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How did Budweiser become the world’s biggest-selling beer? I have been frequently asked for an explanation ever since I started writing about beer more than 30 years ago.
The robustness with which the question is put seems to imply that I am personally responsible for Bud’s sales, along with pretty much everything else that happens in the world of beer and brewing. I am not, and I cannot remember the last time I had a Bud.
So, after three decades, why am I now trying to set out some thoughts on this topic? In this instance, the omnipresent Bud is merely providing context for some thoughts concerning global "brands" and their places of origin.
People who are puzzled by the success of Bud tend to feel that it is not the world’s most interesting beer.
I agree, it isn’t, but Bud wasn’t created for the likes of you and me. Quite true, you say. It is easy-to-drink, unchallenging, unmemorable, refreshing beer — but so are countless others. What’s different about Bud?
For one thing, it is older than most of its competitors. You may have heard that "old" is bad, and "young" good, but almost all of the big-selling international beer brands date back to the 1800s. Even the kids’ favorite Corona has been around since 1925.
You may be aware that the beer that made St. Louis famous took its name from a city in Bohemia, but did you realise that beer had been made there for more than 500 years before the appellation crossed the Appalachians? Did that give half a millenium’s head-start to the American brand-name — an instant, inherited, history, albeit of questionable legitimacy — or does it undermine the credibility of a beer produced not in Bohemia but in Missouri?
Simply out of a sense of fairness, I feel that a company brewing in Budweis has a greater moral claim to the designation. Equally, I note that, of the two brewing companies operating in Budweis today, one is a younger establishment than Anheuser Busch, the producer of the St Louis brews.
I suspect that, in the American market, Anheuser-Busch finds itself in the position of having its cake and eating it.
• Even though the beer called Busch was their local brand, the German-accented population of greater St. Louis a century ago had probably heard of Budweis as a distinguished brewing city.
• Even though it was conceived from the start as a nationwide brand, Budweiser could only have benefitted from some recognition of the name in its home town. (Where, for decades, Falstaff was a formidable rival).
• Even though Anheuser- Busch today emphasises its history as one of the oldest registered trademarks in the U.S. (and, of course, an icon of American popular culture), the name still has a distantly "Old European" ring.
None of those considerations explains the success of Bud, but they are elements in what the market must sometimes see as a magic formula.
Other elements: Budweiser was the first beer to be conceived as a national brand; its well-known pioneering of refrigerated rail-cars put a premium on the fresh condition of the beer; and the company has been tireless, nay ruthless, in pursuit of its goals.
Look back to the first of those "other elements": it took Budweiser a hundred years to establish itself firmly as the most recognised name in American brewing. The company believed in its product, and was prepared for the long haul. Those long years were well spent: in single-minded, consistent effort.
There have been line extensions, but few U-turns. Budweiser has never, to my knowledge, been comprehensively re-launched, re-branded, re-positioned or otherwise regurgitated by the pseudo-scientific tendency of the marketing faith.
The millions it spends on marketing, seem more directly linked to selling, and the development of the product has been by evolution rather than revolution.
The label has, of course, sustained a variety of accretions, and been tidied up occasionally. It is a mess, but so familiar that it is a pictogram in the visual language of the U.S. You simply couldn’t design a label like that from scratch.
Anheuser-Busch has never brewed in the city of Budweis, but it has never left St. Louis, and I cannot imagine that it would be so foolish. It has opened breweries elsewhere, but in the years it took to achieve market leadership, it only once acquired another brewing company. Its growth during that period was organic — which means that it has deep roots.
Despite its more recent growth overseas, A-B is no longer the world’s biggest brewer. At the time of writing (a clumsiness I dislike but in the circumstances cannot avoid), A-B is third, behind SAB-Miller and Inbev, who are neck-and-neck with each other. Which has the long neck is not yet clear.
Neither of these groups grew organically; both became global by acquisition.
As you may know, SAB stands for South African Breweries. When the political walls came down in South Africa, SAB sought to expand. The company had no experience in the free world. It was accustomed to working in a country with a history of authoritarian government; where it enjoyed a virtual monopoly; where labor costs were low; but where the same was inevitably true of consumers’ purchasing power.
SAB sought similar circumstances: it bought breweries in former Eastern Bloc countries. The extent to which these criteria applied varied within these nations (which themselves prefer to be identified as "Central" Europe).
SAB’s early purchases did not extend as far West as the Czech Republic, which had never lost its mantle as a great brewing nation.
Eventually, having found its feet in those neighbouring countries, SAB did feel emboldened, and snitched Pilsner Urquell from under the noses of rivals who might have considered themselves more worldly.
The Czechs knew that the brewery was special but on my several visits over the years, I never felt they fully grasped its significance. Within the country, the term Pilsner was permitted only on the labels of the Urquell brewery and its neighbour Gambrinus. The principle here seemed to be that, as the name derived from the home town of these two breweries, it should be regarded as a geographical appellation.
Having produced the world’s first golden lager in 1842, before the "invention" of the registered trademark, Pilsner Urquell saw its name being taken in vain throughout the German-speaking world. By the time trademarks had been invented, Pilsner Urquell had to settle for a compromise. The court of Imperial Germany ruled that other brewers could use the term Pilsner only when linked by a hyphen to their own home-town, as in Bitburger-Pils.
A rather tatty little collection of bottles from other countries, innocent of such hyphenation, was pointed out to me every time the old management of Pilsner Urquell took me to visit their town’s beer museum.
Not wishing to seem rude, I acknowledged their point, but wanted to say: "It’s not a question that a handful of breweries have stolen your name. More than half the world’s breweries produce one or more beers called Pilsners. Some of the German ones are worthy variations on the theme, and one or two elsewhere, but in most instances, Pilsner (Or Pilsener. Or Pils) simply indicates a golden lager".
More important, I wanted to add: Yes, it is important to point out that Pilsner is the adjective formed from the name of your home town, where only you and your neighbor Gambrinus brew. Yes, you are the only two breweries with a moral claim to the designation Pilsner, but your beer has in the meantime become a worldwide style, Worldwide, many drinkers know no other style.
Last year, on a visit to Prague, I was outspoken in my concern for the future of the great Czech beers. So, on a separate, unrelated, visit, was Roger Protz. Our comments made headlines. Among our shared worries was Pilsner Urquell’s decision to brew beer for some markets in other cities.
Budweiser Budvar, known in the U.S. for its Czechvar beer, is pledged to brew only in its home town. If a beer is identified by name with a city or town, must it be brewed there? Does it matter?
Those Prague headlines came sharply back into focus when the third international giant mentioned in this article, Inbev, announced recently that it was to close its Hoegaarden brewery. The Hoegarden beer will be made in Jupille.
Does that matter?
My thoughts in Part Two of this article.
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