Anheuser-Busch Still Doesn't Get It

In a market dominated, unfortunately, by bland beers churned out by corporate monoliths, the big fella in St. Louis is trying to put out some better beer. Well, sort of.

As the Post-Dispatch reports today, A-B is going to kick it "old school" with one of its signature brands, Michelob.

Link: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/story/B29E9DAD87C0AC058625727C00135AFF?OpenDocument

I like that Michelob is going back to its signature bottle, but the reporter describes it curiously as a "teardrop" design. Huh? If anything, the bottle always reminded me of Mae West, and that's a good thing (Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_West). Besides some exceptional females, men still mostly drink "Michelob heavy," so the move to the old curvaceous bottle makes sense.

The Atkins-induced Michelob Ultra is a subject for different rant though.

Taking Michelob back to all malted barley is a move I applaud, but will this really make a dent in the craft brewers' rising market share? Part of the reason people drink Red Hook or Sierra Nevada or Pete's Wicked or Schlafly or Boulevard is that those beers have so much more flavor and body than the industrial brews.

Michelob will certainly have more body with all barley malt, but if the hops quotient and quality is not revised, it'll just be an industrial brew with a bigger body and simplistic flavor. It's not a revamping of Michelob as the article asserts; it's a feeble change to a beer that's not doing well.

Cool bottle though.