The new light beer
<editor's note> From the San Diego Union-Tribune comes this report on Sam Adam's new light beer, what do you think? </editor's note>
Light beer makes headway But San Diego's top niche brewers remain flat-out opposed
By Michael Stetz
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 20, 2002
Now that Samuel Adams has come up with a light beer, what's next?
Will it only be a matter of time before the San Marcos-based Stone
Brewing Co. answers by producing, along with its Arrogant Bastard
Ale, a product called Slightly Less Arrogant Bastard Ale?
Or will Chico-based Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. create a new version
of Bigfoot Ale, labeled Not-Quite-as-Big-as Bigfoot Ale?
Samuel Adams is doing what Miller and Budweiser and Coors did long
ago. It's making a beer with a third fewer calories than its regular
beer. It has taken its flagship product and gone Jenny Craig with
it.
And some beer lovers aren't exactly bellying up to the bar over this
recent product-line expansion.
That's because Samuel Adams -- while more corporate and big-market
minded than community-based micro-breweries -- helped fuel the
growth of this niche industry by putting a hearty, full-bodied beer
on the national market.
By going light, Samuel Adams is reacting to beer drinkers' changing
habits. For the first time, the best-selling beer last year was not
Budweiser. It was Bud Light.
But many craft-beer makers are sticking to their guns.
"If my mother was tied up and held ransom, I might think about
making a light beer. For a minute. Mom would understand," said Greg
Koch, CEO and co-founder of Stone Brewing.
"No, never," said Mike Mellow, co-owner of the Ballast Point Brewing
Co., when asked if his San Diego-based micro-brewery would go light.
Sierra Nevada? "We won't," said Steve Harrison, vice president.
The Boston Beer Co., maker of Samuel Adams beers, doesn't believe
it's doing anything sacrilegious. It created the product to show the
big beer companies that a light beer can be high quality and good
tasting, said company president Jim Koch.
"We're making a truly good light beer," he said. "We're finally
giving the light-beer drinkers an option."
San Diego is one of only a few cities serving as a test market for
the new beer. Koch hopes to go national with it soon.
Not everybody believes the move is consistent with the company's
roots, though. Koch even admitted that he once produced an ad that
said: "Never a Sam Light."
"I'm literally drinking those words," he said.
The move caught some craft-beer makers by surprise. "We thought it
was quite unusual," Mellow said. "It's like they're pulling a 180."
The craft-beer market, though, is limited. The major beer producers
control 97 percent of U.S. sales and have the clout to keep
competitors at bay with their huge advertising budgets and
distribution power.
The big brewers also have been aggressive in marketing their light
products, which make up 44 percent of all beer sales, according to
the Adams Beer Handbook, which tracks the industry. In 1993, that
figure was 35 percent.
Rhonda Kallman is jumping on the bandwagon, and she's unapologetic
about it. The co-founder of the Boston Beer Co., who is now the
maker of Edison Light, says her new beer is of higher quality than
mass-produced light beer, but is still a "grab and gulp."
"It's an industry and you look at what's growing," said Kallman,
whose brewing company is based in Hingham, Mass.
Unlike older beer drinkers who may see light beers as a compromise,
younger drinkers don't, she said. The newer generation has never
known a beer aisle that didn't boast some sort of light brew.
It was the saturation of similar-tasting, big-name domestic beers
that helped cause the proliferation of micro-breweries in the late
1980s and '90s. Craft-beer makers saw an opportunity to give beer
drinkers an alternative. And, seemingly overnight, beer drinkers had
a wealth of new, bold, varying products from which to choose.
Area breweries say they remain vibrant. And they argue that their
beers aren't all that more filling than light beers. The difference
in calories is only a few potato chips, they say.
Even though the Boston Beer Co. grew to be much larger than the
average craft brewery -- causing some traditionalists to dismiss the
company -- its aggressiveness helped the craft-beer revolution.
It advertised nationally the concept that higher-quality beers were
available, and you didn't have to buy one in a green bottle brewed
in Holland.
And it is not the first craft-beer maker to create a light product,
either. Local brewery Karl Strauss produces a light beer, for
instance.
While the president of the San Diego Beer Society, Chris Geiser,
said hardcore beer drinkers will be quick to criticize Samuel Adams
Light, he thinks the product is a good idea.
Anything that helps educate average Americans about beer is a good
thing, he said. A person may try a Sam Adams Light, like it, then
try a Sam Adams lager, like it, and then experiment with other craft
brands.
Personally, though, he has no interest in downing one.
"Not unless you buy one for me."
Michael Stetz: (619) 542-4570; michael.stetz@uniontrib.com
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