Month: October 2015

  • Remember, diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs….

      It is certainly safe to say that today’s beer wholesaler is not your father’s beer wholesaler!  Long removed from the wholesale model is the small mom and pop middle tier representing one brewery and one, maybe two brands.  If mom and pop planned it correctly, and had a little luck, they are now living […]

  • I have no idea what’s next. I simply don’t have a clue.

    In 1970, when Philip Morris bought Miller Brewing Co. neither those within the beer industry or outside the industry, had any clue just what PM would do with the newly acquired company.  Phillip Morris put their marketing muscle, which had been so successful in the cigarette industry, into the brewery and the rest is history. […]

  • Face – Place – Story…

    One day, during my first summer on a Coors beer route, we were finishing our work with a liquor store in downtown Dallas. I stood by a stack of Miller High Life, with the salesman writing the delivery bill, when the store owner looked my way and commented on the Miller.  He said that that […]

  • The opportunity is often lost by deliberating.

    As expected, ABInBev has done the homework necessary to buy SABMiller.  The old truism has again comes to light:  everything is for sale if the price is right.  Majority owners of SABMiller, including Altria, stand to substantially benefit by selling to ABI, just as the shareholders of AB profited in 2008 when purchased by InBev. […]