Beer Woes Drive Bud to the Hard Stuff

Things haven't been going so well for the beer industry lately as more and more people put down their suds turn to hard liquor. As we reported last fall, Anheuser Busch is still planning a move into the spirits category to try to make up for some of their lost sales.

"The loss of beer volume to wine and hard liquor has accelerated in recent years," company president August Busch IV told a liquor industry group earlier this month.

"And if this trend continues, we at Anheuser-Busch will have to reevaluate our business model going forward in terms of expanding beyond beer and broadening our position within the total alcohol industry," Busch told the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators, according to a transcript of the speech.

Anheuser-Busch is simply trying to remain relevant with consumers that are constantly searching for interesting products, said Benj Stein, whose beer industry newsletter reported Busch's comments last month.

So it won't be a total move away from that frothy, tasteless brew you drank in college - consider it more of dipping a toe in the hard liquor pool. Called "Jekyll and Hyde," Bud's first booze is two separate liquors designed to be mixed together and drunk, or apparently mixed with beer. All we know is we hope it tastes better than their trip into alcoholic energy drinks, because we still throw up in our mouths a little bit when we think about Tilt.

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