"bud" news and stories

Earlier this week, Advertising Age ran a story entitled "What Your Taste in Beer Says About You."

Citing researched compiled by Mindset Media -- a "market researcher specializing in psychographics" -- the article discusses how the beer a person drinks can be a strong indicator of his or her personality. For instance, Bud drinkers are "sensible, grounded and practical," Bud Light drinkers can have "frat boy-like personalities," and Michelob Ultra drinkers "think highly of themselves and can be a little bit conceited."

The concept is interesting, but why spend all that money on "research"? Most people could come up with those same assumptions on their own. In fact, the list can be extrapolated even further... massive research grant hopefully forthcoming.

• Pabst Blue Ribbon drinkers consider playing bass in a punk band "gainful employment" and have handlebar mustaches.
• Miller Lite drinkers consider the consumption of 20 beers "moderate drinking" and include beer bongs on their list of "proper glassware."
• Sam Adams drinkers love wearing the same Red Sox hat for their entire adult life and believe there's nothing wrong with hitting on someone else's girlfriend.
• Guinness drinkers think the best football team is Manchester United and consider a fist fight a "night out on the town."
• Busch drinkers think the best bar in America is their porch and consider a proper food and beer pairing to be "a pounder and a bag of Hardee's."

And snobby craft beers drinkers tend to be people like beer writers who think they have a right to make fun of others!

What other beers bring to mind distinct personality types? And what does your favorite beer say about you? Let us know in the comments!

Anheuser-Busch would like me to believe I am reading too much into it, but around the time of the InBev buyout, Budweiser commercials began elevating the patriotism pushing "The Great American Lager" slogan like a comforting pat on the shoulder to say, "Everything will be alright." Maybe its just a coincidence: A-B reminds me the slogan was launched before InBev's bid was finalized. Or maybe marketing knew something I didn't. Either way, hammering home the "King of Beers" at this point might just come a little too close to reminding us of our new European overlords.

Unfortunately, however, slogans require an extra step of association, so for their latest offering, Bud is simply throwing the word "American" right into the product name. A-B chose to debut spots for their forthcoming Budweiser American Ale during the Olympics. (I caught one during a massive 8 hour Olympic-watching marathon -- a near Phelpsian feat, if I do say so myself.) And though Olympic coverage represents an ideal opportunity to court a massive audience, it certainly doesn't hurt that it's served with a side of patriotic pride.

Budweiser American Ale also had been in the works well before the InBev buyout: It's intention is to edge in on the growing craft beer market, hopefully grabbing Anheuser-Busch a piece of the action while wooing some attention back to their flagship. Reasserting Budweiser as the "Great American Lager" is definitely a nice segue into introducing the next great "American Ale." But A-B marketing has got to at least be thinking, Don't you love it when a plan comes together! Naive isn't a word that comes to mind when I think of the big boys down at Bud, so I bet the more this whole InBev/patriotism thing feels like a coincidence, the better job they're doing.

[Photo Credit: budweiser.com]

Going nationwide last July, Miller Chill quickly became ubiquitous at stores. This summer, Anheuser-Busch tried targeting the flourishing lime-flavored beer market as well, launching Bud Light Lime in April with $35 million in advertising. Since then, the macro-brew's been bragging about its success crediting the roll-out for an increase in 2nd quarter profits and summer market share.

Enough jabber-jargon... Do I want to drink it??

Personally, my taste buds sour at the mere thought of giving a Bud Light spin-off the full taster's treatment, but just for kicks, let's do BLL proper!

BLL's packaging alerts me it's a "premium light beer with 100% natural lime flavor." Also prominently displayed: "contains alcohol." Sold. After cleansing my palate of a Fudgsicle (hey, it's hot out!), I pour a small amount of BLL into a taster glass. The nose is very typical of Bud Light (subtle malt, ricey) and shows distinct notes of -- ta da! -- lime.

The flavor does not offend as much as I had expected.

Budweiser is official beer of World Cup, the most internationally watched sporting event in the world. They bought the rights for the 2002 and 2006 games for about $80 million in 1998 - before they knew where those games were to be hosted. The problem is that this year's World Cup is hosted by Germany and Germans don't like Budweiser.

For Germans, beer and football (soccer, for the Americans) go hand in hand and Germans are some of the biggest beer drinkers in the world - with many outstanding brews coming from their own country. The prospect of having to drink only Budweiser at the games was something of a slap in the face to German brewers. One fan, cited the Wall Street Journal, even said "This is just the worst beer you could imagine." Bad publicity poured from fans and the press. And to make matters worse, the beer had to be sold as "Anheuser Busch Bud" because of a legal battle over the Budweiser name rights with a Czech brewer that makes "Budweis" beer.

With the prospect of millions of potential beer drinkers, both in stadiums and at home, Budweiser knew they had to do something. Fast.