A new organic lager [1], Wild Hop, is turning up in a few carefully chosen cities around the country. Organic [1] microbrew sales may be miniscule, but they’re rising faster than a hastily drawn draft beer; Green Valley Brewing, the company test marketing Wild Hop, hopes to tap into this trend with Wild Hop and a second organic brew, the soon-to-be-launched Stone Mill Pale Ale.
Never heard of Green Valley Brewing Company? Maybe you’re more familiar with its parent company, Anheuser-Busch. Wild Hop is brewed at Anheuser Busch’s St. Louis brewery, but nothing on the label reveals its parentage [2]. Stone Mill Pale Ale comes from Anheuser-Busch’s Portsmouth, New Hampshire brewery, but it’s being promoted as a product of Crooked River Brewing Company of New Hampshire.
Why not just come out with an organic Budweiser? Patrick McGauley, Budweiser’s vice president for product development, explained to the San Francisco Chronicle that Wild Hop and Stone Mill are aimed at “more affluent, highly educated, more high-end shoppers,” the kind of people who are willing to spend a few dollars more for organic.
“I’m not describing a Bud Light drinker,” McGauley continued. “I’m describing a new customer.” Hear that, Joe Six-pack? This Bud-based beer’s not for you.
Ted Vivaston, whose Eel River Brewing Company was one of the first organic microbrews, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Anheuser-Busch may have a hard time duplicating the populist, grassroots appeal of organic microbrews like Eel River, whose customers tend to be unconventional consumers.
“They’re not doing this for the love of organics,” Vivaston observed. “They’re just doing this for market share.” He acknowledged, however, that smaller companies such as his could benefit if Budweiser makes a big splash in the small pond of microbrews. “If Budweiser comes out and does this, a whole lot more consumers are going to say hey, maybe there’s something to this whole organic beer thing. And they’ll buy more and that’s good for me.”
It could be good for organic barley farmers, too. Not to mention all those progressive pubcrawlers looking for a lager to go with their 100% organic cigarettes [3].