Anheuser-Busch Cos. plans to “fruit the beer.” The St. Louis-based brewer will introduce Bud Light Lime in the first week of May, backing the new beer with a $35 million marketing blitz on television and billboards.

“We’re treating this as a big launch,” said Dave Peacock, vice president of marketing at the company’s domestic beer subsidiary.

The national rollout of the Bud Light brand extension is an effort to capitalize on the popularity of flavored beers. If all goes as planned, the new brew will juice sales of the “Bud family” — a collection of Budweiser, Bud Light, Budweiser Select and Bud Chelada whose U.S. sales together supply about 40 percent of the company’s overall beer shipments. That group’s sales volume, measured in barrels, fell last year.   

“This works,” Peacock said of the lime-infused entrant. ”It enhances Bud Light.”

He noted that research showed about 3 in 10 beer consumers either are open to or prefer sweeter, flavored beer — far more than Anheuser-Busch anticipated.

The country’s biggest brewer appears confident that its new brew will catch on. In a break with longstanding practice, it will not be introduced in test markets before its national launch. 

“We can’t remember a Bud family product we didn’t put into a test market,” said Peacock.

Miller Brewing Co. of Milwaukee last year introduced Miller Chill, a beer flavored with lime and salt and meant to evoke a drink that Miller says originated in 1950s Mexico. It was one of the year’s hottest beer product launches.

Anheuser-Busch, meanwhile, sells a Michelob Ultra beer called “Lime Cactus,” as well as Chelada — a pre-mixed cocktail of Bud Light or Budweiser with tomato. That concoction, unleashed nationwide last month, is designed to mimic a popular Mexican drink.

Peacock said Anheuser-Busch and Miller had independently concluded that flavored beers — including ones that evoke brews popular in Latino culture — can attract a wide following.

The fact that Chelada sold at a higher price than standard Bud Light apparently gave Anheuser-Busch confidence that Bud Light Lime could work on a national level.

That suggests to Anheuser-Busch executives “that they can do this,” said Eric Shepard, executive editor of trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights. “It will be interesting whether there will be a ‘halo effect’” on Bud Light after the lime variety comes out, he said. Anheuser-Busch has credited Chelada with boosting sales of regular Budweiser and Bud Light in some markets.

The questions among A-B brass were whether a lime-infused Bud Light would turn off the “core consumer” or pull too many sales from Bud Light, said Peacock. “In both cases, the answer was no,” he said.   

Peacock said Bud Light Lime (or “BL Lime,” as the beer may be titled on the clear bottles’ packaging) is expected to draw much of its sales from “Aspirers” — primarly blue-collar urban males who like mainstream imported beers like Heineken and Corona — and “Trendsetters,” who are very interested in fitness and may not like beer as much. Even “Sippers” — who typically avoid beer — may jump on board, he said.

BL Lime is also designed to address a chink in Bud Light’s  armor: outdoor drinking occasions. The country’s bestselling brew actually is proportionately less popular in those occasions than in the overall market, Peacock said.

“This lets us address a gap,” said Peacock.