Boozin’ Blog

According to a recent Gallup poll Americans are choosing beer over wine once again. It was a tight race there for a while but, if one is to believe the results of this survey, beer is back on top.

Why? Oh, sure, let’s go ahead and speculate. For a few years wine was gaining ground as less expensive bottles of not-bad wine were becoming more widely available all of the time. And this to some pretty clever, eye-catching labels and wine was giving beer some pretty stiff competition.

In the meantime the big beer companies were focusing on new ways to sell the same product. (Sure, craft beer was showing impressive growth and exciting the pants off beer geeks like me but in terms of sheer sales dollars it accounted for very little.) Remember the beer case that seconded as an ice chest after the top was ripped off? Or how about the label that turned blue when the beer was cold enough? Somehow, Americans weren’t all that excited by the same watery beer repackaged.

Then the big brewers remembered flavor. They could have looked to craft brewers and maybe they did but as soon as they started added flavor back into their beer their numbers started picking up. Sure, those flavors might be lime, salt and an apologetic imitation of British ale but at least beer is starting to taste of something again.

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