Meanwhile, craft beer sales have been steadily rising. Shipments sold of craft beer rose 13 percent in , Overall, craft had a 7. The drive towards craft beer may be driven by the simplest of factors: taste.
Of consumers who are choosing to drink fewer mass-market light-beer brands, 27 percent said the primary reason is "getting tired of the taste," while another 21 percent "were consuming more types of other beer," according to a Consumer Edge survey. Read More 9 reasons you may never use cash again. Among drinkers age 21 to 27, the "getting tired of the taste" answer jumped to 40 percent. And now the people that made the megabeers famous, their children are the millennials. And they don't want to drink what their parents did.
From to , 71 percent of to year-olds chose beer as their favorite alcoholic drink, according to Gallup. That rate dropped to 41 percent in ; for all adults, only 36 percent picked beer. In , those numbers inched up slightly—48 percent of 18 to 34 year-olds chose beer as their favorite alcoholic beverage, compared to 41 percent of all adults. An increasing preference for beer does not necessarily mean more sales, especially when craft beer is involved. Read More Investors buy into 'overweight American' stocks.
That's not only because craft beer tends to be more expensive. It also often has a higher alcohol content. In short, the millennial drinker may have realized that they can get the same buzz from two craft beers as from three lights and get a better-tasting beer in the process.
The big brewers haven't been ignoring these trends, having tried to brew up solutions for some time already. Both MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch have attempted a shift towards higher-margin "premium" beers and drinks that carry their flagship beers' names.
In early , MillerCoors brought out Miller Fortune at a 6. Its recent branding and commercials, set in gritty urban environments , are similar to those of advertising for spirits, which Thompson claimed "have done a great job of going after young adults.
Read More Who the millennials invest their money with. These drinks are targeted directly at consumers who may otherwise have eschewed the mass-market beers; an Anheuser-Busch InBev report stated quite plainly that these innovations "are being priced at a premium, while bringing new drinkers into the category.
But despite their high-energy rollout campaigns, the new premium brands have had a decidedly mixed record of success. Though sales figures for Miller Fortune have not been released, the ad agency that produced the aforementioned campaign was fired in April only months after the brand was released. In its first quarter results, Anheuser-Busch InBev noted that a company-wide 0. And after a strong launch, Bud Light Platinum's sales dropped in the second quarter of and plateaued thereafter.
The big brewers have also tried to cultivate craft beers of their own. Though a craft brewer is defined to produce under 6 million barrels of beer per year, according to the Brewers Association, large companies have tried to take a gulp of the growing craft segment by buying up smaller beers or introducing their own. Louis to all of the company's breweries across the country weekly, thereby assuring that each batch of beer produced will taste consistently the same, thanks to the special, centuries-old yeast.
Budweiser confirmed this bit of information on its website, stating that the "30 billion or so yeast cells" in each bottle of Budweiser all descended from the same original culture. Ancient yeast is not the only secret to getting Budweiser to taste consistent.
Like most iconic beverages, Budweiser has a secret recipe. But ever since food and health personality Vani Hari, aka, "Food Babe," pressured AB InBev — among other major brewers — to release the ingredients they use in their beer in , Budweiser has finally made its long-secret recipe available to the public.
The beer consists of only five ingredients — most of which should not be too surprising to even the casual beer fan: Water, barley malt, hops, and yeast. But the fifth ingredient — rice — is a bit of a head-scratcher. So, why rice? Budweiser says it gives their beer a "crisp taste and smooth finish," but critics of the brand claimed that the company used that as an excuse to dilute the beer because rice is cheaper to use than malted barley.
Milk isn't the only beverage that requires pasteurization to survive storage and shipment. We may take it for granted that most macrobrewed beer is pasteurized, but Budweiser actually did it before anyone else.
According to Anheuser-Busch's website , Adolphus Busch became the first brewer to use the the little-known pasteurization process to ship his beer safely without fear of spoiling in the s — before pasteurizing milk was even a thing. Busch was a real innovator.
By the end of the 19th century, he had completely changed the way his beer was shipped: He introduced artificial refrigeration, refrigerated rail cars and rail-side ice houses, all to make his beer taste as fresh as possible once it got to the consumer — no matter how long the journey. These inventions made it a lot easier for Budweiser to grow from a St. Louis beer to a beer that was known from coast to coast.
Clearly, 's America was not a profitable time for alcohol businesses. As pre-Prohibition panic set in, Anhuser-Busch tried to offset the anti-liquor movement by debuting ads that portrayed their beer as "light and happy. They survived the dark days of Prohibition by selling the raw ingredients in beer since selling the full product was now illegal.
That was the cash engine that was able to keep the company open. The smart idea did more than just keep the Anheuser-Busch business afloat — following Prohibition, most of their competition was wiped out. We're all familiar with the bastions of the Budweiser marketing department: the Clydesdale horses. But did you know that it takes a lot for a horse to actually become a Budweiser Clydesdale? Yes, there's an "interview process. Their father was so moved he cried that's where the phrase "crying in your beer" came from and the horses became a mainstay of the company.
These days, Budweiser breeds the Clydesdale horses and has about in the herd total. To be considered a Budweiser Clydesdale horse, the animals must be aesthetically consistent: "They must stand at least 18 hands high or 6 feet tall. They must be geldings and at least 4 years old. They must have a bay coat, four white stockings, a blaze of white on the face, a black mane and a black tail.
And they must weigh between 1, and 2, pounds," according to Warm Springs Ranch in Missouri, the home of the Budweiser Clydesdales. We may think of Budweiser as one of the most famous and popular beers in America, but in actuality, the beer is only the fourth-best-selling beer in the country, behind its younger brother, Bud Light at number one , Coors Light at number two and Miller Light at number three , according to Statista.
In fact, according to Vine Pair , Bud Light has been more popular than Budweiser since , and it was only just introduced in Other big beer competitors aren't the only ones Budweiser has to worry about: According to Paste Magazine, craft beer as a unit outsold Budweiser for the first time ever in At the same time, Anheuser-Busch admitted 44 percent of year old drinkers have never even tried Budweiser.
They still churn out millions of barrels of beer every year, but the brand doesn't have quite the same grip in the nation as it did in the "good old days. Anyone that grew up in the s might remember the fun little arcade game called Tapper, where players take on the role of a busy bartender trying to fill the beer steins of thirsty customers.
The game released in was actually sponsored by Budweiser, and the bar featured the Budweiser logo. Tapper was originally supposed to be sold to bars as a fun game for bar patrons, but the arcade was rebranded in as Rootbeer Tapper. It was rebranded as a "dry" game because it would otherwise be considered marketing alcohol to minors. According to Paste Magazine , in the bonus levels, the bartender will shake a lineup of cans of beer, and you have to guess the correct one.
The wrong one will spray you, while the right beer can will reward you with a drink and a message, "This Bud's for you!
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