
Blue Moon: The “Craft” Beer Made by Coors - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/blue-moon-the-craft-beer-made-by-coors/
======
jsm386
A month ago I dove into the topic of "Craft" vs "Crafty" to produce a map of
the actual owners of "craft" beers as well as other brands that are marketed
as local/independent.

The result @ [http://vinepair.com/wine-blog/map-actually-makes-your-
beer/](http://vinepair.com/wine-blog/map-actually-makes-your-beer/) received a
LOT of attention in the beer world.

It's been updated four times as it was tough to sort through some of the
confusion and obfuscation in marketing, even with the benefit of having had
dug through SEC filings, the COLA registry at TTB, and other sources. FWIW, I
was contacted for direct clarification from one of the companies indirectly
called out in this piece (Kona/Craft Brew Alliance).

All that said, I'd argue that association (and particularly a lack of care
about such an association by many, many consumers whether or not they know
about it) is less interesting than the advantages of being purchased/created
by a macro brewer, such as distribution and how that plays out in the 3-tier
system in the US.

~~~
frandroid
In Canada, John Sleeman bought Unibroue, and then Sleeman was bought by
Sapporo. Since then, MolsonCoors has been on a buying spree of larger Canadian
microbreweries, e.g. Creemore Springs, such that they have gotten better
national distribution. I can now find Granville Island ales in Québec City!

------
joshvm
If it tastes good, does it matter? Franziskaner and Leffe are both great beers
and are brewed by AB InBev - widely seen as rather scummy amongst homebrewers.
Blue Moon is in virtually every pub (I've been to) and supermarket in the UK.
It tastes good, but I'm surprised anyone was under the illusion that it was
somehow a small operation.

I never really saw Blue Moon as a craft beer. In the UK craft beer means ale,
you buy whatever happens to be on tap in the pub or you have a nose round your
local farmer's market if you want to be really trendy.

~~~
sliverstorm
_By obfuscating its brand name on products like Blue Moon, Coors is violating
the consumer’s right to know who he is supporting, and where his beverage
comes from._

The money quote on why it matters.

~~~
StevePerkins
When I look at a Lexus automobile, I don't see a Toyota nameplate anywhere. Is
Toyota therefore "obfuscating" the fact that a Lexus is little more than a
glorified Corolla? Is an Acura basically an obfuscated Honda?

I don't buy it. Consumers sophisticated enough to care about the provenance of
their beer are no doubt well aware that Blue Moon isn't a microbrewery.
Consumers who aren't that sophisticated probably don't care, and (gasp!)
simply enjoy the way it tastes.

The "right to know who I'm supporting" is the key there. I observe that for a
lot of people these days, the brands that an individual purchases are a matter
of reflecting (or establishing) that individual's own brand identity. " _I use
Chrome on a MacBook, because that SAYS something about me that using Chrome on
a PC wouldn 't_.", etc. I understand that this is a thing, but like many I am
more of a realist by nature and cannot relate at all. The most important
factor in my purchasing decisions is cost-benefit ratio, with a generous
amount of wiggle-room for subjective style considerations. However, I have
zero fucks to give about what a purchase tells other people about my
"identity", and am somewhat baffled by people who do. In my mind, if you're
pretentious enough that you can't enjoy a beer without confirming its
"exclusivity" from major brewers, then it's on you to pull out your phone and
spend 20 seconds looking up the brewer on Wikipedia.

~~~
ptx
> Consumers who aren't that sophisticated probably don't care, and (gasp!)
> simply enjoy the way it tastes.

If all those who cared already knew, then the manufacturers wouldn't have had
to obfuscate it (as it wouldn't make a difference). So if we go with that
assumption, they should just put their name on the bottles, experience no
difference in sales and thus make everyone happy.

~~~
geetee
Assume the mind of a potential new Blue Moon consumer in 1995. You pick up the
bottle and notice it says "From the makers of Coors Light." Do you: A) think
to yourself "This probably tastes like water" and put it down, or B) drink it
without an ounce of bias?

~~~
ptx
That phrasing implies that it's targeted to those who enjoy Coors Light, so I
wouldn't buy it. But there are still many ways to market the product more
honestly.

For example, they could be entirely open about this product being something
new and different but from the same manufacturer. An example of this is Nya
Carnegiebryggeriet, "a collaborative joint venture between Carlsberg Sweden
and Brooklyn Brewery"[1]. They don't try to hide the fact that it's owned by
Carlsberg[2] (4th largest brewery group in the world), but they make it very
clear that it's a different category from their regular lineup.

