Light Beers Get a Heavy Sell On-Premise

Today, the extent to which beer drinkers have seen the light, so to speak, in their embrace of the light beer category is evident in overall consumption data placing sales of domestic light beer at 49 percent of the market.   
    In fact, based on figures compiled by the Beer Institute in Washington, D.C., light beer now actually accounts for more than half, or approximately 53 percent, of the total U.S. volume share when premium imports such as Amstel Light, Corona Light and others are added to domestic receipts.

Guiding Lights
    “The light category in general is very very hot,” says Nick Lake, vice president of business development for The Nielsen Company. “That is where the consumer shift is going. As little as 10 years ago, the light segment was only about a third of the category. It was probably about 2005 that it hit 50 percent.”
    According to Nielsen scanner data, premium sales of light beer reached nearly $7.3 billion in the off-premise channel of the U.S. market for the year ending in March 2007 –– a figure that was up 3.1 percent from the previous year.
     Beer Marketer’s Insight (BMI) Editor Benj Steinman says that while volume growth in the light segment has slowed somewhat, posting only a 2.4 percent increase in 2006 that mirrored the 2 percent overall growth of the beer category itself, there is still good reason to be bullish about light beer.
    “There has been a lot of excitement and a lot of growth in the high-end side,” Steinman says, “with the rollout of Heineken Light, the continued success of Corona Light, and the planned launch of other light beer brands by industry icons such as Tecate.”
    One of the exciting entries of the last year has been Heineken Premium Light, which Heineken USA touts as having broken new ground in 2006 by introducing consumers to the luxurious side of the beer category.
    Even the booming craft end of the beer category, which has witnessed incredible growth in the past few years, in stark contrast to the mother brewing industry as a whole, has taken notice of the success and popularity of light beer.

Brew America
    One well-known Western watering hole where beer sales attest to consumers move toward light brews is Falling Rock in Denver, a beer palace and full-service restaurant located near Coors Field.
    With 75 beers on tap and 130 others available by the bottle, General Manager Chris Black has no doubt about where his customers come down in their preference for beer.
    “Four out of the 130 are light beers, and they make up over 60 percent of the bottle sales,” Black says, noting that it depends on the night and the crowd as to whether Coors Light or Bud Light rules the revenue.
    Black, who offers no lights beers on tap, says Miller Lite and Amstel Light are his other best sellers. And given his limited cold storage space and the drinking habits of his customers, he says that the only new light beer he is likely to add in the near future is Heineken Light.
    Although Budweiser is still king of beers in the domestic category at Manuel’s Tavern, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in business in Atlanta last year, veteran bartender Pat Glass says light beers continue to hold their own with customers.
    “Bud Light is our top seller, and right behind it is Miller Light and Amstel Light,” he says. Among the newer light imports, “I sell a little bit of Heineken and Corona Light.”                       NCB