Blasting the Cap Off the Beer Business

To the greedy, bad-mouthing, devious, manipulative, throat-cutting brewing industry, Philip Van Munching is a terminal hangover: a third-generation beer executive with a journalism degree.

In “Beer Blast” (Times Books), he blows the froth off the domestic Big Three (Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors) with the precise reportage Ralph Nader used to indict that other domestic Big Three--but with more wit and civility, and with no darker downside than yesterday’s rumormongering about urine in Corona and the exploitation of inner cities through gangsta rap advertising of malt liquors.

“I played the beer game for just under 10 years, as the son and grandson of very successful players,” writes Van Munching, former director of corporate communications and advertising for Van Munching & Co. Inc., importer of Heineken and Amstel. “I stayed in because the beer game turned out to be a great deal of fun, in much the same way the demolition derby is fun. Or professional wrestling.”

Because what other business involves billion-dollar sales of a legally mind-altering substance? Or image-based advertising based on a bull terrier named Spuds MacKenzie (real name: Honey Tree Evil Eye, and guilty of suffocating flatulence when traveling by limousine), guitarist Eric Clapton (who was in an alcohol rehab center when his Budweiser commercials first were screened) and football Hall of Famer Bubba Smith (who quit promoting beer as a matter of conscience when homecoming students--too young to drink in local taverns--began shouting less-filling Miller Lite slogans instead of cheering Michigan State)?

“There is a reason you cannot turn on your television, go to a concert or ball game, or even take a drive without being assaulted by beer commercial messages,” writes Van Munching. “Big brewers, desperately afraid of what the other guy might do next, have advertised, promoted and generally spent themselves into the frenzied overkill that is today’s beer business.”

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This book is happily light on industry statistics and delightfully rich in anecdotes. Van Munching plots the brewing wars with the low-alcohol beers, no-alcohol beers, dry beers, draft beers, wine coolers, all the light beers, ice beers and clear beers that were the campaigns. He analyzes the colossal flop of Coors’ Zima that, said Fortune magazine, tasted like “tonic water, antifreeze, and crushed Sweet Tart candies mixed with skunked Molson.”

He details the deterioration of an icon--this macho Bud that once was for us--as a new guard switched advertising from the dignity of Clydesdales to talking bullfrogs. Just for the change of it.

“Beer Blast” offers more leaks than the washroom at Schlitz.

* If you thought Foster’s Lager is Australian for beer, mate, it actually is made in Canada. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is brewed under contract in Pittsburgh. But, a label printed with words like “Brewer” and “Patriot” oozes nobility and may be considered a marketing masterpiece. It helps, adds Van Munching, that Boston Lager is a terrific beer.

* Rumors--although never acknowledged--of racism, sexism, donations to Oliver North’s Contras and homophobia among management of Coors led Paul Newman to switch publicly to Budweiser. In the process, he gained a sponsor for his race car.

* Amstel Light is imported from Holland while regular Amstel stays in Europe. Without a parent brand, Amstel Light is not considered a watered-down brew of something else--and women have flocked to a beer that isn’t a diluted version of their date’s drink.

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The book definitely is a quick lesson in how importers and microbrewers, the Becks and the Red Hooks, are flattening the Goliaths of guzzling by marketing quality ales that have become inexpensive badges of good taste--as telling on young adults as a Mercedes sport utility and Fila tennis socks.

Van Munching tells why--decades after a few new big brewers put hundreds of old tiny brewers out of business--the small importers and boutique microbreweries have returned as beerbarians at the gate. He says the Big Three have bought into their own hype. After the genuine revolution of light beer, the majors failed to support a product people desired--and started believing they had manufactured the desire.

Marketers have assumed more importance than salesmen. Growth has become something mapped out in a boardroom, not won bar by bar, city by city. And a business basic, explains Van Munching, has been defiled.

“Brands like Samuel Adams and Pete’s Wicked have enjoyed a good run for exactly the reason Starbucks Coffee has found success in recent years,” he says. “The big boys lost the romance of the product.

“Beer, like coffee, is a ritual. Beer is pleasure. Like most pleasures, it is taken very seriously by the people who use it.”

Cheers.