent of the beer shipped from its Shanghai brewery were local Chinese brands. However, there is speculation Foster’s may even sell the licensing rights for its brands in Asia. The company ranks its flagship brand as the seventh highest selling “premium brand” in the world, with 100 slabs being consumed in 150 countries annually.
Additional information from the Foster’s Group press release:
Foster’s Group in China
Foster’s Group entered the Chinese market in 1993, acquiring majority stakes in the Shanghai, Guangdong and Tianjin breweries, Foster’s Group sold the Guangdong and Tianjin breweries in 1999.
The Foster’s Shanghai brewery was originally built in 1935 and has undergone two significant capacity and technology upgrades, the first in 1987 and the second in 1997. With production capacity of 1 million hectolitres, the brewery produces the Shanghai Lager, Guangming, Qing Yi, Yi Hao and has been brewing the Foster’s Lager brand since 1997.
The Foster’s Brand
First brewed in 1888 by the Foster brothers in Melbourne, Australia, Foster’s Lager is one of the world’s best beers. As one of only a handful of truly global beer brands, Foster’s in now available in over 150 countries. Foster’s is one of the fastest growing international premium beer brands in the world and has enjoyed international growth of 40% since 1997. Foster’s is brewed in 12 countries, at 17 locations with over 100 million cases of Foster’s sold annually.
Suntory in China
In 1984, Suntory established China Jiangsu Suntory Foods Co., Ltd. in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, as the first foreign company to become a joint venture brewer in China. The company entered the fast growing beer market in Shanghai in 1995 and achieved the number one position in Shanghai in 1999. Suntory Shanghai has maintained a steady growth and produced and sold the first draft beer in the region. In 2005, Suntory acquired the Shanghai Donghai Brewery, and now holds a 54% market share in Shanghai
The Brewers Association has released their list of the ten biggest brewpubs in the country.
Greene King, the pub and Brewery conglomerate, has made a takeover bid of just under a half million dollars for Hardys and Hansons. It looks like it’s all but a done deal, as Hardys family shareholders control about 50% of the voting stock and support the deal. Hardys and Hansons owns 268 pubs which will bring the Greene Total to over 2,400 pubs.
Greene King also owns Abbot Ales, Belhaven, Old Speckled Hen and Ruddles. According to the BBC, “Greene King will continue to brew Hardys beers although the future of the brewery has not been disclosed.”
On Tuesday I heard that the buyer for the Latrobe Brewery was rumored to be D.G. Yuengling & Son of Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Recent news reports from local Pittsburgh media discuss that possibility plus address other potential buyers.
Sierra Nevada Brewing:
Steve Harrison, vice president of the Chico, California, brewer, said his company was not interested in the plant.
Ken Grossman, president of Sierra Nevada Brewing, said yesterday his firm was initially contacted by InBev after the sale.
“We had some casual interest when it first came on the market, but the facility is way too large for us to consider,” Grossman said, “and without a brand, well, it just doesn’t fit into our plans.”
Sierra Nevada produces 600,000 barrels a year of its own beer and does not do contract brewing for other beer companies. Latrobe Brewing produces 825,000 barrels annually but has capacity for 1.3 million.
Boston Beer Company:
Boston Beer Co. had conversations with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and because of opposition to its plans to build a brewery in Freetown, Massachusetts were considered a good candidate. “However, voters in Freetown on Monday approved a lucrative tax-increment financing proposal, an agreement that will give Boston Beer tax breaks averaging 33 percent for 20 years, said John S. Ashley, chairman of the Board of Selectmen in Freetown.”
“In addition to building a plant, Boston Beer Co. purchased a brewer in Cincinnati, Ohio, last year and spent $11 million on improvements. The company sold more than 1.3 million barrels of beer last year, according to its annual report.”
Boston Beer Company is “too far down the line” with plans to construct the new brewery in Massachusetts to be a serious contender for Latrobe.
D.G. Yuengling & Son:
The “chief operating officer for D.G. Yuengling & Son of Pottsville, Schuylkill County, said yesterday it already operates three breweries and is not actively seeking to add beer-making capacity.”
“It’s not us who is moving close to a deal. We already have a lot on our plate. But we never say never,” said David A. Casinelli, who pointed out the company operates two breweries in Pottsville and bought a former Stroh’s plant in Tampa, Florida, in 1999.
Further, “the governor said Yuengling did not express interest in the plant, to his knowledge.”
This had been the strongest contender in my mind because I’d heard their name from a friend who’d heard it from an industry insider. So either these news sources are smoke and mirrors or in fact Yuengling is not the potential buyer.
Pittsburgh Brewing Company:
Pittsburgh Brewing was an early name mentioned in reports but being in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy made that possibility more remote. They have not been seriously mentioned as a potential buyer for a couple of weeks now.
Conclusions:
Governor Rendell said there has been interest in purchasing the Latrobe Brewing plant from two brewers and four or five investor groups, but the investors were unable to come up with financing. As to who they are and who ultimately buys the Latrobe Brewery, if anyone, will still have to wait for an official pronouncement. Until then, it’s anybody’s guess.
Miller Brewing’s summer promotion will be called Open Up: The Great Taste of Summer and apparently specially marked packages of Miller’s two most popular beers, Miller Lite and Miller Genuine Draft, will include a talking beer can! The talking can will tell you if you’ve won one of several music or sports-related prizes. Frankly, that seems a little scary to me. I love Tony Magee’s expression “Beer Speaks, People Mumble” but I’ve never taken it literally. If someone told you their beer can talked to them, would you believe them? Or would you think they’d had one too many?
A colleague of mine today heard from an industry insider that the new buyer of the Latrobe Brewery may be D.G. Yuengling & Son Brewery of Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Yuengling is the sixth largest brewer in the United States, having greatly increased their sales over the last several years. They also recently purchased the old Stroh’s Brewery in Tampa, Florida and built an additional facility in their hometown of Pottsville. By all accounts this expansion has been wonderful for their business and would give them both sufficient cash and the motivation to purchase another brewery to service the western part of the state and perhaps even expand into Ohio and West Virginia. So the rumor makes a lot of sense but only time will tell if it’s true or not.
InBev reportedly has a potential buyer for the Latrobe Brewery, but is keeping tight-lipped about who that buyer is, at least for now. They claim a letter of intent may be forthcoming, according to several accounts in various Pittsburgh area media. Pittsburgh Brewing Co. had been rumored to be a potental buyer but given the speed of this news it seems very unlikely that it is them since they would require bancktuptcy court approval to sign a letter of intent to purchase the brewery. My guess is that it will be an overseas brewer looking to produce their beer here in the states.