The Anheuser-Busch company has always had beer brewing at the core of its business. They own more than half of the beer domestic market and have been a leader in the industry since 1957.
Anheuser-Busch has a bigger portion of the market than any of the competitors, both domestically and internationally, now that their market share has grown so much. In the United States, they remain the biggest beer exporter, selling in over sixty countries.
Microbrews, short for microbreweries, have been receiving a lot more attention over the past few years. When a brewery produces less than fifteen thousand barrels in a year, they are classified as a microbrew.
Microbrews have the philosophy of producing the highest quality of beer, making that their strength. Because of that, they only use the four ingredients used in purist German beers, hops, water, malted barley, and yeast. Bigger breweries will typically add other ingredients such as rice and corn that help to lower their costs. The downside of microbreweries is the cost because of the more expensive ingredients they use in their beers.
Sales from microbrews go up an average of forty percent each year. Considering how the market, as a whole, is shrinking, this is a very impressive figure. Even with these kinds of numbers microbrew sales only represent about two percent of the beer market as a total.
Anheuser-Busch, in their pursuit to dominate the beer market, has tapped into the microbrew trend. They have purchased a state in Red Hook Ale microbrewery, a Seattle-based company. Some of their newly released products in the beer market include Elk Mountain Red, Red Wolf, and Elk Mountain Amber Ale.
Anheuser-Busch is working to develop regional manufacturers and distributors since microbrews are typically produced regionally. Because of this, they must constantly figure out how to best handle short-term cash needs so they can purchase the inventory they need in these tiny plants.
They are looking to make quite the impact with their recent transition into the world of microbreweries. Anheuser-Busch will be offering, even more, microbrews in the near future, a great thing for those who drink and love beer.