If that seems to risky, they could sell it under a different brand without
deliberately attempting to deceive customers into thinking it's from a small-
scale craft brewer. Just present the product honestly under a new name without
the misleading bullshit.

[1]
[http://www.nyacarnegiebryggeriet.se/en/brewery/](http://www.nyacarnegiebryggeriet.se/en/brewery/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsberg_Group#Carlsberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsberg_Group#Carlsberg)

------
rdtsc
Well who cares. I like their winter Mountain Abbey ale.

It can still taste good without having been individually brewed by monks in a
monastary some place.

On the topic if beers PBR -- Pabst Blue Ribbon has an interesting story
associated with it. It went from cheap beer considered barely good enough for
cooking, to being the premier hipster drink. You couldn't image a flannel and
tight jean wearing hipster with a PBR in their hand. It was a fantastic
marketing effort, it involved product placement in show, sponsoring of various
events and so on.

~~~
username223
Details on PBR? I get that hipsters like to look like lumberjacks, and that
actual lumberjacks might drink PBR, but I don't know the origins of the
hipster angle. It's dirt cheap, but it tastes awful enough that I rarely even
drink it for free.

~~~
akbar501
For some it was Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, "Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst
Blue Ribbon!".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeWUXV89w0g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeWUXV89w0g)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/quotes](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/quotes)

------
obstinate
I've never heard of blue moon referred to as a craft beer. I always had the
sense that it was only a step down from bud light in terms of corporateness.

~~~
nkozyra
Same.

It may have been considered a notch above the normal macros maybe 15 years
ago, before the whole craft thing went _really_ nuts, but never itself a craft
beer.

Hell, it was nationally distributed, available in every grocery store in the
United States.

This is not a unique scenario. InBev owns Leffe and Goose Island, for example.

~~~
bydo
Goose Island and (especially) Leffe were both extant brands before being
acquired by InBev, which is a bit different from Coors creating the Blue Moon
myth of whole cloth. InBev's most direct analogue is Shock Top, the packaging
of which also avoids any mention of its parentage.

Regarding Blue Moon: in the US, at least, their marketing seems dedicated to
working in the word "craft" as frequently as possible. I imagine it isn't
actually legal for it to be marketed as a "craft beer," as that's a controlled
term, but they certainly use both words in isolation.

~~~
ben1040
>I imagine it isn't actually legal for it to be marketed as a "craft beer," as
that's a controlled term

On that note, Boston Beer Co (the ones behind Sam Adams) had been pushing for
changes to the definition of "craft beer" so their mass-market beer could
still fall under that heading. Specifically the 6mm barrel threshold mentioned
in the Pricenomics article.

[http://beerpulse.com/2011/01/brewers-association-enacts-
sam-...](http://beerpulse.com/2011/01/brewers-association-enacts-sam-adams-
provision-as-brewery-nears-threshold/)

~~~
ghaff
I didn't realize there was an official definition. Interestingly, at the time
Sam Adams and other brews that were a step up from the mass market lagers in
the US, as I recall a distinction started being draw between craft beers (Sam
Adams, Harpoon, Anchor Steam, etc.) and microbrews--where microbrews were the
very small local brews with limited distribution.

As I remember things, this first microbrew movement (as well as something of a
homebrewing fad) sort of declined but it's more recently really roared back in
force. On trend I've noticed recently is the big "craft" brewers like Sam
Adams and Sierra Nevada have really expanded their lineups and come out with
all sorts of limited time as well as higher-end products like barleywines.

------
brc
I'm not sure of the point of this article. Are they criticising the strategy?
Are they praising it?

It seems fair enough to me, as long as it's not just coors light with a
different brand. To me this is no different than Toyota developing the Lexus
brand because people wouldn't pay big money for Toyotas.

