The Big Red Machine in the Sunshine State

Florida. The land of sand. The respite for the retired. And a Democrat's worst nightmare. Florida, indeed, evokes many thoughts and memories for many people. It is a wonderful state to explore, what with it's abundant wildlife (both human and other), its' wonderful, picture-postcard beaches, and its' alluring wintertime getaway for many Americans. Yes, Florida, it would seem, has something for everybody. What about for the beer lover? Well, my fellow beer seekers, I had the experience recently to venture down to the land of many a hanging chad to find out for myself if Floridians drink much beer. Guess what I found out?

I flew down to Tampa recently and stayed with my brother and his wife for five days. Upon arrival to their house in Bradenton (a suburb in the never-ending expanse of the Tampa-St. Pete-Sarasota megapolis), I was greeted by an Anheuser-Busch company vehicle. This van is used by my brother Ray, who is an off-premise (more about this later) salesman for the fourth-largest selling beer distributor in the state of Florida. The distributor warehouse (owned by a semiretired Marine Corps colonel) is located in Sarasota. I was about to get an introduction to just how BIG the influence of Anheuser-Busch is in our beer-loving society, particularly in Florida.

OK. For a moment I need to give y'all an overview of the US Beer market, and the generic breakdown of who controls what. Nationally (to the best of my knowledge), A-B controls roughly 45% of the market, Miller is second (with perhaps around 20%), followed by (I believe) Coors, Stroh's, then Heileman. Together, these "Big Five" control nearly 90-95% of the beer sold in the US. Keep in mind, many imports (Heineken and Kirin, for example) and some micros (Red Hook), are also distributed in America by The Big Five.

In certain areas of our country, however, Anheuser-Busch has a virtual monopoly on the market. Florida is just one of these places. Now earlier I told you that my brother works for the fourth-largest selling distributor in the state. His own sales zone is just the city of Bradenton, but his distributor encompasses Brandeton (pop. 100,000), Sarasota (225,000), the chain of islands just off the west coast, where the population swells between November and April, and smaller communities in the area. Overall, their distributor controls 65% of all beer sales in their market. And they're just number four in the state! Ray told me the number one A-B distributorship in Florida, located in Pensacola, controls nearly 75% of the local market. Interestingly, the Miami area only sees the Budweiser influence around 55%, due to heavier competition from imports, such as Corona. In Florida as a whole A-B controls roughly 60% of the market. That's over 15 percentage points higher than the national average. In Pensacola, that's 30 points higher. Wow!

So, you're saying, "Ray must have a fairly easy job, right?" From a sales perspective, of course. But he must work hard to ensure that A-B retains its predominance in the land of corrupt voting places. And the owner of the Sarasota warehouse leaves nothing to chance.

On the Saturday I was staying with his family, Ray took me to his distributor warehouse, and gave me a thorough tour. Although it was his day off, he wanted me to see just exactly what he does for a living, and he proceeded to introduce me to the long arm of the Anheuser-Busch empire.When we arrived at the warehouse around 10:00 that morning, there were few people in the front office. Ray showed me around the offices, from the owners' office (a plush, beautifully decorated room with plenty of A-B paraphernalia), to the conference rooms, where strategy is planned to crush the opposition, to Ray's office (really just a corner desk with an "in" basket full of memos). Ray spends the vast majority of his time out at the retail stores, so he's at the warehouse only a short time during the wrek. I must tell ya A-B really runs a clean, wonderfully furnished front office. The bathrooms were immaculate, with all kinds of cool old (read: pre-Prohibition) memorabilia, including beer mirrors, beer pictures, etc. The employee break area was spotless (curiously, no beer vending machines!). The owner really lavishes the successes of A-B on his complex.

After the office tour Ray took me up a flight of stairs to the Graphic Arts department. With the conveniences of industrial technology, A-B makes sure that all of their Point of Sale (POS) promotions (banners, sales ads, etc.) are generated using the best computers, manned by a highly skilled department. We continued past the GA dept. and into the neon-rebuild department. Whenever a retail customer has a neon A-B sign fail, or break, they send it to the stributor for repair. The rebuild department is only staffed by perhaps four, or five people. But this small group has to fix dozens of neons in a given month!

