This Friday is Double Trouble

This Friday is the first of three Friday the 13ths in 2012 -- the next one comes thirteen weeks later in April...followed by one thirteen weeks later in July. And I think we all know who's responsible for that: Mister Friday the Firkinteenth himself, Scoats "Mike Scotese" Grey Lodge. You know the guy, comes out from behind the bar on February 2nd, hugs old bearded rummies in parrot shirts, has a mad passion for numbers and wordplay, serves 20+ beers on cask every Friday the 13th? Yeah, that's him. The fun starts at noon, and there will be seven casks pouring till they're all gone, and it will be a madhouse, and I will be there. I've only missed a couple, and I'm not missing this one. Here, see what Scoats has to say:

This will be our 24th Friday the Firkinteenth; we've been doing it since 1998. We've gotten a little bit of press about it over the years and a couple of people have attended (Note to the inexperienced: he is understating to the point of sarcasm). For our 24th Firkinteenth, we will have our first cask cider, a bunch of English casks, the Philly debut of Fifty Fifty Rockslide IPA, what might be the debut of Flying Fish's newest beer - Scarlet Fever, plus a lot of usual suspect beers that could well be the sleeper standouts. Tapping begins at noon again this time around. At 11am our full menu will be available. For the Firkinteenth, all food service will be 2nd floor only.

Is that enough fun for one non-Philly Beer Week (which starts in only 143 days!) day for you? No? Okay, this Friday is also 113 Day, as in 1/13 (that's 13 January to all my Euro-friends), as in Sly Fox Rt. 113 IPA, and Sly Fox's Corey Reid is trying to turn it into a national holiday...but he'll settle for Phoenixville. For now. So...at Sly Fox's Phoenixville brewpub, anyone in the pub at 1:13 PM (Eastern...) can get one pint of Rt. 113 for $1.13 (bring change, help 'em out), and when the firkin of Rt. 113 is tapped at 5:00, you can get a 10 oz. pour for $1.13. Hey, now there's an economic stimulus for you. Come on out and get some number-based hoppiness!

U.S. drinkers continue to walk away from import beers

Reported in Beer Business Daily on Friday:

Things just don't seem to be getting any better for our imported beer shipments. Beer Institute released figures yesterday indicating that imported beer shipments were down another 8.1% in July, bringing year-to-date import shipments down 9.3%, or a loss of about 160,000 case equivs a day. There was some hope among import suppliers that sales would start to rebound toward the end of summer, but that just hasn't happened. In fact, anecdotally, distributors are telling us that the big imports are continuing to show steep declines in many big markets.
Losses are across the board: Mexican imports were down 4.7% in July, and YTD down nearly 3%. Netherlands down 14% year-to-date, while Canadian shipments off 22%, German shipments down 10%, Italy down 3%, and Belgian shipments off 11%. [Not Stella, BTW: Stella claims its U.S. sales are up 14%. -- Lew]

What's this mean? Well, imports -- which are almost all light lagers -- are pricier than comparable domestic beers because of shipping and the weak dollar. Craft beer's increases are thought to be coming largely out of imports' lost sales.

And, as former Capital Brewing prez Tom Fuchs told me in an interview back some years ago, "One of these days, the American import drinker is going to realize he's been sold a mule in racing silks." The big-selling imported lagers aren't bad beers, not compared to similar American light lagers. But they aren't better, either; in fact, they're not even significantly different (with the exception of Heineken, which is, these days, all-malt. Actually, so is Michelob, so never mind).

When money's tight -- mentally, even if there's no difference in your particular wallet, everyone is thinking tight -- you look at the relative value and think, why am I paying more for this? And, increasingly, people aren't, apparently. If this keeps up, it will represent a major shift in American beer-buying, one which will not be easily reversed. It also represents a major opportunity for craft beer, which is, of course, significantly different from mainstream light lagers.

How'd I get anything done?

Just realized that last month was the busiest month ever for blog posting for me. I posted a rather ridiculous 60 times in August, beating January's 58, when I was pushing hard on purpose to make my post a day average goal. No idea why I posted so much last month.

Well, gotta get back to work.

ABIB small brands not doing so well; actually, they suck

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reporting on "a fascinating item" in trade pub Beer Marketer's Insights about A-B's smaller brands. Budweiser, of course, continues on a 20 year slide, and Bud Light is just about flat, but Bud Light Lime is still sizzling: the brand posted 30 million cases in sales in only 8 months last year, the best launch since Michelob Ultra, and is blazing strong this year, with 36% growth. The company's budget beers, Busch and Natty Light, are doing very well in the shitty economic times.

It's the much smaller brands that are hurting (and ABIB has a LOT of them: "A-B sells about 70 brands that collectively make up less than 1 percent of its total volume, Insights reported."). Some have been cut already, and others are headed to the block (could this finally be the end of Bud Dry, which clings to life in some isolated regional markets?). Here are the numbers from Information Resources Inc.:

Landshark Lager volumes are down 23 percent for the 13 weeks through July 12; Bud Chelada is down 27 percent, and Bud Light Chelada is down 12 percent. And Tilt brands, [now] without caffeine, are suffering serious declines of between 30 percent and 50 percent. Bacardi Silver Mojito is down 30 percent. Michelob Ultra still about even, but Michelob Ultra Amber is down 25 percent. Bass is down 24 percent, Beck's is down 7 percent and Rolling Rock is down 8.5 percent for 13 weeks. Michelob is down 36 percent, Michelob Light is down 28.5 percent and Michelob Amber Bock is down 25 percent for 13 weeks. Bud Select is down 14 percent for 13 weeks.

Bud Select's down? How can they tell? Stella was up 14%, BTW, and the much-despised (by the entire geekerie) Shocktop more than doubled over last year (seriously, Shocktop is the whipping boy for "faux craft" hate).

Wow. There's a lot of room for cutting losses and changing focus. Time to fish or cut bait on this stuff, and stop clogging the distribution channels and fogging the message. You can bet that the Brazilians are going to take a machete to this brand jungle.

Didn't hear anything about Budweiser American Ale, though the numbers I saw for last year were not bad. Let's end on the strangest note of all, though: Bud Ice is up 34 percent. What?