I thought I read somewhere that bud sales have been decreasing which prompted them to put out 19 new products this year. I haven’t seen 19 but I have seen quite a few.
I am an architect that that been designing sports bars for the same local chain for the last 15 years. Believe me that people are moving from BMC’s to Craft Beers in droves. The used to sell huge amounts of Bud and Miller products. Last I heard, it was WAY down. I will try to get some guesstimates in the next few days
Here are some interesting facts about the US beer market:
Craft brew is about 5% of the total, selling 11M barrels versus 200M for all US brewes and 27M for imports sold in the US. From another source I saw that the top five sellers in the US are all light beers except Budweiser - perhaps a quality craft light beer (if such a thing could exist) might make an impression?
There’s not a whole lot of room for experimentation in American-style light lager, and I think the BMC breweries have the gamut pretty well covered. My guess would be that the most salient difference someone who isn’t a beer snob would notice about a craft version is that it costs twice as much.
Who needs quality when you can go way overboard on quantity?[/quote]
If you don’t have quality I guess quantity is next best. :?
I agree with Shade. I think you are seeing a shift of people who usually drank something else to beer. I also think that some of the increases in the craft industry is based on the fact that people realize that they are getting a better product for a little more money. I don’t think price has that much to do with it. Check out the price for a case of bud light…
Another factor I see is that many craft breweries use local products and resources. People like that this helps with their community and support this. When you buy a case of BMC… where do those products and ingredients come from? Where does the money go?
Being from Columbus, OH I am lucky enough to see the AB InBev Brewery… but its not local…
I also agree that the BMC suppliers would dumb it down to sell more of their product. They are notorious for doing that now.
I think more young people are open to craft beers, whereas more older adults are set in their ways (being an older adult and brewing for older adults). Even so, once the BMC drinker tries a gateway style homebrew or craft beer, they are likely to be more open minded about having something different on occasion. My crew loves my lagers, tolerates my lighter ales and will try my darker beers. I made a relatively light ABV Schwarzbier that I can’t wait to have them try - I am hoping that it might get them further along toward accepting dark beers!
My typical statement to a BMC hardcore is this - when you went to the candy store as a kid, did you only get one kind of candy? If so, you missed out. Same thing goes for beers - with all the available styles now readily available, why limit yourself?
IMHO, younger people are more open to change these days, with the new best thing coming out annually. There are many gateway beers available now, when 10 years ago it wasn’t the case.
I think the BMC lite beers may drop quite a bit as the older generation dies. Those that were adults in the 70’s and 80’s aren’t drinking beer like they used to, and as said before the new generation is demanding a different product.
I’d agree on the younger segment seeming to be more open to craft beers. Granted the people I know is a fairly small segment of the range of consumer but I see a pretty good majority of my friends and people I know ordering and asking about craft beers. Much more so than was the case 10 years ago. I don’t think BMC has too much to worry about as they’ll always be able to compete on cost and that will remain a factor in people’s decisions.
