Coors forms high-end beer unit
U.S. beer maker Coors Brewing Co, a unit of Molson Coors, has created a new subsidiary to develop high-end beers.
AC Golden Brewing Co, as the new unit is to be called, will "introduce above-premium beers to the market-place" at a deliberate pace, Coors Brewing told beer wholesalers in an email, which was leaked to the U.S. media at the end of August.
Sorry, have we not heard this before? Roughly about a decade ago? It seems that what goes round must come round. In the 1990s, the then Coors management determined that in view of the craft beer craze they’d better do some craft-type beers themselves in order not be left out in the cold by market developments.
If memory serves us well, Coors decided to “buy and build” – buy existing brands (or licences) while building other brands themselves. To that effect, Coors purposefully “rediscovered” its roots. Envoys were sent to Germany to find beer brands with potential. At some stage, Coors was very keen on setting up links with Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, whose beers come with a royal pedigree and with Diebels, whose eponymous alt beer was the segment’s leader in Germany. In preparation for a large-scale U.S. roll-out Prince Luitpold even built a microbrewery in Aspen where he test-marketed his beers.
Eventually the German craft beer project fell through or was ditched by Coors. Coors and the Germans saw each other again - in court.
The “build” part of the strategy seems to have been more successful. Of the brands that were launched then – Barmen, Zima, Kilians, Blue Moon – Blue Moon has done reasonably well, although it has taken the brand about a decade to draw even with erstwhile micro brands Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams – brands that never had a financial heavyweight like Coors Brewing behind them. In the 13 weeks through 12 August 2007, Blue Moon sold 494,000 cases in U.S. supermarkets, a 45 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the Chicago market research firm Information Resources Inc. The Blue Moon sales were slightly ahead of the two top craft brands: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, at 481,000 cases; and Samuel Adams Boston Lager, at 468,000 cases, it was reported.
Glenn Knippenberg, an industry veteran, who has worked for Coors Brewing before, will run the new unit.
During the first half of 2007, craft beer sales in the U.S. increased 11 percent while sales of all beer rose just 1 percent, according to the Brewers Association.
