The best beer... statistically

One of the few benefits of getting old, is that I can actually recall those days.

As I recall, the "People's Choice*" competition at the GABF was just done for laughs and giggles. No one really took it seriously, outside of Jim Koch apparently. Even back then, most everyone in attendance took the actual GABF judging much more seriously. The last day of the competition was very popular (and generally the most widely attended), just because medals had been handed out the day before and everyone wanted to sample the winners. No one would have stood in line the last day of the GABF to sample the people's choice award winner.

As near as I could tell, most everyone at the fest found it pretty laughable that Jim Koch would try to suggest that Samuel Adams lager was the best beer on the planet based on that "competition." No one really minded his ballot stuffing efforts at the time because... once again, no one took the competition seriously.

What annoyed me at the time, was that Jim Koch's antics put an end to the peoples choice award. My impression was that the organizers were pretty pissed that he used the "competition" as a marketing ploy. So they felt they had no alternative but to get rid of it. It was unfortunate (I felt), as it seemed like such a fun, completely innocent competition to have... something you might laugh about over a few beers (comparable to bragging about your favorite football or basketball team).

To this day, I attribute my gradual waning admiration for Jim Koch to his use of the GABF people's choice award for his own marketing scheme.

*otherwise known as the annual consumers preference award.

 

Jack. Any information as to how Bud is doing worldwide?

As I recall, AB-InBev acknowledged some years ago that they expected domestic sales of bud to continue to drop, but were expecting a much more robust international response. If memory serves, AB-InBev specifically mentioned South America and Asia as marketplaces where they expected bud would likely sell very well (as both markets were dominated by what Ab-InBev felt were vastly inferior AAL products).

If such data is available, I would be very curious to see how Bud sales have done worldwide over the past 5 or 10 years. While I realize the US remains an important market for bud sales, if revenue loss domestically is offset by the sale of Bud overseas, my guess is that Ab-InBev can likely live with that development.

 

Depending on the context of the argument, I will. Going for consistency and quality? Its hard to beat Budweiser and some of the other major big brands.

 

So thats the crazy thing - I was reading up on them - they are sold largely only in China and still it looks like they outsell Budweiser or Bud Light even taking into account their world wide sales.

 

They do appear to be at least in part state owned through China Resources Holdings Company Limited.

 

yea, it all depends on how you count the brands - individually it outsells bud light and Budweiser, but if you go with Bud as the overall family of brands, it is the #1 seller in the world.