"The 2011 Anheuser Busch-InBev shareholders meeting on Tuesday was never going to generate news. “We’ll have a press conference but you won’t learn anything,” a spokeswoman said.
First-quarter results are due to be presented on May 4, so the company didn’t want to jump the gun, although the so-called “quiet period” before earnings is a cultural choice, not the law.
What the company did want to talk about was the new alcohol-free drink rolled out by home unit InBev Belgium, the Hoegaarden 0.0. The Real Time Brussels team agreed to taste-test a six-pack, as it did for the Jupiler Force.
The H0, of course, is named after the classic wheat Hoegaarden that says Belgian summer like a day at the beach in Ostende or reading a book in a Brussels park.
Under CEO Carlos Brito, AB Inbev invests considerably in flashy marketing. And the Hoegaarden 0.0 is stylish, with design centered around a Gothic rendition of “0.0”, that looks like two ghost eyes, printed on a light yellow can with white wheat germs.
The verdict on taste was mixed. Your correspondent found the drink akin to a watered-down lemon Fanta. OK — refreshing even — if you know what you’re getting.
“It’s lovely, like a Hoegaarden shandy,” said a female colleague, referring to a beer and soft drink cocktail.
Male colleagues’s reviews were more bitter. “Like sweet dish soap,” said one.
In the end, Mr. Brito said in brief remarks at the press conference, the point of a big beer company is to offer brands for all tastes, or, as he put it, “you want a portfolio [of drinks] that allows consumers to stay within your franchise.”
Anheuser hopes its range of alcohol-free drinks will help its campaign for responsible drinking, and balance out sluggish beer sales in Europe. “Some beverages, like water, and soft drinks,” are doing better than beer, Mr. Brito said" -WSJ.com
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Anheuser Busch-InBev is rolling out a new beer, just in time for the summer. It is a 0.0% abv take on, an actually pretty good beer, Hoegaarden. This article was just too good to not read and laugh at. If anyone has ever had Hoegaarden they know it is a wheat beer made in Belgium. It is also one of those beers that got bought out by InBev-Anheuser Busch a while back and they still sell it under the Hoegaarden name but essentially it is made by Anheuser Busch-InBev, the same people who bring you great beers like Budweiser and Bud Light (definitely being sarcastic). So it comes as no surprise to me that they go ahead and take a fairly good tasting beer and turn it into complete crap.
Some of my favorite parts of the article...
1. When they talk about the flashy marketing that AB InBev is known for: This is kind of a no brainer. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising their beer every single year, because nobody would drink it unless they were force-fed adverts that associate the beer with football, hot chicks, and awesome cars.
2. "It’s lovely, like a Hoegaarden shandy,” said a female colleague, referring to a beer and soft drink cocktail.": First of all, a woman would say this....Second, what the hell is a shandy? I think we should take her talking privileges away.
3. Male colleagues’s reviews were more bitter. “Like sweet dish soap,” said one. <--- That's more like it.
4. "Mr. Brito said in brief remarks at the press conference, the point of a big beer company is to offer brands for all tastes, or, as he put it, “you want a portfolio [of drinks] that allows consumers to stay within your franchise.” : In other words they are going to keep flooding the beer market with horrible beer paired with clever advertising to brainwash the masses and give beer a bad name.
5. "Anheuser hopes [to]... balance out sluggish beer sales in Europe. “Some beverages, like water, and soft drinks,” are doing better than beer." : Easy explanation...people in Europe are smarter than the majority of the people who fall for the AB InBev ads.
Please, save us all form AB InBev. Do your part everyone, support your local craft brewers.
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