LuceScrew’s Brew Buzz is a segment on The 40cast covering beer enthusiast topics…think of it as Geeky Beer Facts.

This segment can be found in Episode 84 Of The 40cast released on Feb. 9, 2012.

The week after Super Bowl I read an article tweeted by the Beer Goddess (Erin Peters) that was posted on TheStreet.com website.  The article was titled “Why Craft Beer Doesn’t Have A Super Bowl Ad.” When I first read the title I thought the answer was pretty obvious, but I found the facts stated very interesting.

So this year’s game was no different than other years…the beer commercials were dominated by Budweiser products.  As I sat there watching the game I kept asking myself…why? Who are these ads targeting? Is the money spent worth it?  Will these companies get a return on investment equal or greater than the cost?  Overall I was very disappointed in the ads viewed and thought…”what a waste of money.”  So why aren’t smaller craft breweries using the big game as an opportunity to reach out to 100 million people? It’s simple…

Despite the recent growth in the craft beer industry the simple fact is the big beer companies still own 95% of the beer sales in the United States.  Anheuser-Busch is the largest with over 100 million barrels produced per year compared to Yuengling & Sons and Boston Beer Company producing 2.5 million and 2.3 million barrels respectively. Craft brew sales increased 11% by volume and 12% by dollars in 2010 and jumped 15% in dollars the first six months of 2011. These numbers at first glance appear very good, but remember a small percentage increase of a small volume is still negligible.  Craft beer needs to see 200% increases over a few years to really be a formidable competitor in the US beer market.

I originally had a lot of stuff to say about this topic, but over the past 4 weeks I have lost my drive and just can not seem to finish the write-up for this Brew Buzz. Although the audio portion of this Brew Buzz was kind of impromptu, it still has some good conversation on this topic. So forgive me for putting out a half-assed article, but I need to move forward with the other Brew Buzz segments.

Listen to the audio segment of the Brew Buzz below:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:03 — 8.7MB)