LandShark Lager, rather than Corona, is the new top brew of Jimmy Buffett. It's not hard to see why. The bottle is emblazoned with shark fins and bears a casual-looking font that it is easy to associate with the beach and Buffett's "laid-back vibe." The self-described "original island lager" looks to be a microbrew, and because the bottles declare that the beer was made by the Margaritaville Brewing Co., consumers have little reason to doubt their microbrew assumption. The beer, however, is made by Anheuser-Busch.
Increasingly, Anheuser-Busch and other large companies are trying to hide their involvement with some of their products, hoping that consumers who ordinarily might be put off by a big brewing company's involvement will be tempted into buying the brews. Anheuser-Busch sells organic Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale labeled as the "product of Green Valley Brewing Co." Coors has a craft beer called Blue Moon in its lineup, though you wouldn't know it to look at its packaging, either.
"I see it as smart marketing for them," said one restaurant owner, whose grill does a brisk trader of LandShark. "There's kind of a reverse snobbism that says if a big company makes it, it can't be good. If it was called Budweiser LandShark Lager, it probably wouldn't be selling as well."
3-12-2007 @1:06PM Moonshine Mike said... I don't drink budweiser, not because A-B makes it, but because it does weird things to my stomach later on. I know, because I drink Miller Hi-Life (The Champagne of beers) and do not feel that effect.
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3-12-2007 @1:17PM Chad said... Reverse snobbism?
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3-12-2007 @3:47PM calamari said... Wouldn't "reverse snobbery" (I refuse to type "snobbism") be preferring the lowest-end Bud product, on the grounds that it's the Beer of the People?
Anyway, wineries have done this for a good 30 years -- plenty of wines bottled at Gallo's plant don't say "Gallo" on the label.
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3-12-2007 @3:57PM kevjohn said... It's easy to say that if you put an A-B label on it it wouldn't sell nearly as well. Conversely, if they didn't market it as a "microbrew" and associate it with Jimmy Buffet it wouldn't sell as well either. A-B appears to upset over the appearance of their image in the industry, but they're more than happy to fake a false image in order to rake in more profits.
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3-12-2007 @4:05PM Darren said... I'm an admitted beer snob, but I don't care what company ends up with my beer dollars - I just want beer that tastes good.
Budweiser tastes awful to me, but Stone Mill Pale isn't bad. I wouldn't be likely to buy it very often, but that's only because it is as pricey as other beers I prefer.
Blue Moon, by the way, is pretty good - their Pale Ale is much better to my hop-oriented palate than Stone Mill, although for sheer hoppy goodness, it's hard to beat beers from Victory Brewing ( http://www.victorybeer.com/ )
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3-12-2007 @4:26PM Hey Cool said... http://www.heycool.com
That might be an interesting beer. I believe the more important thing is not to hate on beer, if you had to drink a dark and you wanted a pale, but it was that or nothing - you'd take the beer.
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3-13-2007 @7:53AM alice radley said... What I don't understand is this: If AB has the ability to make better beer, why isn't that all they make? I mean, it's basically an acknowledgement that Bud sucks royal (and it does). I'll never understand why people drink that nasty stuff. Better to spend a bit more on a little bit of the good stuff.
I am a snob, I suppose.
www.kilgoreskitchen.blogspot.com
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3-13-2007 @9:40AM Jon said... I've noticed this too. There were some Christmas seasonal beers with the microbrews at my local liquor store. As always, I looked at the label to see where the beer was brewed. And in tiny letters that were almost hidden on the package, it named a macrobrewery. (I forget whether it was Bud or not.)
I don't care how good that beer is; I will never buy it. Most microbreweries are small local businesses started by people with a passion for beer. AB, Coors, etc. are not. They're multinational corporations. It's far better to support your local microbreweries, or at least microbreweries that are local to somewhere, than the macrobreweries.
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3-13-2007 @4:09PM Laura said... Related to macrobreweries posing as micros, and the hoppy goodness made by Victory, A-B is ripping off one of Victory's best beers. Their "Demon's Hopyard" was originally called "Devil's Hopyard," and some local pubs were serving it interchangeably with the excellent Hop Devil. See www.originalbeers.com -- When I tried to leave a comment about this a few weeks ago, the form censored any posts that contained the phrase "Hop Devil," btw.
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