After 72 quarters of growth, I think it's fair to assume that people buy it
because they like the taste, not because they hide the parent company.

~~~
300bps
_I think it 's fair to assume that people buy it because they like the taste_

I drink Blue Moon. I like the taste but I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb
enough to fall for marketing campaigns. In this case, Coors expertly marketed
the product to my demographic and it provoked a strong reaction in me to buy
it. Personally I'm fine with all this.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Funnily enough, I was fooled by the marketing, but only around two years ago,
when it first started being sold in Ireland.

I did find out from a friend (who's a brewer) that it was produced by Coors,
which I didn't like.

I still kept drinking it though, as its a nice beer. Honestly though, if I had
known it was Coors before I tried it, I probably wouldn't have.

So, yeah, marketing works or something, I guess? :)

------
beloch
The main advantage megabrewers have over craft brewers is economy of scale. If
Coors can crank out Blue Moon in volume and price it below a similar craft
beer, then they've got a viable market. If they're pricing Blue Moon the same
as similar craft beers, then their margins are much wider than the craft
brewers.

If a mock-craft beer and a craft beer taste equally good and cost the same,
it's a good idea to support diversity by buying the craft brew. The critics
seem to agree Blue Moon is one of the best beers Coors makes, and craft
brewers are to thank for pressuring Coors to produce decent beer.

------
leeoniya
call me crazy, but i drink Blue Moon and other beers because of the taste -
which is nothing like Coors Light - not because i indiscriminately flock to
craft beers. i'll pay more because it tastes better, not because of some
story.

i'm in Breckenridge now, maybe I'll get a Coors factory tour in Golden and
thank them for making a beer that doesn't taste like piss.

~~~
tghw
Definitely do the tour. I walked away from it with a respect for Coors. They
have some great environmental practices, they run AC Golden pretty much
independently, which produces some awesome microbrews, and they've kept at
least some identity with the company that Adolf Kors started.

When you're in the tasting room, ask for Colorado Native, which is sourced
locally and only sold in Colorado, and Batch 19.

~~~
leeoniya
thanks for the tips, guys.

i actually spotted a Colorado Native pack at the Safeway here, i'll grab it in
the next few.

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onethree
_But both countries’ products -- and all of Blue Moon’s products world-wide,
for that matter -- share one thing in common: nowhere on the packaging is
there any indication that the beer is a product of MillerCoors, the second-
largest brewer in the United States._

It says quite clearly on the back label on the australian bottles that it's
brewed by Coors

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jdavis703
Honestly it doesn't matter. It tastes good and that's what's important. As
long as my beverages and food aren't producded in an unethical manner I really
don't care if it comes from a small or large firm.

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spacehome
> “If a company is proud of itself and also wants to let a beer be judged on
> its merits, then I see no reason why that company should not clearly boast
> of its provenance.”

It sounds exactly like CoorsMiller wants Blue Moon to be judged based on its
merits.

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korethr
I've been drinking Blue Moon for years, and I didn't think there was any
secret or mystery to the fact that Coors was behind it. Furthermore,
reflecting on this, I'm pretty sure I discovered that shortly after I
discovered the beer. I guess I assumed everyone else knew as well.

I'm not sure it's something worth getting upset about. It tastes good, so I
drink it when I'm in the mood for a sweet wheat ale with a hint of orange
flavor. IMO, that's the most important criteria for a beer, be it a some mass
produced product, a limited release from some forgotten mountain monestary or
anywhere between. It has to taste good.

I am mildy curious if it is brewed in the same brewery in Golden, or if the
subsidiary mentioned in the article has another site and brewery of their own.
I shall have to investigate this and see if they do tours.

~~~
tghw
I think it is brewed in Golden (they do most of their beers for the US there).
As I mentioned elsewhere, the tour is well worth it. Ask about AC Golden and
try Colorado Native and Batch 19.

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duey
This is really common in Australia - I've found the biggest giveaway of a
fake-craft brand is that the alcohol content is generally 4.8% (which just
happens to be the governments definition of a full-strength beer).

~~~
jacques_chester
Australia goes further. Several "foreign" beers are actually domestically
brewed under licence and sold for juicy markups.

~~~
ics
In the US, where I buy Japanese beers, all are either brewed in the US or
Canada under license. If it's brewed in Canada, it's marked up as _imported_.
I doubt it's any different in other countries or for other brands.

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joezydeco
I'd like to know how you get something viral to happen with beer drinkers like
the ritual of putting an orange slice on a Blue Moon. I've seen people
actually get upset when they're handed a draft without it...like the brewer
ships mandatory oranges with the kegs or something.

