Vietnamese Beer Drinkers

A big "xin lỗi" to all Vietnamese beer drinkers...

Anheuser-Busch is launching Budweiser in Vietnam as it extends its expansion in Asia.

The St. Louis-based brewer on Monday announced an import and distribution agreement with Gannon Distribution Co., making Budweiser available in Vietnam... Initially, Budweiser will be available in bottles and cans in upscale bars, restaurants and supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City and in select chain outlets across Vietnam.

That's not entirely fair, greater choice for consumers is always a good thing. I just get double IPA-bitter sometimes that craft beer will take another decade to make inroads in the same market!

Beer Sales Declining in Anglosphere

Coinciding with a longstanding decline in beer sales in the United States, two news stories today show that the same downward trend is occurring elsewhere in the Anglosphere as well.

In the United Kingdom, beer sales have tumbled to their lowest point since 1975 in gross terms. Per capita, the decline should be even more precipitous. The chief executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers blames the decline on an "economic situation where you have a perfect storm of the smoking ban, credit crisis and loss of consumer confidence," but those factors explain neither the longer term trend nor the similar situations elsewhere. Certainly not helping matters is the new duties on alcohol pushed through this year, which raised the tax on a pint of beer by 4p, resulting in a situation in which "brewers earn just 0.7p profit on each pint they sell, while the Treasury receives 33p."

Meanwhile, in Canada the National Post reports that in the last ten years beer has fallen from 52% to 47% of alcohol consumed, losing ground mostly to wine, and red wine in particular. In the United States, craft and import sales have remained strong while overall beer sales have declined, and in this story we see something similar in Canada, where imports have doubled their market share in the last decade.

Is the economic situation really to blame, as the quoted British lobbyist claims? I think not. Why the simultaneous long-term decline in the UK, US and Canada?

I would hazard a guess that at least part of the puzzle lies in the fact that all three nations were settled primarily by immigrants from north of Europe's "vineyard line," above which grape vines do not grow and beer (or mead, but that's another story) was traditionally the alcoholic beverage of choice. As globalization and economic integration progress, consumers are afforded greater choices from outside their own region and quite understandably they do not always prefer exactly what they had grown accustomed to due to historical happenstance. If this were the case, one would predict an increase in consumption of (both literally and culturally) imported products during times of greater economic integration. Therefore the same theory predicts the increasing popularity of wine and imported beers in the Anglosphere, and increasing beer consumption in, for example, China, where consumption has risen 40% since 1997.

On the flip side, during periods of dis-integration and isolationism, one would expect a return to more traditional and local products. Of course, these variables aren't independent: if you subscribe to the idea that economic integration spurs growth, then there would be a concurrent wealth effect since more expensive (exotic, imported) products would be favored during periods of expansion and cheaper (traditional, local) products during periods of contraction. This related effect would do a better job of explaining the strong growth in craft beer sales.

Any thoughts or historical (counter)examples to this line of argument? Unfortunately Prohibition confounds a study of Great Depression alcohol sales in the U.S., but what happened to relative sales of wine and beer in the U.K. during the same period?

Beer Photo of the Day

I have been saving up bottle caps (no two the same!) to put to a similar use as today's beer photo of the day by flickr user smastrong:

I think it would look great embedded into the counter of a home bar. Does anyone have any other creative uses for bottle caps?

Classic Olympia Beer Ad on Youtube

I happen to know the guy who put together this classic Olympia beer commercial in the 70s:

Some of the stories surrounding the ad are amusing:

All the extras on the bus were post doc geologists and geophysicists from the UCLA lab that I used to be a tech in when I was a working actor trying to enhance my income. Note that the guy at the bar and the guy napping in front of me on the bus is the same person (Ed Ruth) who I had worked with analyzing moon samples from one of the Apollo missions. The spot was shot on Wilshire Blvd, near Westwood, on one of the coldest days of the year. Vega and I were made to look hot by oiling our faces and then spritzing water on us. A best boy rigged a dichroic light on the end of a long pole that he hung out the window in front of me and then shined the light on my face so that it looked like searing hot sunlight (despite the freezing cold air blowing on my water splashed shirt). The commercial aired on all of the televised Dodger games that year (Oly was Dodger Stadium's beer that year), so that whenever I attended a game, I was instantly recognized...and often cheered. It was my "season of fame".

