In the summer of 1996, while working at Gambrinus, I was asked to spend two days with Andrew Oland, who was a member of the family who owns Moosehead in St. Johns. Andrew at the time was getting his MBA at Harvard, and his summer assignment was to research US beer importers. Moosehead was looking for a new importer for the US, and this project worked out well for both Andrew and Moosehead.
Andrew and I visited a number of on and off premise accounts looking at all things involving Canadian beers along with Gambrinus products, Corona and Shiner. We went through all the reports and information used by Gambrinus, along with various procedures and policies. Moosehead soon made the decision to appoint Gambrinus for the US market, which subsequently led to a 10 year relationship.
After terminating the relationship, Moosehead switched to importing alone with Glenn McDonald as their President. Moosehead has been an independent importer since that termination with Gambrinus took place, and remained independent until the just announced appointment of United States Beverage as their new importer.
In the 1980s, Moosehead was part of All Brands Importer, a company owned by British companies Grand Metropolitan P.L.C. and Whitbred and Company. During this time, Moosehead was highly popular with the college students and used the marketing platform of “The Moose is Loose.” One could find Moosehead bumper stickers and t-shirts all over college campuses.
Guinness bought out All Brands in 1990, which included Moosehead, Dos Equis, Sol, Pilsner Urquell, and Clausthaller. By this time, Moosehead had left the “The Moose is Loose” campaign and now Corona was the hot brand on college campuses. This subsequently led to Moosehead appointing Gambrinus as their importer by the mid-1990s.
In December of 2006, at a meeting in Denver with Glenn, we began discussing the idea of a JV between Moosehead and Warsteiner. The idea behind this was to create a company that had the critical mass to allow both brands the marketing and sales support needed to compete.
After running the initial numbers, it was clear to both of us that a JV between both companies was ideal. Neither brands competed against the other in flavors or price, in the states where Moosehead was strong, Warsteiner was weak; and conversely, where Warsteiner was strong, Moosehead was week. This JV would create a company whose volume was close to 250K HL.
Another meeting was held in Georgia in the spring of 2007 with representatives from Germany and Canada. Warsteiner continued to review other opportunities, including working with USB. A meeting took place in New York shortly after the Georgia meeting. It was decided that USB, while a company with solid marketing experience, did not fit what Warsteiner was looking for at that time.
By the summer, Warsteiner was open to the JV with Moosehead; however management in Canada had decided to go it alone in the US. What looked to be a perfect JV between Moosehead and Warsteiner ended?
Now seven years later, Moosehead is once again appointing a new importer, USB. This could be due to the rapid and continued rise of crafts, or perhaps the desire for more marketing emphasis, but consider that this is the third importer for Moosehead and all the years of self-importing during the last three decades, a pattern of inconsistency definitely emerges. Consistency as Crown or Boston exhibit can be seen in the numbers. Either way what is true is that the early bird gets the worm, however the second mouse gets the cheese!
Beer fodder; www.youtube.com/embed/
On last weeks blog for a follow up on golf’s problems.
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