Beer & Me

Admittedly there’s quite a gap between them but there’s no denying that Schlafly is this Midwestern city’s second biggest brewer behind Anheuser Busch Inbev.

And the gap is growing smaller.

There are a couple of recent news stories that put an interesting light on the comparison of these two breweries. The first came out a few weeks ago when ABI announced a stunning 95% loss in profits for the fourth quarter of 2008. No, it’s not a typo. Almost universally the second line of the stories with this stunning news explains that the loss is the result of accounting for the purchase of Anheuser-Busch by Inbev. So, it’s jut an accounting thing, right?

Keep reading. Further down we learn that the mega beer company still lost 2% in sales last year. This continues a trend that we’ve been seeing for a while now - big beer continues to lose sales despite all of their efforts to turn things around.

Now, let’s look at Schlafly’s sales. They are going gangbusters. The regional brewer enjoyed significant growth in 2008, so much so that they are expanding their brewing capacity to 11,000 barrels more than the 24,000 they produced last year.

See, when Inbev bought A-B, Schlafly became the biggest locally owned brewery in St. Louis. It might still be the second biggest brewer but that distinction of locally owned is important to St. Louis drinkers. They might not have been given a vote when the Busch family was considering Inbev’s offer but they’re voting now with their dollars.