The Imported-Beer Hoax

The rest of the world is doing fine. Don't give the fine republic of portland a bad name

 

Fresh or stale those beers are mediocre at best. The disservice is the misleading image of being imported.

 

I'm returning my imported car because I just found out they are making Toyotas in California....
It's still Japanese whether its made here or not right? If Ford is making cars in Mexico and shipping them to the US are they imported or American made? I think the lines can get pretty fuzzy on this stuff and I'm willing to call Becks a German beer wherever it's made.

 

The part that gets me is the gap in price at restaurants because these are considered "imports". Granted, 9-out-of-10 times I'll go with a Yuengling anyways if the craft options aren't plentiful.

 

This is all just lawyers looking for a big payday. What's next? Suing Miller because High Life is not brewed in Champagne?

 

Well, at least Inbev-Bud got sued.

 

I've noticed the same thing. Some of the European brewers (like Pilsener-Urquell and Dinkle-Acker) are catching on that switching to cans or brown bottles helps win over some American buyers, but I fear it might be too little too late.

Coincidentally, as these imports lose shelf space I've started to appreciate a few of these classic imports more, but not necessarily Becks. There are many good classic European beers that are quite unique without an American-made counterpart, despite how often American craft beer drinkers (i.e. members here) and writers (e.g. Randy Mosher in that Becks article) claim that American craft brewers are producing the same beers as the imports and doing it better. Those statements simply are not true for all beer styles. I don't really mean to put down American brewers, because I have confidence they could brew comparable beers to these classics; but there needs to be a market to sell them and American craft drinkers currently tend to ignore any beer that doesn't say "india" on it.

 

Douglas, it is my understanding that the import portion of the US beer market is not declining but the popular imported beers are from Mexico. Of the top 10 imported beers for 2015, 6 of them are from Mexico: http://www.statista.com/statistics/188728/top-imported-beer-brands-in-the-united-states/

Maybe @jesskidden has specific growth values for the import segment.

Cheers!

 

Randy,

You might be interested in knowing that there is sales growth for craft Pilsners:

“When a category is up 127 percent, you pay attention... According to IRI... the craft pilsner category has added more than 317,000 cases year-to-date (through Aug. 9). Only four other categories – IPA, Variety, Fruit/Veggie/Spiced beer and Pale Ale– have added more incremental volume in 2015.”

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/goose-island-debuts-new-four-star-pils.329472/

Cheers!

P.S. The link in your post doesn't work.

 

From Beer Marketers Insights
(as noted, figure is "1,000 bbl", so beer imports into the US
have been in 20 - 30 million barrel range for this century):


At the dawn of the "craft era", 1977, US beer imports totaled 35 million cases -
[24/12 oz. bottles or 2.25 gallons] - so about 2.5 million barrels - 1/10 of what it is today.

 

Yeah, some of the brands mentioned are owned by the same parent company but brewed outside their original home country (Becks and Bass brewed by AB for the US market - all three ABInBev brands/companies) and some of the others are "Brewed under License" (Kirin by AB or Killians by Coors- no ownership connection, distributed via AB's or Coors' [respectively] US wholesale network). A contract-brewed beer is brewed by one brewer for another, and the latter brewery owns the label and controls distribution.

Even more complicated is Foster's in the US - it was being brewed by Miller under license from Foster's Group even before SABMiller bought Foster's (and previously it had been brewed in Canada by Molson for the US market). Not mentioned in the article is another interesting US import - Guinness Extra Stout brewed in Canada by either Moosehead or ABInBev's Labatt but distributed in the US by Guinness Diageo.

 

Jack,
That is good news. Thanks for the info. Maybe we'll get more variety in available American-made pilsners. The pessimistic contrarian in me is suspicious the growth in craft pilsners is fueled by the recent "india pale lager" trend, that I am personally completely sick of. But I may be straying off-topic...

My link that didn't work was to our ongoing Jever thread, but I'm sure you suspected that already.

 

I Personally Find the whole Deal,Deceptive,Sneaky & pretty Much Fucked,I Bought a Becks a while Back because I had not had one in some time,tasted lame as hell,Becks used to have a Nice Little Hop Accent in the back..So I am thinking WTF? What Happened to Becks Man? read the can...and there it is! Brewed in "ST. Louis, MO.,so now I call it "Blecks!',
I Also used to enjoy "Molson" quite a bit,Had one a few weeks ago,tasted like wolverine piss-Look @ the Label "Brewed in Golden CO [Coors],And let's not forget about "Guinness Stout"-Yep! Brewed In Canada eh-Take Off You Hoser's ![Molson/Coors]-it's Bullshit,what if you went out and Bought a brand new Harley,got Home,and then looked under the frame, and read in little tiny print "Made in Vietnam"? -"No Sir,I don't like it"...[thank you Mr Horse]

 

I agree. I had the chance to taste St. Louis Beck's and Bremen Beck's side by side...and they were virtually identical. I'm also not a particular fan of Beck's, though I think that the dark version is really not bad at all.
Beck's is definitely not an "in your face" beer...but sometimes, that's a good thing. Actually, sometimes it's a relief compared to some of the really unbalanced and overdone crap hitting the shelves these days.

 

I drank a ton of Bass Ale when I started drinking beer in 1999. It is now produced in New York, and I don't even think it tastes at all similar to what I remember. Kind of a bummer for nostalgic purposes, but I remember it having a great bitter finish. I had one last summer, and it was sugary malts the whole way down, with very little bitter. Must be the lack of Burton water....

 

Almost all brewers and most certainly a brewer the size of Bass, will treat their water to some extent prior to brewing with it, so it's doubtful water is the reason for perceived differences of Bass, or any beer brewed at different locations.

The more likely culprit is changes over time in your personal taste preferences and/or memory of the beer's taste. That's not an insult, because everyone, even professional tasters, will feel the mind's effect on their tastes to varying degrees.

 

Red Stripe is what brought me here.

For years I had been happily sucking at those little brown bottles and, then, a couple summers ago, all of a sudden they started tasting like shit. I looked down at the label and fuck me dry if they hadn't been brewed in Latrobe. I mean, if I wanted a Rolling Rock, I'd have paid for a Rolling Rock, right?

So, I drove down to Jack's Abby to see what a small local brewery had to offer. And now the kids won't be able to afford to go to college.

 

There is no doubt that my palate has changed over time, and I know full well that water is treated for certain characteristics in brewing processes.

The Burton water comment was more a tongue-in-cheek statement on the historical significance and the marketing of the brand-- "It's the calcium-rich Burton water...", and where it is today, being brewed in the US, far from Burton-on-Trent, likely with treated water, and minimal historical relevance. So much for history of place. Britain's first registered trademark is now made in the US.

 

Gotcha... clearly that joke went right over my head.

 

Bass Export has definitely changed a number of times, and each one meant a loss of character. Much of this seems to have happened prior to AB/Inbev's acquiring the brand. I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it much these days, either.

Then again, there was a recent post by @Peter_Wolfe , where he mentioned tinkering with it in a more positive direction:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/biggest-beer-pet-peeves.281986/page-5#post-3585717

and now I'm really looking forward to checking it out.