Brewers fight back

CHICAGO — Beer sales had gone flat, while wine was flying off the shelves.

So beer makers decided to steal a page from wine’s marketing manual and create new packaging, flavors and drinks. Now beer is coming back.

The major brewers “blended, became the same,” says Nick Lake, beer expert at ACNielsen, the marketing information company.

“If they didn’t have the brand in some ads — a Budweiser ad, a Miller Lite ad, a Coors ad — if they didn’t have the can in it, it could be any one of the three,” said Lake, the company’s vice president of new business development.

Now, brewers are pitching their beer as cooler, classier and healthier, trying to do for their beverage what Starbucks has done for coffee.

The result is that people are finally buying more beer. After idling for the past couple of years, beer sales have shown steady growth in recent months, Lake said. Craft beers and imports are driving the growth.

For the 12 months ending April 22, national beer sales totaled $4.071 billion, up about 1.4 percent from a year earlier, according to ACNielson. Most of the increase was due to double-digit sales increases for imported brands and the so-called craft brands. In all, 231 million cases were sold at food, drug and convenience stores combined, up 1 percent from a year earlier.

The fruity malt drinks, organic pale ale, lager and other new beer products that are driving the increase in sales are on display this week in Chicago at the Food Marketing Institute Show, the supermarket industry’s annual trade show.

Beer is still the drink of choice for at least half the people who drink alcohol in the United States, but wine and spirits have been enticing drinkers in ever-growing numbers.

A Gallup survey last year found that as many Americans pick wine as their drink of choice as pick beer. The wine industry has jockeyed for attention with cute critters on the label, easy-open screwcaps and cans and party-friendly boxes.

Basically, wine seemed to have gotten more fun. So beer companies started thinking about how to do more with their brews. And, in some instances, they joined forces.

“We can all compete, but then we can all be friends when it comes to beer versus a cosmo or a merlot,” said Bill Laufer, spokesman for Anheuser-Bush Cos. Inc.

For beer, new packaging includes Heineken’s keg can for the fridge, which gives people draft beer at home. Coors sells a cooler box with 18-ounce plastic bottles that is ready to be filled with ice and taken to the beach or a barbecue. And Budweiser comes in new sturdy aluminum bottles that are like a cross between a can and a glass bottle.

Beyond packaging is flavor. For Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser, that means Bud Select, a light beer with a more robust taste. Bud Select has been the best-selling new beer brand, Lake said.