ABI to launch 19 new products in 2012

This sucks, there goes even more valuable floor space in my store for In-Bev crap.

 

they're floundering.

 

*Gags*

 

It also has stepped up marketing for Stella Artois, its biggest Belgian beer, whose shipments to U.S. retailers soared 24% last year to top one million barrels. Volumes of Goose Island, a smaller, Chicago-based craft brewer Anheuser bought last year for $39 million, grew more than 20%. Really??? i didnt know this...

Last November, Anheuser also told more than 500 wholesalers who distribute its products across the U.S. that it wants them to sell fewer rival brews. The company warned that wholesalers who aren't tightly "aligned'' with Anheuser might be prevented from acquiring other wholesalers through equity agreements, a type of business contract, that Anheuser holds with the wholesalers.

wtf? Capitalism is a bitch sometimes....i guess if you cant beat the competition with better beer you have to threaten people.

 

lets get hired there so we can work on the inside...ill start shitting and pissing in there beer before bottling...wait nevermind it wont affect the taste, maybe make it better...bad idea

 

I sort of want to see how that beer compares to a margarita lol. Other than that, screw them. Distributors hopefully won't align with those assholes even more. It's a little ridiculous, shouldn't even be legal. Telling a business what they can and can't sell, really?

 

I'd try the lime-a-rita if it were on the list with the usual shit at my favorite Mexican restaurants.

 

I had forgotten about Goose Island. Too bad, I used to drink it regularly.

 

I mean I can't blame them for trying, since they are under major attack from craft, but I wish they'd just cut their losses and stick with their AALs, making all kind of weird stuff that looks like craft just confuses people and potentially will scare them off of craft and back to Adjunct stuff.....but I guess that is their ultimate goal.

 

ok, lime a rita, cider and lemonade mich...that's 3. What are the other 16 new items? That's the scary thing

 

And to think that several years ago they were pumping out some good R&D Michelob beers ... the 16 more "beers" will most likely go after more seasonal flavors using "natural flavors". AB had a lot of potential before the Inbev buyout. I guess that potential did not show them the right numbers($$$).

 

They're throwing a bunch of shite against the wall and hoping some of it will stick.

 

I wont hate on them just becasue they are the big bad Inbev. Just because they make some beer that I don't like(Bud light and Bud and others). Im sure there are craft breweries out they that make some shit beers that I dont like that doesnt mean I curse their name and dispise them for being around. I hate the trend of hating things just because they are big. Its not the cool "hip" thing to like. If they pump something out that looks interesting I'll give it a shot. If its good I'll buy more, end of story.

 

Problem with this is that they're threatening distributors to carry more of their product and less of the competition's. So it's not just like they're making more shitty products we won't buy, they're trying to push out the beers that we actually want.

 

Exactly. I try not to be too much of a snob when it comes to BMC beers, but this is crossing the line.

 

eh, about ten will probably just be Bud or Bud Light in some kind of stupid packaging

 

Sad as the Michelob name was their cadillac, top shelf brand that for a brief time was beefed up via that R&D line of beers before being fazed out in favor of being a catch all for every fad-like cash grabber, low carb, flavor of the quarter type swill...still amazing that they seem so threatened by the little guys that they have to result to these kinds of tactics. Stay in your lane, Stalin!

 

More of the same, emphasizing their heavy handed intentions on squeezing competition from their "independent" distributors:

http://www.businessinsider.com/desp...ies-new-beers-and-bullying-wholesalers-2012-3

 

19 new products just seems like "Let's throw a metric fuckton of shit against the wall. SOME of it has to stick!"