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There’s nothing like slumping sales to encourage inventiveness among the America’s mega-breweries. Even in the bear market, craft beer sales rose 7.2 percent last year, while shipments of corporate piss-water declined by five million barrels. The fact is, people are willing to shell out a little more for a good brew.
Chicago-based MillerCoors, a conglomerate 42-percent owned by the even bigger conglomerate Molson Coors, is hoping its latest offering might plug the leak of drinkers moving from beers like Miller Light (down 6.5 percent last year) to tastier craft beers. The solution? It plans to resuscitate a pre-Prohibition recipe dating from 1919. Called “Batch 19,” the brew is not yet available, but will be test marketed next month in Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and, yes, Washington D.C.
It doesn’t necessarily follow that a beer made from an old recipe will taste any better, of course, but we’re curious to try Batch 19, if only once.
Photo by Leo Reynolds used under a Creative Commons license