Flailing Anheuser-Busch Tries New Beers, Intimidation

Newser ^ | 3/29/2012 | Kevin Spak

[B Knotts]

(NEWSER) – Anheuser-Busch InBev is desperate to turn its sales around. Sure, it's still the biggest beer company in the US, but shipments have fallen for three straight years, thanks to the growing popularity of small, independent craft brewers. But this year Budweiser's got a plan, president of North American operations Luiz Edmond tells the Wall Street Journal: It's going to produce more beers, while leaning on distributors not to carry the competition. Anheuser will introduce 19 new products this year, its biggest rollout since the InBev merger.

Some will aim to compete in the craft market, like additions to its Shock Top line, or boast higher alcohol content, like the 6% Bud Light Platinum, which Edmond calls a "game changer." Still others, like Bud Light Lime-a-Rita, will be malt beverages bearing little resemblance to beer. At the same time, Bud has urged 500 wholesalers to distribute fewer rival beers, warning that it will act against those who don't. An unapologetic Edmond says wholesalers must pick sides, and show "loyalty" to InBev.

[HamiltonJay]

When the guy who invented the main beer, called it swill and would not drink it, you know all you need to know about BUD...

It’s crap made for folks who don’t know any better.

I’m not a beer snob in the least, in fact I rarely drink beer at all, but can’t say I’ve ever tasted anything that was from Anheiser Busch that I would order a second of. Drank it when its what the host was offering, but that’s it.

[philled]

I worked with a guy whose Scottish cousin bragged about drinking “imported Budweiser.”

When I lived in London (a dozen years ago) I always chuckled at the many hipster and yuppie types I saw drinking Budweiser thinking it was really something special. I later became acquainted with some who enthusiastically supported the Campaign for Real Ale. Unsurprisingly, they openly mocked the hipsters...

Another thing I couldn't quite wrap my head around: being on a train and overhearing a group of late teens/twenties couples coming into the city for a holiday. They couldn't wait to go to KFC!

[LikeARock]

R...really?

[Isabel C.]

It's {Anheuser-Busch} going to produce more beers, while leaning on distributors to not to carry the competition.

Sounds like the Al Capone method of doing business.

[mamelukesabre]

That actually might work...I’m sorry to say.

[Fiji Hill]

R...really?

No, not really. I prefer this brew from East Germany which can now be found over here:

[discostu]

It’s only anti-trust if you’re a monopoly. If you don’t have that magic 80% of the market place it’s just making contracts with an incentive to exclusivity.

[Darren McCarty]

Beer? AB makes beer? I thought it was what comes out of the Clydesdales!

I prefer Bells or MBC, two locally owned companies.

[Hotmetal]

Today 29 Mar 2012, Me and Jean Van Roy, Owner and Brewmaster of the highly celebrated Brasserie Cantillon near Brussels Belgium on my R & R trip from Afghanistan.

[Hotmetal]

Agreed Cigar City is a great brewery!!!!

[Category Four]

I don’t usually drink except in the bluest of moons .. but if I want an American beer, I want something worthwhile. Fat Tire never has let me down yet, nor has Sam Adams Boston Lager.

[mylife]

Try lowering your price and stop making swill.

[mylife]

Ans Shiner is about the same price as Buttwiper!

[Hotmetal]

Bells makes fantastic beers.

[mylife]

You're a very bad man! Very bad!

[hinckley buzzard]

Bud was always horse piss, and any real beer drinker knows it. For years their marketing effort proved the proposition that enough money well spent could induce immature people to buy and drink crappy beer they didn't even like.

[hinckley buzzard]

My favorite beer is St. Pauli Girl, my wife looks like the girl on the label, at least she did 40 years ago.

If you drink enough, maybe she still will. Good luck.

[hinckley buzzard]

Yer kiddin' right? KFC is comfort food for the masses.

[magslinger]

Nothing wrong with that.

[roamer_1]

Why would anybody go for A/B water when you can have Moose Drool?