News

Miller Brewing has delayed its plans to begin national distribution of the Miller Lite Brewers Collection.

In a memo to distributors, president Tom Long wrote that recent test-market results “indicate a need for some additional and refined marketing elements with greater clarity about the brand’s promise of light beer refreshment combined with craft-style taste.”

“We’re trying to create a new category here,” spokesman Pete Marino said. “And when you do that, you need just a little bit more time.”

The three new craft versions of Miller Lite will target mainstream drinkers and seek to exploit trends that favor light beer, a greater variety of beer styles and a willingness to pay more for higher-quality beers.

More about the beers themselves.

F.X. Matt Brewing Co.will resume bottling beer by the end of the month, “an important step in the brewery’s recovery from a $10 million fire last month.”

“We are well insured and we expect to rebuild the facility as it was or better than that, and probably in the end we’ll end up with a better, newer state-of-the-art packaging facility,” brewery president Nicholas Matt said.

Anheuser-Busch confirmed Wednesday that InBev has made a a $46.3-billion bid to take over the American brewery.

InBev, whose brands include Stella Artois and Beck’s, is offering $65 per share for Anheuser, the leading U.S. brewer with 48.5% of the market.

A-B said its board of directors “will evaluate the proposal carefully and in the context of all relevant factors, including Anheuser-Busch’s long-term strategic plan,” and make a determination regarding the proposal “in due course.”

Wachovia analyst Jonathan Feeney said InBev, known for aggressive cost-cutting, could find about $1.2 billion a year in savings.

“InBev would focus its efforts on streamlining the U.S. beer giant, a possibility which might not sit well with Anheuser distributors.”

Not surprising, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a complete rundown.

New York’s F.X. Matt Brewing Co. resumed production Tuesday, just five days after a fire that caused more than $10 million in damage and destroyed the brewery’s canning operation. Its bottling line will be down for an undetermined amount of time.

The brewery will have to temporarily outsource to other breweries for canning and bottling, an arrangement that would require approval from federal regulators, president Nick Matt said. Matt said he has been in touch with other beer companies but wanted to select just one, rather than sending the beer out to several different locations. The beer would then be brewed and aged in Utica before being tanked elsewhere, he said.

The fire started accidentally when two employees working on a welding projected inadvertently melted a plastic conveyor belt, fire officials said Tuesday.

Foster’s has created a limited edition beer that will sell for $60 dollars ($57 US for a 750ml bottle).

Foster’s master brewer John Cozens calls Crown Ambassador Reserve lager “luxury beer.”

“It’s expensive to make and it’s expensive to package but it’s Australian, it’s luxury and let’s hope there’s more to come,” he said.

The launch emulates a similar move in 1954, when the premium beer market was pioneered with the announcement Crown Lager would be made available to the public upon the Queen’s first visit to the country.

Previously Crown Lager had been reserved for aristocracy and visiting dignitaries since its inception in 1919.

The advertiser points out that puts Crown Ambassador in the range of Moet & Chandon champagne.

A massive fire has ravaged the F.X. Matt brewery in Utica, New York.

The fire broke out in the canning and packaging area of the brewery Thursday afternoon.

By the end of the night, fire crews had managed to get about half of the fire under control, but were still battling the other half, including various hot spots.

Fire officials say they could very well be here for days. And brewery officials say they won’t know how much of an impact this could have on future business until they have more time to assess the damage fully.

“We will rebuild,” said Fred Matt, vice-president of the brewery. “We’ve been in business 120 years. We went through prohibition when we couldn’t produce beer … and we will be a force to be reckoned with as we go forward.”

Read more.

A search of Google News brings up more than 900 links to stories about a possible joining of the InBev and Anheuser-Busch.

For instance, the International Herald-Tribune writes about the possible fallout in Mexico.

Historian Maureen Ogle has interesting insights, leaning mostly on the rather complete coverage in the Wall Street Journal.

“Brew Blog” summarizes the skinny from the Financial Times that it looks InBev had plans for an outright takeover of Anheuser-Busch.

And the big question if InBev pulls the trigger on its bid is whether it will go hostile — and whether fifth-generation brewer August Busch IV will be willing to sell the company that bears the family name.

A highly detailed report in the Financial Times — which laid out the terms of the putative offer ($65 per share) as well as names of banks and advisers involved — notes that InBev approached August Busch IV in October about a deal.

An offer of $65 a share for A-B is a nearly 24% premium over Thursday’s closing price of $52.58.

InBev is looking pretty serious about this.

Oskar Blues Brewery is taking over production of the distiller’s wash for Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey in Denver. Oskar Blues will make about 3,000 gallons of Stranahan’s wash each week in its Longmont facility. Stranahan’s will purchase the wash and truck it to its Denver distillery.

Stranahan’s had been making its Straight Rocky Mountain Whiskey from distiller’s wash provided by Flying Dog Brewery in Denver. In January, Flying Dog shifted all its brewing to Frederick, Md.

“This is a very big deal for us,” said Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis. “Jess and his team are whiskey mavericks, they’re doing for whiskey what craft brewers have done for beer. They’ve proven that with guts, talent and a blind eye to the status quo, one can make whiskey as good as any out there.”

Oskar Blues and Stranahan’s intend to develop various cross-promotional programs to highlight their collaboration.

Drinks conglomerate Diageo has announced a plan to upgrade the famous Guinness brewery at St. James gate and build a new brewery near Dublin, but also that it is selling property around St. James Gate and cutting 250 jobs.

This has led to speculation Diageo intends to sell Guinness, one of few beers in a portfolio dominated by spirits such as Smirnoff.

Paul Walsh, the chief executive of Diageo, said instead that Diageo had a five-year plan for Guinness. “This should make Guinness a more valuable asset for Diageo and its shareholders,” he said. “It would be a very convoluted way to go about selling Guinness.”

Rumors swirled a year ago that that Diageo would sell St. James’s Gate after it announced a review of the site. Walsh confirmed that this had been an option, but was discarded in favor of the new plan.

The company indicated plans to invest $1 billion at St. James Gate and on the new brewery. When work is completed in 2013, the firm’s existing plants in Kilkenny and Dundalk will close.

Diageo said its Kilkenny and Dundalk breweries had “played a critical role in the historic success” of Diageo’s beer brands in the Republic.

But a lack of scale “necessary for sustained success in increasingly competitive market conditions” meant that new plans had to be made.

Read more from the BBC and The Times.

Brewing giant InBev has reported disappointing first-quarter earnings, a combination of lower beer sales and higher ingredients prices.

In the United States, craft beer sales leader Boston Beer’s sales continued strong but the company lost money in the first quarter because of its bottle recall.

InBev, based in Belgium, predicted the second of the year would be stronger. Beer sales fell in key market Brazil, partly due to inflation, an early Carnival holiday season and poor weather conditions. In eastern Europe, another key driver of growth last year, volumes were off 5.7%.

Cost of sales grew by almost 10%. InBev said weighted average inflation in the countries in which it operated was moving towards a 5-6% range, higher than the 4% it had foreseen.

Boston Beer, brewer of the Samuel Adams beers, had a net loss for the quarter of $3.7 million, with the estimated negative impact of the recall on net income of $8.8 million. Its depletions from inventory increased 12%, indicating continued strong sales.

“We achieved 12% depletions growth in the first quarter over a very strong first quarter last year,” founder Jim Koch said. “We feel good about this growth and the continued overall positive craft beer category trends, even as our whole category has raised prices in the face of significant cost pressures.”