Beer Losing Ground in Beverage Market

“Our wholesaler contacts have told us through a survey we conducted recently that beer has lost its ‘sexiness’ and ‘appeal to young consumers'”

Anheuser-Busch is taking a step and combining two of my favorite beverage additives: caffeine and alcohol.

The maker of No. 1-selling Bud Light beer said Monday it is launching a new brew under the Budweiser label that will be infused with caffeine, guarana and ginseng–a combination it promises will be both lightly “sweet and tart.” It is the first beer to include caffeine, the brewer said.

Unfortunately, the problem with this plan is 1) they make Bud and Busch, etc and 2) they are adding other crap like ginseng to the mix. The article in the paper I read this morning is that they are trying to cash in on the crazy of mixing Red Bull with anything that has alcohol. As for their claim to be the first beer to include caffeine, I doubt it. Maybe the first good old-fashioned macrobrew to add caffeine, but there has had to have been a beer with caffeine before.

I have drank quite a few stouts brewed with coffee such as Bell’s Java Stout and Redhook‘s now-retired Doubleblack Stout. Both of those had to have had some caffeine in them. However, they were not marketed as a alcohol enhanced energy drink nor an energy enhanced adult beverage. (They also weren’t marketed as a cathartic, but they could have been!)

The new brand’s name is a mouthful: B-to-the-E — short for Budweiser with something extra.

And there is the worst part: One of the dumbest product names ever. B^e

For Sam’s Wine and Spirits, it’s Downers Grove over N.Y.

One answer about why Sam’s Wine and Spirits is making its first expansion to the western suburbs can be found in the store’s Lincoln Park shipping room.

Boxes of wine are stacked to the ceiling awaiting shipment to customers in Hinsdale, Geneva, Naperville, Western Springs and Forest Park, along with numerous other communities across the United States.

Widespread telephone and Internet orders have helped make Sam’s the largest volume wine and spirits store in the United States. This year, it expects to book $60 million in sales and employs 150 people.

Absent, however, are large numbers of boxes bound for New York City, where Fred Rosen and his sons had planned to make their first foray away from what has been their only location, tucked behind the new retail district along Clybourn Avenue, north of North Avenue.

“We put New York on hold because we’re like farm boys. It’s much harder to deal with the people there. It’s not like Chicago,” said Rosen, 67, who has handed day-to-day operations of the store over to his sons.

Sam’s Wines, if you’ve never been there, is an awesome store. Its only problem to date is that its a fair trip into the city for me to shop there. However, every time I’ve gone, I’ve not been disappointed. Also, its nice that its located right next to the Goose Island Brew Pub.

On those times I haven’t made the drive, Binny’s has fit the bill. The guys from Sam’s claims they aren’t doing it to compete with Binny’s, and I’ll accept that at face value. However, it’ll be interesting to see Sam’s give Binny’s a run for their money out in the burbs.

Downers Grove is getting all sorts of interesting places. First Fry’s, now Sam’s. I wonder what’s next.