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Why, beer makers, why?!
By surfsleez
What is the story on beer makers who get a good product going, and then foul up by putting an inferior beer in place of it ? Sometimes a label change can signify this, but as Consumer Reports once stated a product can be changed BEHIND it's packaging !
Schlitz appears to have been the granddaddy of this practice; can someone provide documentation to substantiate this ? It is said that they once commanded a very generous share of the mass beer market. Then someone had a brainstorm- Why not replace Schlitz beer with a cheaper formula, hence greater profits ? They spent millions to refurbish their brewing process, put the plan in action, and ultimately lost their shirts as most of their customers abandoned them. As sales plummeted, they hired a new Brewmaster to save them, but he was only able to restore a couple of percentage points to their market share.
In the early 90's it appeared that a number of labels abandoned their trademark formulas and were drawing their product from a single source: a huge corporate tank of Shitbeer which filled the cans of Old Milwaukee, Pabst, Piels et. al. at about the same time. I would assume that the same reaction occurred, because formulas were changed back to something like the beer that had been there in the first place.
I can attest to a similar experience with two products that I really loved and lost; Koch's Golden Anniversary Beer and Molson Golden. Koch's was a brewery located in Dunkirk, NY. Their beer was sold in golden-foiled bottles, and the beer inside was no disappointment in spite of the bargain price ! For reasons unknown to me, they sold out to Genesee in the mid-eighties. There was a time when I could buy 16 oz. bottle cases, probably still from Dunkirk, that were not really up to par with the beer I had grown accustomed to. However, it was better than what Genesee provided when they took the name, and started selling gold colored cans with the Koch's name on them.
Molson Golden is drinkable; not bad, but not the best it HAS been. The label design has changed a number of times over the years...why did they change the label OR the beer in the first place ?!?
From a common sense viewpoint, it would seem that a quality brew with an attractive appearance should STAY that way...to hold regular customers and attract new ones. If changes are made, they should be for the BETTER-- not to skimp on quality in order to save on production costs ! That approach seems self-defeating; maybe it has to do with achieving DELIBERATE losses for tax reasons or something of the sort ??? Really, I do not know.
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