Can Non-Alcoholic Beer Save Big Brewers?

I think Coca-Cola beat them to it.

 

A beer with all the flavor of a macro but without the intoxicating properties? Sign me up!

 

I thought most of them already made a NA variety

 

All big brewers need to do is start making better beer. With the amount of brewing skills they have, making a heady clone should be no problem. They just choose not to because the margins aren't as big.

 

Also their main customer base don't care for hoppy beers.

 

As I posted earlier, I love the flavor of IPA's and Stouts if I could get a good variety of these that were non alcoholic, that would be great, but I know somewhat impossible. The thoughts of having a few to take the edge off, then maintain with great tasting NA beers would be great. Might also negate my secret fear that I am becoming a alcoholic on certain nights

 

You don't think their advertising department could take care of that. Take that recent commercial, replace 'pumpkin peach ale' with ' fizzy yellow beer'

 

I think the whole "restricted hop supply" thing could possibly also cause issues with the whole "create their own craft brews" from what I have gathered. Which would probably also drive the price up further and - as has been noted - quite possibly margins further down. Or in other words, either way shareholders and investors are gonna be pissed.

 

The last sentence pretty much sums up my take:

"Nonalcoholic beer will never become major, and it will never be enough to stem the tides of the receding beer category," he said.

 

Yeah, actually if there can be tasty craft beers made non-alcoholic it may save more small brewers than macro non-alcoholic brews. A much greater number of craft beer drinkers are in it more for the taste and not to get drunk compared the the macro drinker percentages I would guess.

 

This is what I was thinking once I read far enough into the article to see the demo they're looking for:

There's something great about a lawnmower beer after mowing the lawn, but what if the next thing you need to do is drive somewhere?

If I'm taking a client out to lunch it's generally not acceptable to have a beer (I'm not in the beer industry) so I'll have water or an iced tea, but if there was a beer that tasted as good as the IPA I would've ordered but was acceptable, I'd definitely get that instead.

"Saving big brewers" on the other hand is certainly not on the table, as this would definitely be a niche product.

It's also something I'd be much more willing to buy from a craft brewer than a macro. With that said, in some instances this is already being done but instead of being a "non alcoholic beer" it's "craft soda," often root beer. Abita, Appalachian, and others are making some really great root beer products that were they more widely available would fill this niche nicely.

 

InBev will report over 7% organic growth and over $11.84 billion in 4th quarter earnings tomorrow. That is above a year ago. Big beer doesn't need "saving." As much of the click bait geared towards beer geeks say they are in decline that isn't the case. They are not accelerating at the speed world markets want them to grow.

 

I don't know, I guess if their main customer base wanted to drink something like Heady or Pliny, they wouldn't be drinking the macro stuff. I don't see how that would help them at all.

 

Budweiser's customer base has chosen their beer, and that's their beer. But if you start drinking better beer in college you're certainly never going to switch to Budweiser.

The average person doesn't want a hop bomb but if they started drinking normal beer made with real beer ingredients before they got used to a specific beer, I bet they'd all pick the normal beer made with real beer ingredients.

Even if craft won over the American market completely Inbev would still be growing. They'd just continue expanding into developing markets the same way Philip Morris did when Americans stopped buying as many cigarettes.

 

I can't recall if they brewed it or if it was brewed for them but the root beer at Victory Brewpub in Downington - my son had a float when we stopped by and every time he sees a Victory label at the house he remarks on the awesome root beer. Here's the "in" for craft brewers, take seriously the opportunity to make their brewpub, tasting room, etc.,. kid (family) friendly and offer a few sodas and there you have it, brand recognition before they are even of legal drinking age! Craft brewers can become the go-to for soda and adult pops alike once the kids get older. To juxtapose, when visiting the AB brewery a few times in SLMO when I was a kid, all they had in the tasting room was this flat, bland orange drink. I guess that was foreshadowing.....

 

Rope em in early! I really need to get to that brewpub.

 

So projected beer sales will fall 3.5% between now and 2018 and major brewers crap themselves? A business isn't going to grow at 7.5% every year indefinitely - there are going to be ups and downs based on what's trendy any given year (and I'm sure the big multinational brewers are aware of this).

So the big brands will have to get by with being less profitable for a few years before the market shifts back towards favoring them. Less profitable doesn't mean losing money, it just means making less but still profiting. Shareholders may not be happy, but in the long run it's not like SABMiller and ABInbev are going to be on the verge of extinction because a 3.5% drop in sales, only to be saved at the last minute by a huge surge in the popularity of O'Douls and Sharps.