Anheuser Busch And Microbrews

Beer brewing has always been the core business of
the Anheuser-Busch company.  An industry leader
since 1957, Anheuser-Busch currently owns over half
of the domestic beer market.  

The market share has grown so much that Anheuser-
Busch now has a bigger portion of the market than
the next four competitors, with the international
sales being no different.  Anheuser-Busch remains
the leading exporter of beer from the United States,
with sales in more than 60 countries.

Microbreweries, or microbrews for short, have been
gaining a lot of attention in the past several 
years.  Microbrews are best classified as breweries
that produce less than 15,000 barrels in a given
year.  

The strength of microbrews is found in their
philosophy that beer should be of the highest
quality.  Therefore, microbrews are only brewed
with malted barley, hops, water, and yeast, which
are the only four ingredients found in the purist
German beers.  Mass bottled beers normally add
rice and corn to help lower costs.  

The only drawback to microbrews is what they cost.
The more expensive ingredients found in microbrews
cost on average 60% higher than the mass bottled
beers.

Beer isn't like wine, which tends to get better
with age.  Beer is instead a food that should be
consumed as soon as possible after production.
With this in mind, pubs or microbrews that 
produce beer on the premises are the hottest new
trends, with four new pubs on average popping
up each and every week.

Each year, sales of microbrews goes up an average
of 40% each year.  This figure is very impressive
when you consider that the market is shrinking 
as a whole.  Even with this amazing success, the
microbrew sales represent around two percent of
the entire beer market.

In their pursuit to continue dominating the 
entire beer market, Anheuser-Busch has tapped 
into the trend of microbrews.  They recently 
purchased a stake in the Seattle based Red Hook
Ale microbrewery.  The new products they released
into the beer market include Red Wolf, Elk
Mountain Red, and Elk Mountain Amber Ale.

Microbrews are normally produced regionally, 
therefore Anheuser-Busch is developing regional
manufacturers and distributors.  By doing this,
they must decide on the best possible way to
handle their short term cash needs for purchasing
inventory in these tiny plants.

With their recent transition into the world of
microbrews, you can count on Anheuser-Busch to
make quite the impact.  They will be offering
more microbrews in the future, which is great 
news for beer drinkers.  If you like the wild
taste of microbrews, Anheuser-Busch is more than
worth your time and money.

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