A Nation's #1 Domestic vs. its #1 Export

I don’t know why this is the case, but one logical reason could be that a brand that doesn’t do well domestically (for whatever reason) has no choice but to look to the export market or perish. I don’t know whether Guinness is Ireland’s #1 domestic brand—and it’s brewed all over the place now, so maybe it doesn’t fit the model you are describing—but as one of the world’s most recognizable beer brands it would be an interesting case study related to this theme.

 

Oettinger is the most popular beer in Germany but I don’t think it holds any sway on the export side of things where the biggest German exports appear to be Holsten, Becks and Warsteiner.

 

That's the first thing that came to mind other than the beers that the OP mentioned. I think it's exported to a few places, but not too many. Germany is so price sensitive, that as long as the beer doesn't suck (it doesn't, even if it's not the best) they'll buy it. Oettinger was intentionally priced like those super cheap-o plastic bottle beers, but it tasted on par with Beck's and such. I guess they took a bunch of extreme cost-saving measures related to their supply chain, advertising, and such.

 

Marketing?

In the pre-internet age, Fosters (or whoever owned the brand) could buy a bunch of ads saying 'Fosters is Australian for beer', and who would know any different?

 

Is your statement based on a study that you've seen and the reason for this thread, or is your statement a supposition based on a modest number of cases that you've documented from your own study?

I'm going to play Doubting Thomas without seeing some stats on this. You may be correct, and my apologies for doubting you if so, but I'm guessing that you've discovered a mild anomaly that can't be explained. And any attempt at an explanation would be very subjective guesswork.

 

The 'answer' has already been mentioned: marketing.

Fosters is a classic example where via marketing non-Australians do indeed think that as regards Australian beer Fosters is the 'it' beer.

I don't know if it still is the number 2 selling beer in the UK but very recently it was. And the Fosters that is consumed in the UK is brewed at the Heineken brewery in Manchester. Australian for beer? I think not.

Cheers!

 

So then this is right up BA’s alley!

 

We know our skillset.

 

Embrace the bullshit!

 

Doesn't Miller/Coors brew Foster's in the US? Under Australian supervision that is.
I don't think we have had any "real" Australian Foster's imported here in many eons.
Hence, it's not exported here anyway.

 

Found this on Google:
To better recreate what's being quaffed in Sydney, the quintessential Australian beer is, in fact, made by Miller at Oil Can Breweries in Fort Worth, Texas, and Albany, Georgia, under the direction of a brewmaster they poached from down under.

(Since 2011)

 

I might be making this up in my head, but I think Foster's used to be brewed in Canada. Along with Guinness, Löwenbräu, and some others that allowed them to avoid fudging "Imported" being on the label. In my mind that was in the 90's, though.

 

Yes, at one point Fosters was brewed in Canada, Lowenbrau in Eden, North Carolina, and Guinness in The Caribbean.

 

Breweries used to make “Export” beers that were solely brewed to be exported. These beers were usually higher in alcohol, more heavily hopped and available for export only. In England, export beers were not subjected to tax increases, so while beers made for domestic consumption became weaker and weaker over the years (to maintain prices) Exports maintained their original gravity.

 

I think the odds are on your side because with so many countries brewing beer by so many different breweries that produce so many different beers, it (same beer also being the top export) isn't likely to happen by accident.

@BBThunderbolt has it right, and it has to be marketing that controls what happens. Brewery marketing departments in other countries know the biggest sellers here in the US are light lagers, so those beers smartly get sent here regardless what is most popular in the origin country.

 

In the mid-1970s, when Fosters was first exported to the US, it was a product of Carlton & United Breweries (aka CUB), then Australia's largest brewer and, along with Carlton Draft, was one of their 2 largest selling brands.

Yeah, eventually the brewing of Foster's exported to the US moved to Canada (sometime in the late 1980s?) by Molson, which was partially owned by Foster's parent company, Elders, which owned Carling-OKeefe before it was merged into Molson. A few years later, Miller got involved.

Yeah, SABMiller purchased C.U.B. in that year.

And, of course, Miller no longer exists, but the agreement for Molson Coors to take complete ownership of MillerCoors gave them the import rights to all the brands MC had exported to the US. CUB is now owned by Asahi.