MillerCoors | Independent Beers

Coors Challenges Budweiser for Super Bowl Viewers

January 17, 2013 Author: Scott
Comments Off

It seems Coors has found a loophole in Anheuser Busch’s $1 billion dollar exclusive rights as the NFL’s official beer sponsor.

According to AdAge, MillerCoors bought up ad time in the Great Lakes and Southeast regions to tout its answer to Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Boston Beer Company‘s Twisted Tea brand and the growing hard cider market. While the MillerCoors spot doesn’t target its rivals at A-B, the mere fact that it’s airing is a big score in a year that saw Coors Light dethrone Budweiser’s “King Of Beers” as the nation’s No. 2 beer brand.

Anheuser-Busch has long considered the Super Bowl strictly Budweiser territory and has poured $239 million into Super Bowl ads in the last decade, according to Kantar Media.

While MillerCoors isn’t divulging what it is spending on regional Super Bowl ads, that nearly $67 million spent by Coca-Cola should give it an idea of just how hard it can be to dislodge a competitor from the big game.

MillerCoors is pitching a niche product in spaces small enough to escape A-B’s notice. If its regional ads for Redd’s Apple Ale are successful, though, expect more opponents to exploit that weakness in Anheuser-Busch’s defense and direct fans’ attention to other, closer breweries.

Source: http://money.msn.com/
Heineken Moves Closer to Buying Asian Brewer

August 6, 2012 Author: Scott
Comments Off

One of the largest beer brewers in the world has been looking to become larger, and it seems an agreement has finally been reached between Heineken and the Asian brewing group which makes Tiger beer.

“The deal has been agreed by Heineken and F&N’s management, and the agreement will now go for approval by the F&N board and then be announced officially,” said one of the sources.

Heineken already owns 42 percent of APB, which runs 24 Asian breweries, and taking F&N’s 40 percent stake will help the Amsterdam company to defend its turf against Thailand’s second-richest man.

I’m not a fan of seeing big beer get bigger as it almost always tends to be more about the money than for the love of brewing good beer.

By winning APB, Heineken gets full ownership of Tiger, Bintang, Anchor and other brands of beer plus two dozen breweries in 14 countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Around 30 percent of APB’s volumes are for the Heineken beer brand.

The deal is vital for Heineken in the fast-growing Asian market. For the world’s third-largest brewer, control of APB is set to raise the proportion of profits it gets from Asia to 15 percent from 6 percent, analysts said, boosting the growth rate of the whole group.

So there you have it, the world’s third largest beer brewing doing what it can to keep pace with InBev and MillerCoors and helping to ensure mass produced, flavorless beer will be available for everyone.

Source: http://money.msn.com/
Craft breweries represent more than 95% of the breweries in America, but make only 6% of the beer

July 13, 2012 Author: Scott
Comments Off

A map of the states with the most breweries per capita.
Source: Brewers Association
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

In non-beer markets there are issues where the vast majority of the companies making a product are only producing a fraction of the actual product in the market place when compared to one or two major stake holders. This issue, however, is most pronounced with beer. It seems that while making up 95% of the market place, craft breweries only produce 6% of the beer.

Three multinational corporations own most of the 20 gigantic, highly industrialized breweries that produce the vast majority of American beer. It’s been a great Wall Street bonanza, but the results are sobering. The largest brewer in the US, Anheuser-Busch, belongs to Brazilian multinational InBev, the largest brewer in the world. American number two, Miller, is part of SABMiller, headquartered in London, the second largest brewer in the world. Coors was acquired by Canadian brewer Molson, now the Molson Coors Brewing Company, fifth largest in the world. As if that weren’t enough deal-making, SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing Company formed the joint venture MillerCoors. However, Pabst Brewing Company is still independent.

But craft beer brewers operate in their own micro climate. In 2011, production jumped 13% to 11,468,152 barrels, for a 5.7% share of the US beer market in volume, according to the Brewers Association. With craft beers being more expensive, retail sales jumped 14.5% to a record $8.7 billion—for a 9.1% share of the $95.5 billion US beer market.

Even with this relativity small market share, big beer is not happy. They continue to exert their force in the market place pushing their nationally distributed craft beer brands into every corner of the market, forcing out locally brewed beers.

Big beer knows that nationally produced and distributed beer representing the largest market share can easily be replaced by brewing your own beer or going down to your local brew pub for a beer that was brewed locally. It is for this reason that they market their product so aggressively.

That being said, you can make a difference. Producing your own beer or buying local beer helps keeps money and jobs in a local economy. So next time you’re out buying your beer remember, think globally, but act locally.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/
Of the Top 100 Beer Brands, Anheiser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors Control the Majority.

July 6, 2012 Author: Scott
Comments Off

You know that here at Indy Beers we love to promote the little guy. Well, we also like to let you know the monopoly the big guys have in the market.

Last week’s announcement that Anheuser-Busch InBev had agreed to buy Corona maker Grupo Modelo is the latest move in a long trend of consolidation in the beer market, leaving it increasingly about two giant players — AB InBev and Chicago-based MillerCoors.

The folks over at www.chicagotribune.com put together a great graphic showing who owns what, so check it out below and see who owns what beers.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
To Make Beer, MillerCoors Helps Farmers Save Water

July 2, 2012 Author: Scott
Comments Off

I’ve written articles before about the importance of water in making beer. It seems that even the big beer companies struggle with water issues. When a brewery needs a local water source to brew its beer, it is in the best interest of the brewery to protect that water source.

“It is not going to be one organization or one company or one government that is going to solve this problem. It is going to take all of us collectively,” said Kim Marotta, MillerCoors director of sustainability.

MillerCoors acted after an internal assessment showed that three of its eight U.S. breweries, including one in Fort Worth, Texas, faced potential water shortages. The company is working on water conservation at its breweries, but also is identifying large agricultural water users near its breweries and asking to partner with them on conservation.

“We’re just starting that work,” Marotta said. “You have to start farm-by-farm.”

I’m glad to see a company like MillerCoors taking an interest in the environment, even if it is self serving. The initiative is a good start in the right direction and may lead to better brewing processes with less of an environmental impact. Clean, pure water is a resource that is increasingly difficult to come by in many parts of the world and large corporations are taking notice.

“You have to do more with less,” said Ken Klaveness, executive director of Trinity Waters, a non-profit conservation group focused on the 512-mile-long Trinity River, which supports water needs for over 40 percent of Texans.

“If you want your business to be here 15 to 20 years from now, you need to be proactive,” Klaveness said.

Projects with farmers can range from planting of grasses with deeper root systems that hold water and reduce erosion to installing high-tech monitoring stations in pastures.

Farmers are being asked to change irrigation techniques and equipment and plant a mix of different crops. Ranchers are asked to alter the ways they rotate their cattle grazing.

MillerCoors is also working with 800 barley farmers in Idaho to alter their irrigation practices in ways that use less water. MillerCoors will not disclose how much it is spending, but Marotta said the effort was a high priority.

When water is the largest ingredient in your product, I can absolutely see a need to make saving and protecting that resource a high priority. Hopefully it will be done in a manner that doesn’t horde that resource and keep others from getting their rightful share.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/