From flickr user michaelallroy under a CC license

Beers like Natty Lite, Miller Lite, Bud Light, and PBR are getting a price increase to drive cheap-beer lovers toward more expensive brands.  Macrobrewers expect this will mean a transition to beers like Budweiser or other brands they own, but I can’t help but think it will also drive them to craft brewers.

I’d expect breweries like Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada to be beneficiaries of the move, mostly because they’re on many of the same shelves.  Also, in states where you can actually get it, Yuengling will probably also see a nice boost in sales.

From AdAge:

As brand manager for Keystone Light, Elina Vives would seem to be in a tough spot these days. The below-premium beer made big gains in the past few years as the economy tanked. But with trends improving, MillerCoors, along with Anheuser Busch, is raising prices on budget beers in a move to get drinkers to trade up to more-expensive brews such as Miller Lite and Bud Light, which struggled in the recession.

“What they’re really trying to do, both of them, is drive business to the premium brands where they make more money,” said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer’s Insights. But for Keystone, which is owned by MillerCoors, that could mean losing momentum that made it one of the fastest share gainers in all of beer. So what’s a brand manager to do?

Also, as a side note, I had no idea Bud Light was so much more popular than Miller Lite.  It’s all bad, but when I’m somewhere and don’t have much of a choice, I always grab Miller Lite first.

From flickr user jon starbuck

Travel writer Doug Lansky highlights a survey of 3,400 beer drinkers from around the world, asking them which country makes the world’s worst beer.  The winner?  The United States, by a lot.

According to Lansky, 36.2% of beer drinkers from 99 countries ranked the U.S. as the worst beer producing country, which dwarfed the 6.9% who said China.  The American rating was actually 7% worse than last year.

The full list is below, but don’t panic.  Even considering Germany or Belgium, the reality is that American beer drinkers enjoy what is probably the best beer selection anywhere in the world, and those beers are produced by other Americans.    What this survey seems to show is that American craft brewers aren’t distributing — and more than that, it means is that they’re not marketing — overseas.

For now, that’s just fine.  The American craft beer market still has plenty of room to grow (even though the overall beer market has been drug down by the dead weight of the major macrobreweries), and when that market has been satisfied, I think you’ll see plenty of craft brewers distributing much more widely.  Most craft breweries don’t even distribute nationally yet — a frustration that keeps someone like me from enjoying a New Belgium’s Fat Tire on a regular basis.

The real problem with this is that the rest of the world sees American macrobreweries the same way American beer lovers do — not positively.  With their marketing budgets, distribution networks, and business deals, they have absolutely decimated the reputation of American beer across the world.  In 10 or 20 years, should Sam Adams or Sierra Nevada want to seriously market and distribute in China, India, or across Europe, what kind of negative preconceptions will they be up against?  How badly will it hurt their ability to sell and expand?

Clearly, American craft breweries have shown an admirable tenacity while battling the macros on their own turf.  And by all accounts, they’re winning.  Can they do that across the globe when the time comes, if it comes?

As promised, the list of nine is below.  It’s actually not a terrible list, with the exception of the US and UK.

The Worst Beer Producing Countries in the World (from Dough Lansky)

1. United States, 36.2%
2. China, 6.9%
3. Italy, 6.9%
4. France, 3.5%
5. Mexico, 3.5%
6. United Kingdom, 2.8%
7. Australia, 2.4%
8. India, 2.4%