Boston Beer Case Study Analysis Essay

     In this paper I will be talking about the U.S. beer industry and in short an overview of the brewing industry worldwide. I will talk about the barriers to entry, economies of scale, government intervention, pricing, current market trends, product differentiation, and imports. The focus being mainly on the U.S. brewing industry oligopoly. The U.S. brewing industry has three major players: Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and Coors/Molson. Anheuser-Busch is currently the largest brewer in the world, producing over 100 million barrels a year. Anheuser-Busch currently owns over 50% of the market in the United States, with Miller trailing behind at 20% and Coors at about 11% with the rest of the market occupied by imports and craft breweries. When analyzing any industry, how easy it is for newcomers to enter the market is a great importance. If there are high barriers to entry

Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.

“raising the bar for better beer” Samuel Adams sets superior standards for quality craft beers. They insist that the world should only have the finest ingredients to make the best beer possible. They will travel the world to hand select the hops, barely, and other ingredients that go into each brew. Koch, is known for his annual hops selection trip to Bavaria. The hops farmer always would comment on when he would sniff of the hops is what drives him for success. In order to ensure that drinkers enjoy the freshness of Samuel Adams beer, the way the brewers intended. Koch would create an all-natural way of producing his beer. Everything being fresh, within date of expiration with no preservatives.

The next project was bottling Gordon Biersch signature beer and retailing it. This had three biggest challenges: this project was entirely Gordon’s baby and demanded time and attention; secondly the freshness of the bottled beer versus the freshly brewed was an issue for which they decided the beer would have a shelf life no longer than three months. Thirdly and the most exciting challenge was the head-to-head competition with other microbreweries and premium beers. Despite the tough competitive environment, Gordon Biersch aimed to achieve 11% of the market in three years (by 1996). This retail venture required huge investment, thus they decided to start small to prove to the investors that they could pull it off.

The Boston Beer Company, Inc., founded in 1984, is a leading brewer in United States, offering wide variety of high quality full-flavored, handcraftedbeers. It is distinctive due to the time-honored recipe of brewing and authentic, consistent quality of alcoholic beverages. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is the pride of BBC, regular handcrafted beer “stands for quality, inner self-worth, authenticity, and unique New England or Yankee toughness” ( Martin Roper, Chief Operating Officer). Unfortunately, the company experienced the failure of conquering light beer segment

A documentary film made in 2009, Beer wars features and describes the American beer industry distinguishing between the large and small breweries. The large breweries feature some main corporate companies like Coors Brewing Company, Anheuser-Busch, and Miller Brewing Company whereas the small breweries include craft beer producers like Moonshot 69, Stone Brewing Company, Dogfish Head Brewery, Yuengling, and others. The documentary shows how the beer market is controlled through advertising and lobbying, which is harmful for the competition in the market. There is a reason why the small companies are falling behind and the large corporates are controlling the market, which in turn makes it essentially oligopoly economy.

With the rise of at home brewing, local brewing, and the emergence of a wider range beer style, give rise to more local and regional beers companies. Older and more established companies like Molson Coors, and Anheuser-Busch were able to control the market for arguably the last forty years, both on the domestic and foreign markets. Currently Molson Coors has twelve different brands that they sell both foreign and domestically, however with this the time to diversify on a larger scale is needed. According the NYSE, the price of stock of Molson Coors has risen by almost ten dollars per stock over the last year. This has been in conjunction with brands such as Blue Moon expanding their range of flavors of beer that they provide.

In order to stay on top of the industry, The Boston Beer Company needs to find new, innovative ways of being the most appealing craft beer available to the average consumer. While The Boston Beer Company offers many different varieties of seasonal beer, they should begin to shift their focus to year-round specialty beers, such as a line of regional flavors based on their consumer’s regional taste preferences.

Because Samuel Adams prides themselves on being a top notch craft beer producer, a lot rides on their reputation. Boston Beer and Samuel Adams have a strong reputation that rivals even the biggest of beer producers.

Boston Beer, in response to consumers’ preference changes to more flavorful and bitter tasting brews, was founded in 1894. Boston Beer implements a “quality at any cost” strategy with a strong emphasis on product differentiation and implementing quality ingredients into its products. For instance, Boston Beer was the first company to employ a stamped freshness date on its bottles and ingredients are imported from around the world. Additionally, Boston Beer relies heavily on contract brewing to gain competitive advantages. Boston Beer’s contract brewing strategy results in lower overhead and transportation costs, as well as

iv. Craft beer industry – This industry is made up of brewpubs (10% of craft beer volume), microbreweries (12% of craft beer volume), contract breweries (16% of craft beer volume) and regional craft breweries (62% of craft beer volume), Together, these craft breweries produce less than two million barrels annually control approximately 1.5% of the total beer market in the East Central region. This is the very industry which MMBC operates in.

Beer has a long history. In 2000 B.C.E., Sumerians had prepared eight different beer types, ranging from “strong,” “red brown,” and “good dark” (Mauk, 2013). Breweries have created their own recipes, brewed their own beers—some with alcohol, some without. Over the past few years, craft beer gained steady market share away from the national and international breweries (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012). Separating one beer from the next is the product itself, and what the product has to offer. Competition is ferocious due to more informed, sophisticated consumers, as well as globalization and the spread of technology (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012).

Boston Beer Company (SAM) is a brewery in Massachusetts most commonly known for its Samuel Adams line of “craft” beers. The Samuel Adams line of beer was introduced in 1985. Since then the company has grown to do over 580 million dollars in revenue each year. 580 million is a very small piece of the food and beverage industry but the amount of shareholder wealth they are providing is impressive. Boston Beer Company has been named one of the top publically traded businesses to watch in 2013 by Forbes.

Anheuser-Busch Inbev is one of the largest breweries in the world. “Currently, Anheuser-Busch InBev has a product list of more than 200 beers, including global best-sellers Budweiser, Stella Artois, Beck’s, multi-country brands like Leffe and Hoegaarden, and strong “local jewels” such as Bud Light, Skol, Brahma, Quilmes, Michelob, Harbin, Sedrin, Cass, Klinskoye, Sibirskaya Korona, Chernigivske, and Jupiler, among others that have helped to make the company so successful. In addition,

Problem identification: The global beer industry was experiencing increasing competition due to the new and potential mergers and acquisitions of