I love the old pop tops, the kind that blew out Jimmy Buffet's flip-flops.

Can your office match this?

If you happen to work for the National Beer Wholesalers Association, your office has a bar, and all "two dozen employees gather there every Friday at 4:30 for 'beer education,' which involves sampling Belgians, pale ales or any other themed liquid buffet."

Beer Photo of the Day

Not a great beer, but a nice photo by flickr user bengrubb nonetheless:

South Jersey a "Beer Wasteland"

Since New Jersey wasn't already having enough reputation problems, now the Philadelphia Daily News beer columnist has taken aim at the Garden State:

There's no getting around it: South Jersey is a Beer Wasteland.

Oh, yeah, there's plenty of BudMillerCoors along Route 70. And there are several outstanding take-out stores.

But try to find a bar that pours double bock or cask-conditioned ale or a West Coast micro. Hell, try to find a Flying Fish, brewed right in Cherry Hill.

"It's true," said Gene Muller, founder of Flying Fish and an advocate of Jersey's beer scene. "We sell more in Philly than South Jersey."

What's the problem here? Excessive government regulation deserves a share of the blame:

...Muller and others believe South Jersey is hamstrung by incredibly expensive liquor licenses. Paying $500,000 for a license is not unusual: Last summer, one in Cherry Hill went for an astounding $1.6 million. (By comparison, you can get a license in Philadelphia for about $65,000.)

Licensing experts point to the real-estate market, speculation and the scarcity of licenses, which are doled out by municipalities, based on population. More than a dozen South Jersey towns (including Moorestown and Haddonfield) are dry, which further inflates the prices in neighboring communities.

Not that Pennsylvania is blameless in the government regulation of beer department, given the case law... Who would have thought the shadow of prohibition would stretch so far?

Beer Photo of the Day

A great beer photo posted by Instapundit of The Sunspot Bar in Knoxville, Tennessee:

The Economist on A-B/InBev

On June 11, European brewing giant InBev made an unsolicited offer to buy Anheuser-Busch:

As well as having a neat geographical fit, the two brewing giants would also enjoy better terms when negotiating over the price of hops, barley, glass and aluminium, which have been rising fast. Together they would be better placed to confront flagging sales in the developed world, thanks to a more extensive distribution network. And they would be able to hedge growing but volatile markets in developing countries against the steadier but slow-growing American market.

While the Busch family seems determined to hold off the takeover, they only control 4% of the company's stock. Salvation for A-B may come in the form of making its own offer for Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo, maker of Corona "that would make Anheuser too big for InBev to swallow."

The Incredible Shrinking Glass

"Pint creep," the subject of the last "Advocate This" column in BeerAdvocate magazine, was recently written up in The Wall Street Journal:

Two of the world's biggest glassware makers, Libbey and Cardinal International, say orders of smaller beer glasses have risen over the past year. Restaurateurs "want more of a perceived value," says Mike Schuster, Libbey's marketing manager for glassware in the U.S. Glasses with a thicker bottom or a thicker shaft help create the perception. "You can increase the thickness of the bottom part but still retain the overall profile," he says.

Dedicated beer drinkers are fighting back, with extra vigilance about exactly how much beer they get for their buck. They are protesting "cheater pints" and "profit pours" by outing alleged offenders on Web discussion boards and plugging bars that maintain 16-ounce pints, in hopes peer pressure will prevail. And they are spreading the word about how to spot the smaller glass (the bottom is thicker).

Of course, the same thing has been happening with other goods for years, and not all bar owners are so unscrupulous:

Portland's Raccoon Lodge recently started serving pints in 20-ounce glasses, up from 16 ounces. The 16-ounce glasses held only about 14.5 ounces, says restaurant manager Lisa Crombie; the 20-ounce glasses hold about 18 ounces. "We just thought it was fair," Ms. Crombie says. "People were paying for a pint, so they should get a pint."

We couldn't agree more, Ms Crombie!