Anheuser
Busch And Microbrews
Beer brewing has always been the core business
of the Anheuser-Busch
company. An industry leader since 1957,
Anheuser-Busch currently owns over half
of the
domestic beer market.
The market
share has grown so much that Anheuser-
Busch
now has a bigger portion of the market than
the
next four competitors, with the international
sales
being no different. Anheuser-Busch remains
the
leading exporter of beer from the United States,
with
sales in more than 60 countries.
Microbreweries, or
microbrews for short, have been gaining a lot of
attention in the past several years. Microbrews are
best classified as breweries that produce less than
15,000 barrels in a given year.
The strength of
microbrews is found in their philosophy that beer
should be of the highest quality. Therefore,
microbrews are only brewed with malted barley,
hops, water, and yeast, which are the only four
ingredients found in the purist German beers. Mass
bottled beers normally add rice and corn to help
lower costs.
The only drawback to
microbrews is what they cost. The more expensive
ingredients found in microbrews cost on average 60%
higher than the mass bottled beers.
Beer isn't like wine,
which tends to get better with age. Beer is
instead a food that should be consumed as soon as
possible after production. With this in mind, pubs
or microbrews that produce beer on the
premises are the hottest new trends, with four new
pubs on average popping up each and every
week.
Each year, sales of
microbrews goes up an average of 40% each year. This
figure is very impressive when you consider that
the market is shrinking as a whole. Even with
this amazing success, the microbrew sales
represent around two percent of the entire beer
market.
In their pursuit to
continue dominating the entire beer market,
Anheuser-Busch has tapped into the trend of
microbrews. They recently purchased a stake in the
Seattle based Red Hook Ale microbrewery. The
new products they released into the beer market
include Red Wolf, Elk Mountain Red, and Elk
Mountain Amber Ale.
Microbrews are normally
produced regionally, therefore Anheuser-Busch
is developing regional manufacturers and
distributors. By doing this,they must decide on the
best possible way to handle their short term
cash needs for purchasing inventory in these tiny
plants.
With their recent
transition into the world of microbrews, you can
count on Anheuser-Busch to make quite the impact.
They will be offering more microbrews in the
future, which is great news for beer drinkers.
If you like the wild taste of microbrews,
Anheuser-Busch is more than worth your time and
money.
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