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It’s no secret that big beer companies are struggling, that millennials are leaving beer on the table and migrating to wine and spirits.
And Big Beer’s answer to this ongoing decline seems to be introducing new beers that don’t taste much like beer….for people that probably don’t love beer to begin with.
Natural Light Naturdays
Just last week, Anheuser-Busch, home to the Natural Light launched Naturdays, a strawberry lemonade-flavored beer primed for the spring break crowd.
From its pink-and-yellow can with designer flamingos, to its pink lemonade -like fruity flavor, Naturdays is a significant departure from the Natty Light brand, a low- alcohol day-drinking beer, that doesn’t taste like beer, for men and women in their early 20s who aren’t necessarily beer believers.
Daniel Blake, Anheuser-Busch’s Senior Director of Value Brands, told the Business Insider that it’s targeted at Millennials and Gen Zers…
“It’s definitely people who are non-beer drinkers…people who might not like the taste of beer, but with something that might have more of a fruit flavor, they might be interested.”
“I think what we found is beers that have the fruit flavor and [are] still refreshing and super sessionable can appeal to a lot of different people.”
‘We’re trying to get people to rethink beer — especially people who maybe have dismissed beer and moved away. And we think with Naturdays, the refreshing blend of a strawberry lemonade, we have a winner.”
Bud Light Lime, Bud Light Orange and Bud Light Lemon Tea
And Naturdays isn’t Anheuser-Busch’s only attempt at beer geared for non-beer people.
In 2018, AB InBev launched Bud Light Orange and Lime… light lagers that are brewed with real lime and orange peels and clearly targeted at a young-end audience…
Andy Goeler, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, was all about spreading the ‘less beer-like’ word…
“Our millennial consumers are eager to try new, flavored options in the light lager category. We wanted to create something new to engage with these consumers.”
And building on the success of Bud Light Orange in particular, Anheuser-Busch appears poised to release Bud Light Lemon Tea soon, a 4.2% lager brewed for consumers more comfortable with iced tea than beer.
Bottom Line
Whether Anheuser-Busch’s strategy proves sound or not we’ll just have to see. But it does strike us as a bit ironic to see mass-market brewers looking to attract a new beer audience by brewing beers that actively appeal to people who don’t appreciate beer to begin with …just sayin.’
