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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