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

I know British imports are not really big here in US at this point in time, but Samuel Smith beers (the portfolio, not sure about 1 specific beer), easily seemed to be the most popular British beers considered here in the US from 2010-2020 timeframe. However my recollection is they aren’t that popular back in the UK. Perhaps Fullers London Pride? Not sure.

 

Bass was far and away the most common British beer in the US for years, but I can't even tell you the last time I saw any. That tap handle used to be at all the major chain restaurants and bars that carried anything beyond BMC/Light. These days I'd guess that Strongbow probably has a larger presence than all of the UK's beer imports combined. That's a little hyperbolic...but maybe not? Fullers, Boddington's, Old Speckled Hen, Sam Smith, etc. aren't exactly kicking kegs and flying off the shelves.

 

Samuel Smith as an import to the US is a case of a "traditional" English brewer making beers to match the stuff out of Michael Jackson books to appeal to old-fashioned US beer enthusiasts. Their reputation in the UK is more complicated and generally pretty low. Keep in mind how regional such brewers can be in England. I don't know about their sales volume. London Pride (since you mentioned it) is a strong seller in terms of cask ale. Sharp's Doom Bar is probably the highest seller in that particular niche (cask), but I would think that the sales volume of cask Sharp's Doom Bar is a small drop in the bucket of Guinness and "Euro" lagers by volume in England.

 

Yeah, Bass Ale through the 1980s (previous to that decade, imports were an insignificant percentage - under 2% - of US beer sales) and 1990s was the only UK import to make the Top 20 Import Brands lists - but didn't move into the Top Ten until the late '90s (probably being imported by Guinness during that era helped their sales, especially on-premise).

Other than Guinness, the US best selling import brand list was long dominated by light lagers - Dutch, Canadian, German, other Euro and, eventually, many Mexican brands.

Some time in the mid-2010s Newcastle Brown Ale started outselling Bass in the US. Of course, as imported brands both Bass and Newcastle no longer exist in the US.

 

Gotcha

 

I actually totally forgot about Newkie. I used to drink that one pretty often, although I don't think I've had one in at least 10 years. What's the story with them right now?

 

Looks like owner Heineken just got a TTB label approval at the end of June for the brand brewed in the UK, so the Lagunitas version is apparent dead?

"Drink cold?" Wonder why that's there?

Besides Lagunitas, Heineken has also brewed NBA for export to the US at their brewery in The Netherlands.

 

Thanks, I forgot about the popularity of exports to US from England of NewCastle Brown and Bass in decades past. Agree, both were more of an impact on sales than Fullers or Sam Smith. Reading a bunch of current web articles on beers that are most consumed in England these days, it seems all are imports from other countries (Bud, Stella, Heineken, San Miguel, Corona, Carling, and Peroni to name a few) and none were British brewery beers.

 

Some (most?) of those "International" brands are brewed in the UK for their domestic market, where both InBev and Heineken own breweries, having purchased Bass & Whitbread and Scottish & Newcastle, respectively. Not sure of the current versions but, historically, they were not brewed to the same recipe or abv as the beers in their home markets.

Budweiser (even pre-InBev) has been brewed in the UK since the 1980s IIRC, and has a lower abv that the US Bud.

 

Perhaps the way we should do this to avoid all of the gray area presented would be:
- What beer still/only brewed in the country of origin to this day, has their top selling export in the US from that same pool of brewers still only operating in their same home country.
- What beer still/only brewed in their home country is the top selling domestic beer made that originated in their home country.

That info. May be hard to obtain but we have @jesskidden on our team to help. No pressure of course!

 

Also it may be interesting to know what US originated brewer that currently only has brewing operations solely in the US still is the top export out of the US. And what US only brewer operating only in the US is the top seller in the US amongst other brewers only with brewing facilities in the US (my initial guess is Yuengling without doing any research).

 

It's an interesting question. The answer is, as noted, marketing. But the more interesting follow up question is why the huge corps are choosing to market beer X instead of the countries actual most popular beer in said country.

Low hanging fruit answer is that they are adapting products to the already established preferences of the places they are exporting. Which I guess then isn't particularly interesting, and would align with corporate marketing; corporations love pushing inferior products to the masses.

 

Whatever we can find on our local shelves.

 

(I thought I posted this previously right after my post #18 above but I don't see it, so...)

When Artois (pre-merger which created what was initially called Artois Piedbœuf* Interbrew, later just Interbrew) started exporting Stella Artois to the US in the mid-1980s they claimed to be the largest imported beer in Europe (if true, pretty impressive considering Heineken's huge distribution). *Jupiler was the flagship of Piedbœuf.

The same year Interbrew took complete control of Hoegaarden, in 1989 they tried to buy Stroh (then the #3 US brewer) after the Coors-Stroh merger fell apart. Would have certainly changed the US beer market (but I mostly mention it because I like the trivia of Interbrew being headed by the former head of American Motors - Ah, cruisin' down the highway with an open container of beer in my Rambler...).

By the time Interbrew took over #2 Canadian brewer Labatt in 1995, their main brands of Jupiler and Stella Artois were described as the "Belgian leader" and the "international brand", respectively, in Canadian papers.

 

Entertaining thread. I remember asking about Sapporo being a Japanese beer, since the label said it was brewed in Canada.

Agree with the OP about Jupiler being at pretty much every place in Belgium.

As for the UK, I think Camden Helles and Beavertown Neck Oil might give London Pride a run for its money