Americans Now Drink More Craft Beer Than Budweiser
Last edited Tue Nov 25, 2014, 04:36 PM - Edit history (1)
A few years ago I saw Sam Calagione speak, and at that time craft beer was about 5% of the total market. So it's about tripled in less than a decade.
They call it a "bad sign" for Anheuser-Busch, although I don't really see why it has to be, in principle. AB could (wait for it) start making some better-tasting craft beer. It's not written in stone that they have to make insipid beer for all time. Hell, they're big enough to support multiple sub-brands.
(edit) To clarify, I'm not anti-Budweiser, or anti-Big-Five. I am pro-variety, so I like to see that the Big Five are becoming just one choice among many, instead of The Entire American Beer Universe that they used to be.
On the one hand, this chart is a reminder that craft brewing is still a niche—albeit a fast-growing one. According to the Brewers Association, craft labels make up about 14 percent of the U.S. beer market. Take Allagash, Lagunitas, Dogfish Head, and all your other favorite little breweries, toss them together, and they barely outsell the third most popular brand in America.
On the other hand, it's also a very specific testament to the decline of Budweiser, which these days is basically a beer without a purpose. Twenty years ago, when Americans were less health-conscious and had more homogeneous tastes, selling a mass-market, midpriced lager designed to appeal to the largest possible demographic made lots of sense. But now, it's a brand without a natural audience except for older Americans who drink it out of habit and maybe a nostalgic sense of brand loyalty. If you walk into a bar, there will almost always be a cheaper beer, a less caloric beer, and plenty of tastier beers on tap. And so it's not totally shocking that, by Anheuser-Busch Inbev's account, 44 percent of Americans between the ages of 21 and 27 have never tried a regular old Budweiser. It's not as if they're missing anything.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/11/24/budweiser_sales_decline_americans_now_drink_more_craft_beer_than_bud.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
BWAHAHAH!
i'm on a roll today!
I provide Blue Moon when my yellow-beer drinking friends come over. They would be afraid to try Rogue or Bell's or Sammy Smith or whatever else I have around.
If the Big Five start making different kinds of beers (and/or buying them up), that's the right direction even if they aren't "real" craft beers (whatever that means anyway). I don't personally care for Shock Top, but I like Blue Moon all right. After a hot muggy day of work, sometimes a corona with some lime hits the spot.
Although mostly it's all about the imperial IPAs for me.
Most all the IPA's I encounter today are WAY over hopped, just for the sake of hopping/shocking. The same trend happened in the wine industry back in the eighties was all the wines became over oaked, just because they could.
My benchmark for all pale ales is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the perfect barley sandwich that's wonderfully hopped to my satisfaction.
I think the whole hops/IPA fad has gotten a little over-heated, but I love IPAs so much I can't pretend I'm very disappointed. Making a really well balanced IPA, especially an imperial IPA, is easier said than done. They aren't all great. For me personally, it's a bit like the old Woody Allen quote - "even when it's bad, it's pretty good"
It was called "Third Shift" and it failed miserably. You can't fool us real craft beer supporters and brewers.
But you never know, big money can be hard to turn down.
If they just buy them and then let them do their thing I'm not sure I care. If they start buying them up and closing them down, or otherwise messing with them, that would be bad.
