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Why is it that Anheuser Busch hasn't started a national chain of beer pubs, à la Starbucks?

Date: 2003-04-27 08:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dr-memory.livejournal.com
I don't actually know this, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that some leftover laws from the prohibition era prevent the major brewers from owning their own bars.

Date: 2003-04-27 09:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] denshi.livejournal.com
Because Starbucks' biggest growth was in areas that had no coffee houses before - suburbia, the South, office districts, etc. Rednecks with frou-frou lattes was a very profitable idea. Busch can't do something similar, as beer distribution has pretty much 100% market penetration nationwide.

Date: 2003-04-27 10:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ikkyu2.livejournal.com
You haven't been to an airport lately, have you?

From a web beer news site, in their May-June 2002 update:

Another Budweiser Brewhouse



HMSHost Corporation, the world's largest provider of food, beverage and retail concessions to the travel industry, has opened its newest Budweiser Brewhouse in Memphis International Airport. HMSHost operates Budweiser Brewhouses in fourteen airports nationwide including Chicago O'Hare, Las Vegas McCarran International, Miami and Newark.




Apparently they're also in military bases, too. I couldn't find a web page with a photo of one of these, which is too bad - I rather enjoyed the one in O'Hare. Then again, I like Bud.

Here's a great WSJ article (http://www.cob.ohiou.edu/~mgt300/cases/beer.htm) which will completely answer your question. Also, it explains about the origin of Coors' Blue Moon Belgian White, which I really love, and it invokes the phrase 'Moon Unit' in the last sentence.

Date: 2003-04-28 10:35 am (UTC)
ext_8707: Taken in front of Carnegie Hall (excitable)
From: [identity profile] ronebofh.livejournal.com
You made the Baby Jesus cry.

Date: 2003-04-28 04:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wisn.livejournal.com
I can think of a few reasons.

Alcohol regulation is set individually by states, each of which have different terms under which alcohol vendors can operate. In Michigan, for example, even after brewpubs were legalized in the mid-90s, it was another several years before it was legal for a company to brew beer for both package sale and on-premises sale from the same location (read: a brewpub couldn't bottle its product, a brewery couldn't operate a pub). In Michigan, for that matter, A company or syndicate can only own and operate one brewpub, so brewpub chains like Hops haven't gotten much room here.

Getting past that, each state's alcohol sales (and laws) are tightly controlled by a few licensed distributors which are going to be loathe to be warehousing the products of a company who's suddenly the competition.

From the marketing angle, why should they? They've already got top international brand recognition. Operating the retail fronts isn't going to improve their standing. In any event, there are already plenty of bars in America, but comparatively few espresso cafes before Starbucks.

Probably a better question to ask is why hasn't a small well-identified brand like Sierra Nevada or Red Hook started a retail operation. A-B starting a chain of bars would be like Folgers starting a chain of coffee counters.

(Yeah, it's a gedankenexperiment, but i'm in a literal frame of mind this morning.)

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