What the hell is a Snow Beer?
Snow Beer is a pale lager, just like all the other “popular” beers, produced by China Resources Breweries Limited. The Chinese brand is a beer which few have heard of, let alone ever tasted. In fact the beer only has three reviews on BeerAdvocate, the highest review being a D- (bonus points if you can guess what the other two ratings were). For perspective, Coors Non-Alcoholic beer has a D+ rating. Keystone Light also has a D- rating. Naturally since Snow Beer is a pale lager and it has horrible ratings, it has become the number one produced beer in the world.It took a while to find China Resources Breweries Limited, but as soon as I found it I wish I hadn’t. The page itself isn’t that bad, but the cheesy annoying music in the background is really out of place for a corporate website. The site is in Chinese, so there wasn’t much information I could glean. The beer is as unknown as you can get.
How much Snow Beer are they making?
The unknown beer has sold 51.2 million hectoliters, besting Bud Light’s 48.4 hectoliters according to the U.K.-based market-research firm Canadean Ltd. If you ask another research firm in the U.K., Plato Logic, Bud Light produced 51.8 million hectoliters. I’m not sure why the two count differently, but I usually find it hard to count after 5 beers too.Before you accept Plato Logic’s numbers, remember the Chinese brand grew at a 22% rate at the beginning of this year. If they don’t win 2007, they are a shoe in to win this year. The Bud Light brand is barely growing at all. For a beer no one outside of China has heard of, this is an insane amount to produce.
Who’s drinking the Snow swill?
Most of the beer is consumed within the Chinese market, demonstrating the power of sheer numbers. The Chinese drink less beer per person than other countries, but there are a heck lot more of them drinking. As a country no country drinks more beer. China is the largest beer market in the world.Why aren’t they drinking Bud Light?
The Chinese brewer is making about $2 USD per hectoliter of beer. Compare that to the $50-$60 USD per hectoliter Budweiser is making. The American Belgian brand cannot compete with China Resources Breweries Limited on their home turf. Bud Light is just too expensive.
The beer growth is also attributed to their distribution network which they started building six years ago. They also purchased various breweries across China which has allowed the brewer to increase production. The production was one tenth of the current production six years ago. The combination of the network and purchased breweries has helped them meet the demand of China’s growing market.
So move over Bud Light and welcome our new Chinese beer overlords. Snow Beer is the number one beer in the world. Long live the king of beers.
(Source: Wall Street Journal)
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