Budweiser responds to ad backlash

Budweiser is standing by its Super Bowl advertisement that's caused an uproar in the craft brewing community.

The 60-second ad titled "Brewed the Hard Way" proclaimed Budweiser was not "brewed to be fussed over," that Budweiser is "brewed for drinking and not dissecting" and closed with the message of "let them sip their pumpkin peach ale."

Budweiser, which also aired a popular puppies and Clydesdale horses Super Bowl ad called "Lost Dog," is owned by the multi-national company Anheuser-Busch InBev.

"Brewed the Hard Way is Budweiser's way of celebrating being a MACRO brew: a beer enjoyed by many," Budweiser vice president of marketing Brian Perkins said in an email Thursday.

"The prevailing discourse in beer is that small must be good, and big must be bad. We don't accept that. Lager is one of the most difficult styles to brew well, and we have the highest standards of care to get it right. We are owning who we are without apology."

Craft breweries and craft beer fans took to social media to voice their displeasure over the "pumpkin peach ale" advertisement.

The most common responses from the official Budweiser Twitter handle were: "We are not anti-craft. Just pro-Bud!" and "We like all beers, but we celebrate golden suds!"

The film production company Hop Stories, which works closely with the craft beer industry in the Pacific Northwest, released a popular rebuttal to the advertisement on its YouTube account.

"We've been blown away by (the response). We never expected it to go viral," said Hop Stories executive producer Eric Buist. "It was more like 'Hey, Budweiser is picking on us, let's make something that promotes craft beer.' "

Buist said he watched the advertisement live.

"I turned to my wife and said 'This is ripping on craft beer, I feel kind of offended,' " Buist said.

Many breweries vowed to launch their own pumpkin peach ale, and Minneapolis home brewing supply store Northern Brewer released a 5-gallon pumpkin peach ale kit this week called the Peach of Resistance.

Pumpkin peach ale happens to be a specialty of Seattle-based Elysian Brewing — a craft brewery that was purchased by Anheuser-Busch InBev at the end of January.

Elysian Brewing co-founder Dick Cantwell emailed a response to Super Bowl advertisement to the Chicago Tribune that read: "I find it kind of incredible that ABI would be so tone-deaf as to pretty directly (even if unwittingly) call out one of the breweries they have recently acquired, even as that brewery is dealing with the anger of the beer community in reaction to the sale. It doesn't make our job any easier, and it certainly doesn't make me feel any better about a deal I didn't even want to happen. It's made a difficult situation even more painful."

Other craft breweries Anheuser-Busch InBev has recently purchased includes Goose Island of Chicago, Blue Point of Long Island, New York and 10 Barrel of Bend, Oregon.

The craft beer boom has been putting a serious dent in Budweiser's sales.

According to a New York Post article, Budweiser sales have plummeted from its peak of 50 million barrels in 1988 to 16 million barrels in 2014.

More recently, studies released by the national Colorado-based Brewers Association say Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors have collectively lost about 20 million barrels of beer in sales since 2008.

Also, an Anheuser-Busch InBev research poll identified that 44 percent of 21- to 27-year-olds have never tried Budweiser.

Still, Budweiser isn't budging on the message of its ad.

"We're delighted to have sparked a conversation around beer," Perkins said in the email. "Talking with beer drinkers since Sunday, we know the overwhelming majority are really enjoying seeing Budweiser speak up with conviction. This Bud's for them."

For more beer news follow Jake Laxen on Twitter @jacoblaxen.

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