Kind of like the whole Corona lime-in-the-bottle-neck thing. Nobody knows or
remembers how it started (or so they say).

~~~
slouch
It's as simple as their marketing images have an orange slice.

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kalleboo
Interesting marketing case.

* Large beer company wants to make a beer with more complex flavor.

* Consumers who enjoy more complex flavors are negatively prejudiced against the large beer company and stereotype their products.

* Large beer company creates separate brand to escape prejudice.

* The question is, can they somehow flip this by slowly adding back their branding in order to improve the value of their main brand.

~~~
healsdata
I don't know if they're really concerned about boosting their main brand with
the craft brands. InBev produced a Budweiser Super Bowl commercial slamming
craft beer, particularly a "pumpkin peach" beer, just a week after they bought
a craft brewer that makes a pumpkin peach beer. That leads me to believe that
their goal is just to have separate brands that target different demographics.

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maxharris
> By obfuscating its brand name on products like Blue Moon, Coors is violating
> the consumer’s right to know who he is supporting, and where his beverage
> comes from.

(I don't think my rights have been violated. They'd have to prevent me from
reading this article in order to do that.)

This is not fundamentally different than this absurdity: _By obfuscating its
brand name on products like the Lincoln Navigator, Ford is violating the
consumer 's right to know who he is supporting, and where his SUV comes from._

I really like Stella Artois and Blue Moon, and it doesn't bother me that
they're brewed by large brewers. What makes a beer good is not the fact that
the company that makes it is of a certain size. I love being able to go to a
bar I've never been to and have at least two good options of last resort if
they don't carry something else that I know I'll like.

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poulsbohemian
I don't really care if big companies buy up smaller breweries - helps increase
distribution and rewards those small brewers who produce a quality product.
What I can't stand though is when they promptly start adulterating the recipe
- I'm looking at you Miller/Leinenkugels! Before you know it, what used to be
a good beer is now nothing but corn and rice filler just like the dull
flavorless mega beers. And, you can't move a brewery to the other side of the
country in the name of corporate consolidation and pretend you are still
brewing the same beer - Olympia wasn't kidding when they said "It's in the
water!" and Milwaukee ain't the same as Tumwater!

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vasilipupkin
Clearly, it's a different product than watered down budweiser style beer. I am
not sure I ever cared personally who brewes it. It's decent beer. If a big co
makes a decent product, great.

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brianbreslin
In school we're doing a case study on Coors and Anheuser Busch Inbev, and
effectively any "premium" beers sold by the big beer companies are the same
cost to make as the lite versions. They price them higher because of higher
perceived value by the consumer.

~~~
dpeck
I find that a little hard to believe as the lite version tend to use a lot of
cheaper and less flavorful grain (corn, rice, etc) as adjunct to get the sugar
levels up for fermentation instead of costlier malted barley.

Big enough difference in price between those for those to make a difference in
production cost. This assumes that premium lines tend to be higher in
flavor/alcohol than the lite versions, which isn't always true (see Budweisers
line) but enough for generalization.

~~~
aliston
There are other aspects of brewing American lagers that could make them more
expensive than typical microbrewed ales. For one, you have to refrigerate
lagers and they take longer to ferment. I know Budweiser has some steps after
fermentation that I could see adding cost as well.

For all the hype around microbrews, it actually takes a lot more effort to
brew Coors-type beer than your typical hopped up microbrew IPA. There's less
room for error because there is less to mask off flavors.

To be honest, I am surprised that the American macro brews haven't touted the
craft and history of making their style of beer. The American lager style is
really a Bavarian style beer that is 100+ years old -- and its surprisingly
difficult to brew.

~~~
dpeck
From a process control point of view I've always thought the master brewers
doing huge batch american light lagers are very impressive. There is really no
room to hide anything there and the people buying your product have likely
been doing so for years.

Repeatable, precision, and incredible quality control willing to dump the last
batch if its not right.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This is hardly unique to beer, of course. It's not uncommon to find that the
little, local café you like? It's a chain, owned by a major supermarket. That
"traditional" apple juice/lemonade you liked? It's owned by Coca-Cola/PepsiCo.

~~~
shalmanese
I think there are two categories here though. Small craft operations that got
acquired by large conglomerates and large conglomerates deliberately creating
a sub-brand to appear craft.

Starbucks, for example, opened several coffee shops in Seattle that appeared
to be local independents and beared no starbucks branding.

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geetee
I think this article says more about the mind of a quick-to-judge consumer
than the corporations that brew and sell the beer.

------
leeoniya
full list:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Molson_Coors_brands](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Molson_Coors_brands)

