Sales of imported beers keep dropping; “No bright spots”
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The bad times continue for imported beer, those fancy, (generally) expensive brews from places like Mexico, the Netherlands and Germany.
The Washington-based Beer Institute released figures showing that imported beer shipments were down more than 8 percent in July, bringing the year-to-date slide to more than 9 percent. That’s a loss of about 160,000 case equivalents a day, according to Beer Business Daily.
Ouch! That burns. Things are not getting any getting for the imported beer category as recession-dinged consumers adopt a culture of thrift.
“Virtually no bright spots,” said Beer Marketer’s Insights. The trade publication laid out the numbers, and they were ugly indeed.
Mexican shipments were off 5 percent in Jul and 3 percent so far this year. Canadian shipments dropped 22 percent. Dutch shipments (that’s you, Heineken) were down 14 percent for seven months, German shipments fell 10 percent and shipments from the U.K. were off 25 percent. Even Belgian shipments have fallen 11 percent in 2009, in spite of Belgian brewer InBev’s new foothold in the U.S. market. (That would be Anheuser-Busch.)
“There was some hope among import suppliers that sales would start to rebound toward the end of summer,” said Beer Business Daily. “But that just hasn’t happened. … Distributors are telling us that the big imports are continuing to show steep declines in many big markets.”
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Jeremiah McWilliams is a native Virginian who came to the Post-Dispatch in early 2007 to cover beer and other consumer products. He previously covered manufacturing for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Va. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. 
During a recession it is a no brainer. Why buy an expensive import when you can buy a fresh local beer in the same styles, cheaper. Besides, most of the popular imports have been bought up by the likes of Inbev (think Bass, Becks, Pilsner Urquell, Stella), and once that happens a great deal of flavor, quality, and history are lost. Better beer is brewed locally for less.
I’ll be stickin’ with me Guinness.
If us American consumers were to buy American products - American beers, American cars, American washers and dryers, etc - our kids would probably have jobs.
You use to have to buy imported beer to get something other than watered-down lager. Now micro-brews are filling in that need and more.
+1, JerryW. American breweries make some of the best beers in the world. And I’m not talking about AB, Miller, or Coors. I’m happy to buy American owned and produced beers.
The decreasing volume is partially due to InBev raising the prices to pay off their tremendous debt in taking over AB. My best suggestion to combat these rising prices-BREW YOUR OWN! Prices for hops and grain have decreased over the last year for homebrewers while (debt) expenses for the largest brewer has increased lately. Also the beer tastes a heck of a lot better too!
It’s not just the recession; American craft breweries are doing just fine. People are just starting to realize that the best beer in the world is brewed at the neighborhood brewpub.
I totaly agree with Jr,it’s time to start buying AMERICAN !!Chrysler GM Ford and are building some of the best cars ever.WE have a local brewer here in Zanesville Ohio called Weasel Boy. Awesome beers,but along way from St louis.Myself I can’t get enough of Yuengling’s Light Lager and Porter.By the way………….Only 10 more days untill Ball takes over us 4 MCC plants.Wish everbody the best of luck still at inbev.
I’ll continue to up my support of the biggest St. Louis owned brewery…Schlafly
With the growth of quality American craft brewers I see no need to look to foreign imports. Beer is a perishable product with a shelve life so why settle for older beer that has spent time floating on cargo ships when fresher American brews are readily available.