http://blogs.denverpost.com/beer/2014/05/02/pete-coors-grappling-ever-changing-world-beer/13551/
Indeed…
Like all the Mega’s, they know how to make the same product day after day with incredible precision. I don’t think they can adapt their habits to the creativity and variability needed in craft brewing.
I applaud their abilities, but they may be more a product of practice, measurement, and management than skill. In many respects, craft brewing has something to learn from the Mega’s and vice versa. I fully expect that Pete Coors will figure out how to integrate their existing abilities to the changing beer market.
I laughed out loud when he talked about “premium light beer.” Is that like Perrier?
Too much management speak definitely causes missed communication.
Any industry can make an “app” that can show anything they want it to. I have worked for a mortgage company with multiple apps that will show that spending any money on rent is throwing your future away without factoring in why you might be renting. Back in the late 90’s and early 00’s you could maybe believe that but 2008 kind of changed that view in most people’s minds. Craft brewing is changing peoples minds today too.
We are likely starting to approach “peak brewing” in some sense. Not everyone in Portland and Denver can make a living brewing beer. There are a finite number of breweries that can survive in any given economy. That said, those little breweries will continue to take market share from the big boys and the big boys will need to learn how to deal with shrinking markets.
Mr. Coors sounds like he is towing the company line while secretly getting very nervous.
Go real craft breweries!!!
Paul
Coors definitely has more value-you can get 12 of them for the same price as 6 Great Divide beers.
“Mr. Coors sounds like he is towing the company line while secretly getting very nervous.”
Well put Slowbrew
Never underestimate the ability of the mega brewery owners to make money. Remember how CBGB used to be cool, but now they sell those t-shirts at Hot Topic? If it’s cool, capitalism will always find a way to destroy it.
I like how annoyed he seemed when he talked about bar owners being ‘enamored’ with craft beer. Can’t imagine why.
Apparently that app that the craft brewers gave him, showing how buying up 100 bbl breweries is a profit maker, seems to be working
I am pretty sure Pete Coors gets it. That’s why he’s nervous about bar owners changing their taps, which is one of Coors avenues of income. He also started Blue Moon, which shows their intentions to adapt to a changing market. You can tell, however, that he is nervous about his main brand becoming a less favored product due to his core market/clients becoming enamored by Craft Beer products.
He gets it: His company is under threat of declining revenue. And, the result could be the closure of an institution that has been here a long time. Let’s face it, we all buy light beers from the main brands and they have a place in our beer economy. However, the overall beer economy is changing because the beer lovers around the world want something more than a light watery fizzy drink, and prefer variety.
+1
Favorite comment: “It takes 18 extra minutes to choke that swill down.”
;D
Resistance is futile.
Here is a quote from an interview of Molson Coors UK’s new head of craft brewing, Stuart Howe:
"Finally, given the current muddle over definitions, what do you think is craft beer?
It’s beer from the heart, where the beer is made by people who brew because they love beer and want the world to love it too. If craft brewing means making small batches of inconsistent, oxidised, unbalanced, hazy or over hopped beer for a small enclave of fashionable drinkers then I’m not a craft brewer."
Yeah, that’s what craft beer is.
I can’t imagine only drinking one beer all the time. Whether it’s Coors or a craft beer. Too boring for me. Like others have commented, variety in styles and flavors is something that is truly special about craft beer and homebrew.
What a lot of mega brewery owners and CEOs and Marketing Execs “don’t get”, or at least “didn’t get” for a long time is that craft beer is not a fad, it’s not going away and people aren’t going back to drinking Standard American light lagers as their every-day go-to beers.
Truly funny. Premium?
I think you all are being a little harsh on Pete.
The one area I think he is wrong, is his insistence on having bars provide taps for that miserable swill he sells called “Coors Light”.
He should be telling them, instead, to put on tap his own favorite beer, “Coors Banquet Beer”, aka Original Coors.
If my local establishment had that on tap, I probably would order that about 50% of the time over the usual blah blah lineup of American craft beers. It tastes like beer, and goes great with a Maker’s on the rocks.
I found this interesting that they lost their volume because they lost tap handles. To my experience draught sales are the least profitable way to make sales.
Business runs on money not on volume.
Msybe a matter of line of sight and pitcher sales?
No we don’t, and they don’t. I know that what you’re saying applies to many people, but I don’t buy and drink their beers. I doubt I’m alone. It’s not snobbery, I just genuinely don’t prefer that kind of beer. I think it is only suitable for 100+ degree days and drinking games, and since I live in the NW and I’m no longer in college . . .