Bud IPA?

Thanks for pulling that up and posting it.

From what I learned in that earlier discussion that thread was probably not where he checked.

 

While i agree with this, i don't think this'll stop A-B from releasing one.

 

After trying to shit on craft and letting us know high school drama never ended for them within that commercial i doubt theyll ever do it and if they did it would be desperation to try and get craft drinkers back to Bud. Whats funny is all that "macro we stand" crap but they buy micro breweries and still release thier beer afterwards with the AB name on it.



"Money we stand" shoulda been it. I tried to offer an All Day IPA to this guy at a bbq. He refused and said what ever happened to good ol Budweiser. That's the type of guy the commercial was marketed to and i think theyll lose money overall if they released an IPA

 

What exactly are proper IPA hops ?
IPAs have been brewed with all the hop varieties under the Sun (the Scots liked to use Saaz for example) so what exactly is an improper IPA hop ?

 

This in spades. I suppose their first duty is to shareholders, to make money. Priority one. There's probably too much risk vs reward for them to step into this kinda fight, especially when your money maker is Bud Light. But to think they don't have capable brewers is a bit short sighted, they have state of the art equipment, an extensive distribution network, multiple facilities. Being as large as they are they could also demand the best of ingredients at the cheapest price. They simply don't have to. If it came down to it they would just but a brewery cranking out quality IPAs that are already known, and push the product from there. Actually I'm kind of surprised they haven't already given the IPA craze seems to be still going strong.

 

People have hit on a few key points:

1. Audience - craft drinkers would be biased agains ("not that I would drink it") and Bud drinkers aren't asking for it.
2. Brand - Bud IS lagers. They hammer it home in all their ads ... The subtitle of their website is "The Great American Lager." IPA is not a viable brand extension. If you try to be all things to all people, you lose your identity. Hate on Bud, but they understand this and are true to their identity.

But some things are being overlooked:

1. Capital & Infrastructure - All of Bud's equipment is built / optimized to make Bud. This would probably require a massive outlay of resources to make the product. And the Bud infrastructure is set up to deliver lagers. How does this relate to IPA freshness? And if you have to "educate" the Bud consumer to sell them the product, that's slow turnaround on a fragile product.
2. Scale - For an IPA to make sense for Bud it would have to be HUGE; it would be pointless to try and launch a small brand and grow it. Massive product launches are hard and costly. We're taking a massive up front marketing budget, huge expense in product development, etc. And being a public company, investors will want to see a return soon. Say it costs ~$500MM (could be more) to develop and launch. That's a big risk and seeing big gains on that are tough. Now, buy a $30MM brewery, invest another $30MM in expansion, leverage existing infrastructure / personnel where possible. I imagine you can get double digit return on $60MM pretty easily. This isn't about being "easier" or "cheaper" ... it's about a diverse portfolio, risk management, a smarter allocation of capital.
3. Product - Related to the above getting the hops for this would have a massive impact on hop markets. Granted, Bud owns a giant hop farm and is probably the largest (or one of) hop buyer in the world ... but how does this impact their other brand's access to hops? How does it impact long term hop availability? It's probably smarter to play the long game and scale up IPA production so you can control / forecast access to hops. Related to this (and the fickleness of IPA / craft drinkers), I don't know that you can roll out 1 IPA and be done. I think you need to think about having seasonals, a Pale, a Double, etc. The product assortment gets VERY complicated. And the Bud brand erodes. Hell, even Bud does a TON with mixing up their packaging so that people feel like they're not in a product rut even though what's inside is ALWAYS the same.
4. Market Share - If craft drinkers won't drink Bud IPA and you have to educate Bud consumers to drink it are you growing your market share? You may be moving some of your Bud drinkers to a higher priced / higher margin product which could be good. But you also move them into the craft segment ... maybe you keep them with Goose but maybe you don't. Craft drinkers, I would venture to guess, are more exploratory. Bud drinkers drink cases of bud and that's about it.
5. Knowlege Base - Internally Bud probably doesn't have the knowledge to attack this segment. Yeah, they have a ton of smart business people, scientists, etc. And they've bought some intellectual capital. But market by market they'd have to go against Stone, Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, New Belgium, Deschutes, etc ... big, smart companies that really know how to sell IPAs / craft. The intelligence has to extend all the way to the market level with reps SELLING the product. I bet Bud would lose at the market level; they're not set up with skill / intelligence to compete across all markets with the big dogs of the hop world.
6. Authenticity & Narrative - Related to marketing, but why do we choose so many of the products we do? People will say "I buy based on what's in the bottle" but then they'll say "I'm not buying Lagunitas since they sold out." So I think that first part is underselling the complex process of "choice." People like a story - weed smoking entrepreneur defying authority and making killer product at a great price point (in Lagunitas); in craft they love things that are authentic (see the rough under-designed labels of Lagunitas); they love that it's local (why are so many beer companies named after places, like Lagunitas / Sierra Nevada / Goose Island / Deschutes / Fremont / Cigar City / etc ... or people like Casey / J. Wakefield /3 Floyds / Firestone Walker / Bells ), they love products with a personality (the craft companies not named after people / places are often named after a philosophy or an idea, something that encompasses why they are unique - e.g. 10 Barrel (we're small, diy), Hill Farmstead (we're all about terroir, rusticity), Jester King (we're somehow both refined but also tricksters, we're going to mess with expectations), Alchemist, etc. So can Bud develop an IPA (or craft product) that has that local vibe, personality, authentic backstory? Not really. 10 Barrel has a good backstory / brand; located in Bend, a rugged mecca of craft, with a youthful punk / outdoor vibe ... and cool brewpubs in cities that attract young drinkers. They also have some great brewers. Goose has a great brand. Etc. Even with Goose being huge, there's still a bit of a feeling that they're "local" to Chicago which is nurtured. The reason for that is to maintain authenticity.

