Burger makes a comeback Old Cincinnati brand finds new markets
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Jon Newberry Post contributor
Burger beer, one of the last surviving brands from Cincinnati's heyday as a major brewing center, is making a comeback. After years of steady decline, Burger sales are rising again. Estimated 2002 sales will be more than 20 percent higher than in 2001, nearing 100,000 cases.
Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Co., owner of the Burger brand, repackaged and reformulated what are now known as Burger Classic and Burger Light in 2001 in a last-ditch effort to rescue the label from oblivion. It's moved the old Cincinnati brand into promising markets with new distributors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Although sales were essentially flat this year in its hometown market, several of the new markets got off to impressive starts. Volume in Wisconsin is expected to top 15,000 cases in 2002, up from nothing in 2000. In Michigan, where there were no Burger sales in 2001, volume has already surpassed 10,000 cases this year.
Sales growth next year could reach 50 percent or more, as more consumers see it in stores and try it, said Paul Abrams, communications director for Hudepohl-Schoenling.
Since Sam Adams stopped making Hudepohl-Schoenling products under contract in spring 2001, Burger has been brewed in LaCrosse, Wis.
Abrams said freight costs limit how far they can ship it from there and still make money, given the thin margins of discount-priced beer, so the company is looking into having it made at breweries closer to East Coast and Southeast markets.
That would provide even more potential for sales growth in 2003.
Hudepohl-Schoenling decided to remake Burger as a more distinctive brand with more body and flavor than most mainstream American beers, Abrams said. It ended up with a formula that's very close to the one that was used in the 1960s, when Burger was a popular local beer made by then-independent Burger Brewing Co.
Hudepohl-Schoenling also redesigned the cans, opting for a bolder blue and red color scheme for the renamed Burger Classic. Burger Light got a silver can because research showed that's what consumers look for when shopping for a light beer.
"If you don't do something to stir the pot a little every now and then, people forget you're out there," Abrams said. "The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive."
Beer Capitol Distributing of Waukesha, Wis. is one of the Wisconsin distributors handling the brand, said Mike Merriman, general manager. He mostly handles imports along with a few domestic brands to round out the product line, Merriman said. When it dropped another domestic line last year, it put out feelers to small brewers, looking for a discount-priced beer to replace it. Hudepohl-Schoenling was one, since the distributor already handled its Little Kings Cream Ale.
"We were just lucky to stumble onto this one," Merriman said.
His sales force enjoys selling Burger because it irritates their counterparts who peddle better-known brands when packages of heretofore-unknown Burger turn up in retailers' coolers, crowding out someone else's brand or brands. And Burger has been able to post sales numbers that are good enough to hold its shelf space.
"In a world where there's a lot of pressure every day, it's a fun brand to sell," Merriman said.
Mike Pessler, warehouse manager at Pessler Distributing Co. in Sayler Park on Cincinnati's West Side, said the remake of Burger and Burger Light hasn't helped much yet in his territory, but it didn't hurt sales either.
When a brewer alters an established beer, there's a fear of a drop in sales, he said. "A drop-off is the first thing you worry about."
In any case, flat sales are pretty good results these days, since the trend for most brands has been sales declines.
Some of Pessler's customers have told him the new Burger tastes like it did in the 1970s, when it was more popular. He thinks the decision to change it was a good idea because Burger's packaging hadn't changed in about 30 years. Most of the core Burger drinkers aren't around anymore, have switched to something else, or aren't drinking as much as they used to, he said.
Now it's a matter of getting the word out about the taste, especially next spring, Pessler said.
Publication Date: 12-02-2002