San Diego Brewers Guild

Light beer makes headway

Michael Stetz

Will it only be a matter of time before the San Marcos-based Stone Brewing Co. answers by producing, along with its Arrogant Bastard Ale, a product called Slightly Less Arrogant Bastard Ale?

Or will Chico-based Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. create a new version of Bigfoot Ale, labeled Not-Quite-as-Big-as Bigfoot Ale?

Samuel Adams is doing what Miller and Budweiser and Coors did long ago. It's making a beer with a third fewer calories than its regular beer. It has taken its flagship product and gone Jenny Craig with it.

And some beer lovers aren't exactly bellying up to the bar over this recent product-line expansion.

That's because Samuel Adams -- while more corporate and big-market minded than community-based micro-breweries -- helped fuel the growth of this niche industry by putting a hearty, full-bodied beer on the national market.

By going light, Samuel Adams is reacting to beer drinkers' changing habits. For the first time, the best-selling beer last year was not Budweiser. It was Bud Light.

But many craft-beer makers are sticking to their guns.

"If my mother was tied up and held ransom, I might think about making a light beer. For a minute. Mom would understand," said Greg Koch, CEO and co-founder of Stone Brewing.

"No, never," said Mike Mellow, co-owner of the Ballast Point Brewing Co., when asked if his San Diego-based micro-brewery would go light.

Sierra Nevada? "We won't," said Steve Harrison, vice president.

The Boston Beer Co., maker of Samuel Adams beers, doesn't believe it's doing anything sacrilegious. It created the product to show the big beer companies that a light beer can be high quality and good tasting, said company president Jim Koch.

"We're making a truly good light beer," he said. "We're finally giving the light-beer drinkers an option."

San Diego is one of only a few cities serving as a test market for the new beer. Koch hopes to go national with it soon.

Not everybody believes the move is consistent with the company's roots, though. Koch even admitted that he once produced an ad that said: "Never a Sam Light."

"I'm literally drinking those words," he said.

The move caught some craft-beer makers by surprise. "We thought it was quite unusual," Mellow said. "It's like they're pulling a 180."

The craft-beer market, though, is limited. The major beer producers control 97 percent of U.S. sales and have the clout to keep competitors at bay with their huge advertising budgets and distribution power.

The big brewers also have been aggressive in marketing their light products, which make up 44 percent of all beer sales, according to the Adams Beer Handbook, which tracks the industry. In 1993, that figure was 35 percent.

Rhonda Kallman is jumping on the bandwagon, and she's unapologetic about it. The co-founder of the Boston Beer Co., who is now the maker of Edison Light, says her new beer is of higher quality than mass-produced light beer, but is still a "grab and gulp."

"It's an industry and you look at what's growing," said Kallman, whose brewing company is based in Hingham, Mass.

Unlike older beer drinkers who may see light beers as a compromise, younger drinkers don't, she said. The newer generation has never known a beer aisle that didn't boast some sort of light brew.

It was the saturation of similar-tasting, big-name domestic beers that helped cause the proliferation of micro-breweries in the late 1980s and '90s. Craft-beer makers saw an opportunity to give beer drinkers an alternative. And, seemingly overnight, beer drinkers had a wealth of new, bold, varying products from which to choose.

Area breweries say they remain vibrant. And they argue that their beers aren't all that more filling than light beers. The difference in calories is only a few potato chips, they say.

Even though the Boston Beer Co. grew to be much larger than the average craft brewery -- causing some traditionalists to dismiss the company -- its aggressiveness helped the craft-beer revolution.

It advertised nationally the concept that higher-quality beers were available, and you didn't have to buy one in a green bottle brewed in Holland.

And it is not the first craft-beer maker to create a light product, either. Local brewery Karl Strauss produces a light beer, for instance.

While the president of the San Diego Beer Society, Chris Geiser, said hardcore beer drinkers will be quick to criticize Samuel Adams Light, he thinks the product is a good idea.

Anything that helps educate average Americans about beer is a good thing, he said. A person may try a Sam Adams Light, like it, then try a Sam Adams lager, like it, and then experiment with other craft brands.

Personally, though, he has no interest in downing one.

"Not unless you buy one for me."
Michael Stetz: (619) 542-4570; michael.stetz@uniontrib.com

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