Final point in a long post. I don't think it's impossible for ANY big company to do this. Look at what Boston Beer Co is doing with Rebel and now Rebel Raw. Their brand allows this extension. We don't see a hoppy beer from Sam Adams as, de facto, bad. So I think it's less that it's the cheapest / easiest way for Bud and more that it's the ONLY way. Think about their end goal - to own a significant market share of craft nationwide / worldwide. Stitching together a bunch of small brands it actually neither cheap nor easy. Sam Adam's path with Rebel is actually cheaper / easier I'd imagine. But Bud doesn't have standing to do that.

 

Closest thing I will try will be Yuengling's IPL which I think is to come out next month sometime. Wouldn't give a Bud IPA a second look.

 

Sure you would if it tasted like a Trillium Brew, or Heady Topper, if it tasted like a SA then you and pass they would drown. If they did deceide to do an IPA, it certainly wouldn't be called Bud IPA.

 

Right on that. You can feel the desperation in Ballantine's "America's First Craft Beer" billboards and MillerCoors' "Artfully Crafted" network TV campaign for Blue Moon. They are bleeding market share to craft beer, which is now 20% of total US beer revenue.

 

Theyre gonna slowly change every recipe of every beer from every brewery they bought rights to to slowly turn them into Budweiser.

Didnt you guys hear?

BCBS will be beachwood aged now? Lol the conspiracy is coming.

 

Haha awesome....

 

This is exactly it, and if you check the latest IRI data, I believe Goose IPA is up somewhere in the 20% range this year, on a fairly decent sized base.

 

Have any of you tried Alexander Keith's IPA? It's what I imagine "Bud IPA" would taste like if they released such a product. Keith's is also now owned by Labatt/ABI.

 

Back in the day was Red Elephant (or elephant red)not a Bud product? I could easily see Bud India Pale, but would the average Joe turn his nose up at it---they just started this whole "macro and proud" theme recently.

 

At some point they will be a big player in the IPA market. As consumer tastes change, so shall their product portfolio.

 

Anheuser-Busch's US breweries in Baldwinsville, NY and Ft. Collins, CO both currently have the flexiblity to brew ales (the Goose Island brands, Bass Ale in NY) and, apparently, their New Hampshire (Merrimack) and central CA (Fairfield) have also brewed ales.

At this point, the shrinking Budweiser brand in the US makes up only about 16% of AB's US production.

Alexander Keith's IPA (which Labatt has owned since the 1970s) long pre-dated the current "craft" India Pale Ale style and, like some UK ales still labeled "IPA", has "evolved" over the years into a lighter, lower abv and low IBU beer. Labatt also used to make a similar "light" product which they labeled "Labatt India Pale Ale" into the 1970-80s which was also nothing like the traditional India Pale Ales (in the US, Ballantine India Pale Ale was still being brewed) or the current "craft" IPAs.

When AB-InBev, after having to sell off the US rights for Labatt brand, started brewing Alexander Keith brands in the US for the US market, they did not even attempt to brew or market the IPA, their best known brand, here.

Carlberg's beers, possibly including Elephant Red (labeled as a "malt liquor"), were imported by AB in the 1980s but they weren't brewed in the US IIRC, but in Denmark or, under license, by Labatt in Canada.

 

Fair enough. My thinking was not that they didn't have the ability in any of their facilities ... but that to do it at "Bud" scale would require an outlay. Still makes more sense to me for them to grow the acquired brands and be able to build out capacity in a more measured fashion.

 

Bud drinkers won't buy and IPA, and craft drinkers won't buy anything with 'Bud' on the label. It's just that simple.

 

Carlsberg makes an IPA now so why not?

No I am not kidding, http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/721/160106/
And yes it is horrible...

 

Messing with a flagship brand is a dangerous thing. There could be ripple effects that might make long-time Bud/Bud Light drinkers think those beers changed and prompt them to switch to a competitor AAL. And they would take that risk to court a bunch of biased beer nerds who thumb their nose at the beer right out of the gate. No...Not worth it.

I'm surprised it took so long for someone to mention Ballantine IPA. I think people write-off IPAs AB brews through acquisitions (e.g. Goose Island, Blue Point, etc.) because they weren't created by AB originally, but Ballantine IPA is certainly AB's creation. I know it was an old recipe, but they needed to put a lot of work into recreating it with today's available ingredients and it's a pretty unique IPA by today's standards too.