Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

I've been thinking the same thing. The beer has been on their website quite a while, I'm curious as to how it's selling.

I'm hoping the Spaten brand's gotten a bump from the 125 year anniversary of the creation of Spaten Helles.

I'd hate to see the brand disappear from the shelves. The quality and price are hard to beat, imho. We get the Märzen year-round, and my local Total Wine sells all Spaten/Franziskaner brands for 8.49/six pack, including Optimator.

 

I'll definitely seek it out. They also have their "Royal" weissbier, which I haven't tried as well. The Franzikaner website looks up to date and is rather robust. The Spaten site looks like it was last updated around the turn of the century. On my last two trips, I saw more and more places serving the combo of Lowenbrau/Franziskaner. Whatever their plans are for the brand, they aren't doing it any favors on the marketing side. Per some older notes, I felt the Spaten Hell was only behind Augustiner and Hofbrau in Munich. I haven't even had any on my last 2 trips, though.

 

FWIW -- I think Spaten is becoming the brewery's export (to the U.S.) beer, I've seen a lot of fresh Premium in my area lately. I think Franziskaner is a "bankable" brand in Bavaria, so they're using it for marketing. Is the beer the same with different labeling? Be fun to know.

 

According to Nielsen Helles was a growing beer category in 2018. In an overall shrinking market any increase in sales must be of great interest to the large brewers. And if their old brands, Spaten and Löwenbräu, are seen as underperforming despite a growing product category, they might start looking outside of those brands for new offerings, such as from Franziskaner. Especially since it has the benefit of name recognition, and hell (pun intended), it used to be a lager beer brewery back in the day.

So milder (compared with pilsner) beer seems to be doing well. Nielsen states that pilsner has an image problem among younger beer drinkers, though it doesn't state what the problem consists of (being a beer for older people? not tasting good? too hoppy?). It will be interesting to see if there is a larger shift in style preference in the coming decades or if pilsner will remain on top. I could definitely see there being an increasingly fractured market, with more than one style benefitting from the struggles of the large pilsner brands, but I doubt another style will become as dominant on its own as pilsner has been. At least that is my hypothesis.

 

There was a recent (a couple of weeks ago) drop of 'fresh' Spaten products at my local Total Wine. The Premium, Märzen, and Optimator were all bottled in May.

 

Spaten Dunkel was a favorite of mine. Have not seen it the pat few years in the USA Not a bad Maibock.

 

From what I've seen, Franziskaner is 4.8% and Spaten is 5.2%. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that the recipe is all that different, but that is one difference I've seen.

 

Spaten Maibock hasn't been imported to the U.S. since about 2010. I think the Dunkel stopped showing up about 4 years ago.

 

How many different IPAs do many US craft brewers make?

 

I think his question is a fair one (as is yours), but the bigger question for me is why AB-InBev has put more time and resources into the Franziskaner brand versus Lowenbrau and Spaten.

I mean, in the past few years, they've created two new lager beers for the Franziskaner label along with at least one for their weissebier lineup--I'm thinking of Franziskaner Royal in particular. To my knowledge, there's been nothing new for Lowenbrau and Spaten has been given virtually no support up until this year, when they've done a few things in honor of the 125th anniversary of the creation of Spaten Helles.

I guess I'm surprised Munchners tolerate Franziskaner (and seemingly Lowenbrau) far better than Spaten, given that they're both owned by AB-InBev.

 

Haven't seen the Helles yet 'round my area.The rebranded Spaten Hell finally made it to my neck of the woods.


Did have the Kellerbier.
Very mild and very much on the sweeter side for a Kellerbier.

The Franziskaner Royal is really nice.
More on the Caramel/spicy side for a Hefeweizen.

It really seems to me that with the declining sales of Spaten ABInBev is trying to replace Spaten with the much more successful Franziskaner brand, at least nationally.
Spaten has pretty much been only their Helles & Oktoberfest for years now.
Their darker Lagers were Export only from the beginning and they've gone quiet on that front too.

 

Do you have an idea/opinion on why Spaten is experiencing declining beer sales? Why is Franziskaner more successful? Is Franziskaner 'new' for certain regions of Germany?

Cheers!

 

Franziskaner is nationally known for their Weissbier.
3rd best selling behind Paulaner and Erdinger.

Spaten is nearly irrelevant except for those 8 weeks around Oktoberfest when their Oktoberfest shows up all over Germany in those Oktoberfest promotions.

It would make sense for them to sell Lagers under the more widely known Franziskaner brand.
Erdinger has also recently begun selling a Helles under the Stiftungs Bräu Label, even though that's supposedly brewed by Bischofshof in Regensburg.

 

Well, since the brewery is ‘labeled’ as Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu GmbH I suppose that gives them the flexibility to utilize the ‘brand’ of Franziskaner to their business advantage.

I appreciate you sharing your thought here.

Prost!

 

Oettinger is apparently also onto the trend, changing the name of their Hell to Helles, and shifting to a Bavarian blue and white color scheme.

 

Definitely looks better, it’s hard not to associate the old label with alcoholics who drink Oettinger.

Rewe sell the Oettinger Helles as Bayerisch Hell, last year Lidl were selling it as Helles Vollbier.

 

can't remember which brewery it was, but about 1.5-2 years ago, I remember reading an article about the wild popularity of some sort of "nostalgiebier," that had a retro label (in light blue and white and 50s font...but wasn't the Maisel one...). Kids were apparently drinking it like mad all over Germany. willing to bet the trend remarked upon in this thread (and the accompanying label/label changes) have to do with that. I think the beer is from the alps somewhere. anyone else recall?

 

Could it have been Tegernseer perhaps, see here and here?

 

Didn't Spaten do this?

 

it may have been them. thought I remembered either the Stubbi bottles of swing tops. may be misremembering. either way, another good example of the (newly (re?)discovered) popularity of Helles throughout Germany