Case Study: ABC Brewing Co.

In a world where large, corporate breweries rule the market, craft beer is created to please an audience that applauds the styles, techniques and flavors. Though craft beer can be purchased through several different outlets, the best place to thoroughly enjoy the entire experience of the specially made beer is in the brewery where it was made. The article titled, “In Lean Times, a Stout Dream” in The Wall Street Journal1 states that, despite the hard economic times and consequent consumer cutbacks, sales of craft beer, the industry 's fastest-growing segment, rose

Boston Beer’s strategy is primarily focused on growth through differentiation. The sources of its competitive advantage can be classified as a company that provides high quality beer with unique flavors, a market driven approach, and a very efficient contract brewing strategy.

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.

Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company, located in Kiln, MS, is the first microbrewery in the state and specializes in manufacturing and distributing beers with distinct southern flavors. The brewing company, established in 2003, has found success within its home state and also within restaurants and retailers situated in eighteen more states including the surrounding southern states and states as far north as New York and Illinois according to its website, Lazymagnolia.com. The following SWOT analysis will evaluate the internal strengths and weaknesses of the company as well as the external opportunities and threats experienced within the market and business environment.

Foster Beer – It is the least popular in Australia, and everyone knows that Aussies love their beer.

Beer is the number one most popular alcoholic beverage in the world, dating back to 2050bc beer was first brewed in a Sumerian city of Iraq, this was called “Alulueer” meaning best beer. In the current times we live in not too many don’t know the main Australian beers such as fosters, victoria bitter and 4X gold, these bring upon the stereotypes of Australians being loud and heavy drinkers. Australians have had beer in trade and for personal use since the moment the settlers turned up in Australia in 1788. Captain cook brought beer on his ship “The Endeavor” as a matter of preserving drinking water. Modern Australian beer is typically lager, lager wasn’t produced in Australia until 1885.

According to Boston Beer Portfolio (1997) showing that Boston Lager and Seasonals have grown by 5% and 10% respectively since 1996. Moreover, if we take a look at Exhibit 7 showing men preferences over regular beer we will see that 45% of weekly servings are SAM (Boston Beer Product). People may rely on their past experience of drinking regular beer by BBC and take a chance to try light beer by the same company, switching from Bud and Amstel to Lightship.

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.

Should MMBC introduce a light beer, why and why not? (20 pts) Using the POP/POD framework, how would you position Mountain Man Light if it is launched (in answering this question, be sure to discuss the POPs and PODs of your chosen strategy)? (10 pts) POP: The basic product offering that everyone in the game provided as customers expectation. For Mountain Man Light, it is alcoholic beverage which offers the same product feature like refreshing and thirst quenching. In addition, similar to all beer brands, it has also shared similar characteristics, such as ingredients, relative price, production, product design and package.

The Coors Brewing Company was founded back in 1873 by two German immigrants Adolph Coors and Jacob Schueler. The two combined invested $20,000, $18,000 of which came from Schueler and the other $2,000 from Coors. The location of the brewery was in the mining town of Golden, Colorado. This location was picked because Mr. Coors believed the key ingredient in beer was the water source. The river that flowed through this mining town was perfect for his beer. The two investors worked together for seven years until Coors bought out Schueler and became the sole owner of the brewery in 1880. When prohibition finally hit Colorado in the year 1916, Mr. Coors was forced to find other means of making money. The brewery was converted to produce malted milk which he would then sell to candy companies. Four years after Adolph Coors passing, in 1929, prohibition is ended and his son, Adolph Coors Jr., takes over the family business. The distribution range of the company quickly expands and by 1948, it stretches across 11 states. It would remain this way for almost 30 years before they start to expand to try and reach a nationwide audience. In 2005, now in its fourth generation of Coors family management, the Coors Brewing Company votes to merge with Molson Brewing Company in Canada to form the Molson Coors Brewing Company. Together they are the world’s seventh largest brewer. Two years later

With over a pound of cherries, this beverage is brewed in Wisconsin and is the best beer in the world. Every other flavor pales in comparison to Wisconsin Belgian

Competitive brewers will introduce newer styles of beers to meet beer drinkers’ new preferences, more specifically lighter beers. However, both styles will be kept under the same brand

In American, summer may be the season for beer, but beer-maker Keystone Light has found itself in hot market competing against some major brands. With many of the premium brands upselling their light beers, Keystone has been forced into a position where it must be bold if it wishes to survive. By focusing on who the Cruiser is, and why they would enjoy Canhole, they can make a product that is far more valuable than the premium beers that they are up against.

Belgium is home of the finest ales and have been known to brew for centuries. So when Jeff Lebesch, an electrical engineer from Fort Collins, Colorado took a bicycle trip through Belgium it made him realize there may be a market back home to sell Belgian-style ale. Jeff returned home with hopes to experiment and brew his own beer in his basement from the various ingredients he received on his trip. When his friends approved of the ales he started marketing them to the local town. He later opened New Belgium Brewing Company in 1991. His wife, Kim Jordan was the company’s marketing director. They named their first brew “Fat Tire Amber Ale” after Jeff’s

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,