News

Anheuser-Busch reported short term gains Tuesday, saying that beer sales to retailers have rebounded in May after a disappointing April.

The brewer said sales from wholesalers to retailers for the whole company, as well as just for its core beer brands including Budweiser and Bud Light, rose at a mid-single digit percentage rate. So far, sales to retailers are up 1 percent quarter to date.

Executives also presented a broad overview of the future during A-B’s investor conference in St. Louis.

(The) told analysts that the company is focused on growing its core U.S. business even as it cranks up expansion in China and experiments in exotic drinks like a beer-tomato cocktail.

The nation’s largest brewery said it expected earnings per share to grow more than 10 percent this year, outpacing the company’s goal of 7 percent to 10 percent growth. Earnings per share in the current quarter will probably fall short of 7 percent, but growth should accelerate in the second half of the year, the company said. Last year, A-B earned $2.53 per share.

The company indicated it will again change its online marketing in response to the disappointing debut of Bud.TV.

A-B spent about $12 million to create 2,000 minutes of proprietary content for Bud.TV, which launched on Super Bowl Sunday in February.

But tight controls on the website — meant to stop underage viewers from accessing the skits and shows, some of which included beer — put the company in a “no-win situation.”

The site’s shows will likely be used at other A-B beer sites, although the company indicated Bud.TV would still play a role in marketing efforts.

Boston Beer Co., brewer of the Samuel Adams beers as well as other products, reported fiscal first-quarter profit more than tripled due to greater sales and higher prices.

Boston Beer said it sold nearly 400,000 barrels of its beverages, or 22% more than what it sold in the prior-year period.

Not all of that was beer, but by comparison only two other craft breweries in the country – Sierra Nevada Brewing and New Belgium Brewing – produced as in all of 2006 as Boston Beer made in the first quarter.

Martin Roper, Boston Beer Company President and CEO, predicted a good year, but not necessarily as robust as the first quarter.

“Looking forward, we remain confident that our full-year depletions growth will be in the low double digits just below last year’s depletions growth performance,” he said. “While we believe as the leading craft brand that we are well positioned in the better beer category, we anticipate increased competition this summer and matching first quarter depletions and shipment growth trends for the full year could be challenging.”

Canada’s beer companies have issued a news release stating they want Prairie farmers to grow malting barley.

Ron Waldman, president and CEO of Saskatoon’s Great Western Brewing Company and a board member of the Brewers Association of Canada, says the brewers association is only taking the first step to “open a dialogue” with farmers. He says Western Canada remains one of the best places in the world to grow top-quality malting barley, but the beer industry is worried recent trends, such as farmers growing grain for biofuel production, will affect traditional agricultural land use.

A poor barley crop in Europe in 2006 and rising demand for biofuels worldwide already have beer drinkers in Germany worrying about higher beer prices. The long term implications apply to beer drinkers across the globe.

This is how beer activism works.

The Brewers Association recently formed “Beer Activists: Support Your Local Brewery,” a national union of beer enthusiasts, professional trade associations and brewers. SYLB is dedicated to supporting and protecting the legislative and regulatory interests of small, traditional and independent craft breweries.

Just last week the Ohio state legislature was considering a bill that contained language that would limit the distribution of craft beer so that brewpubs were required to sell through a wholesaler. Crazy, huh?

The Support Your Local Brewery website reports:

With a floor vote scheduled in less than 24 hours, Ohio members of the Support Your Local Brewery network were alerted and generated dozens of grassroots contacts to legislators’ offices. By April 20th, the offending provision had been pulled from the bill. Your efforts, coupled with the outreach carried on by many Ohio small brewers, turned this threat back, one which would have almost certainly hamstrung many breweries and potentially closed many brewpubs.

KevBrews reported on this as it was happening.

Visit Support Your Local Brewery to become an Activist.

Here are some headlines from past years:

2001: Craft beer sales up 4.2%
2002: Craft beer sales top $3.3 billion
2003: Craft beer sales surge
2005: Craft beer sales soar
2006: Craft beer sales soar

Do you see a trend here? At some point this doesn’t look like news. Craft beer is not a novelty. (That doesn’t mean we should be complacent, or quit beating the drum to make the beers we like even more readily available.) That’s a good thing.

The Brewers Association, having already announced that craft beer volume sales were up 11.7% in 2006 yesterday issued a press release stating that scan data from Information Resources Inc. shows craft beer with a 17.8% increase in supermarket sales for 2006.

Those are dollar sales, not volume sales. Dollar sales now account for 6% in stores that IRI tracks, and predictions are that number will reach 7% this year. Next week at the Craft Brewers Conference in Austin the topic of one panel discussion is: “Funding and Developing Capital to Get to 10% Share.” Just a few years ago the discussion was if craft beer could get to 10%.

And with craft brewers headed to Texas, this news arrived today: First quarter sales for Houston-based Saint Arnold Brewing were up approximately 35% from a year ago.

“The Texas beer market used to consider craft beers a novelty, but in recent years beer drinkers throughout the state have been trying and adopting more flavorful beers,” said brewery founder Brock Wagner. “We are gratified in seeing how many Texans are embracing both the local and craft aspects of our brews.”

Another round in the centurylong dispute between Anheuser-Busch Cos. and Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar is settled, with the win going this time to the American beer-maker.

Anheuser-Busch said Wednesday an Italian appeals court ruled in its favor, ordering cancellation of three registered trademarks held by Budejovicky Budvar, including two for Budweiser Budbrau and one for Budweiser Budvar.

The whole story.