Ray and I then moved into the Big Deal of beer distributorship: The refrigerated-cooled warehouse where all A-B beer products are housed, awaiting transport to the retailer. When Ray opened one of the enormous bay doors, my jaw dropped! I have never seen so much beer stacked so high and in so much bulk ever before. Palettes upon palettes of Budweiser, Bud Light, Busch, Busch-Light, Natural Light, Michelob, Michelob-Light (are ya getting the point?) seemed to point to the heavens in the most astounding display of beer. Other, more interesting beers of note stored here include Kirin, and Kirin Ichiban (imports from Japan), Red Hook (three types-IPA, Porter, and Hefe-weizen), and a not-yet-released beer called Killarney. Killarney is going to be marketed as a red lager, going directly against Killian's Irish Red (a Coors' product) on the national level. All of this beer was stacked as far as the eye could see and very little appealed to me personally. But in Florida I'm clearly in the minority. Most of the beer I saw that day would be distributed out within a week, or so (A-B Sarasota gets its beers from the Jacksonville, Florida brewery, and turn around is quite fast-duh!).

After the warehouse tour Ray showed me the fleet of vehicles (from the common "side-loader" truck to the semi-tractor "bulk loader" truck, to the smaller vans and special display vehicles). As I said before Ray is a salesman who uses a small van. In the back of the van Ray hauls around POS promotional stuff (banners, ads, etc.) as well as new products to market (a token six-pack of Killarney was his most recent item), to lots of paper work. His route consists of twelve "off-premise" retailers. Off-premise simply means that the beer sold to these retailers is NOT consumed there. Ray deals with 3 grocery chains, 3 convenient stores, and 6 liquor stores. They are all high-volume stores for A-B, meaning Ray must constantly check these stores to make sure that they are well stocked. Basically, Ray fills the orders for the stores (as well as promoting A-B ads, events, new items, etc.), and then calls his delivery driver to make the run. Ray doesn't deal with the delivery of keg beer (a whole other sales department), and he doesn't distribute to bars (again, another department). His is strictly off-premise.

Here ended the distributor tour. By this time Ray and I were ready to have lunch. To drive home the impact of Anheuser-Busch's' impact on the local beer marker, he took me to one of Bradenton's biggest sports bars for lunch. We arrived at Beef O'Bradys sports bar emporium right in the middle of an Indiana-Minnesota Big Ten Basketball game. Big screen TV's all over the place. Hoosier alumni filled the place. And of course, A-B beers lined the taps and filled the refrigerator bins in the bar. When the waitress came to our table to ask us for a beer, Ray naturally ordered a Bud Light (incidentally, it is the biggest selling beer in Florida). I asked the lady for a list of beers, and the two best to choose from were Heineken (*sigh*) and Amber bock (an A-B specialty). I opted for a pint of the bock. Ray pointed out that the bock is a decent seller in the area, but that he personally thought it was too "heavy" for him. When I tried this beer, I immediately got the taste of six-row barley (yuck), very little head, and a medicinal taste that reminded me of Nyquil. Somehow, I did manage to finish it. The lunch was good, though. And Minnesota beat Indiana in overtime, prompting the Hoosier alumni to down their Buds and head for the door.

Florida, it would seem, is a very poor area for microbreweries and brewpubs to operate. Now, I realize I stayed with a member of the A-B empire, and I only saw a limited amount of restaurants (all serving A-B products, primarily, and nothing beyond Heineken as very interesting), but I did pay attention to the neons of the liquor stores and bars as I drove around the area. Sorry to say, I saw very few non-AB signs. No Guinness, no Bass, no Sam Adams, mosty just A-B and a few (stress: just a few) Miller neons. Only on Tuesday (the day I flew back to Chicago), did my brother Ray tell me about one solitary brewpub in the area, that being the Sarasota brewpub. He told me that he thought that it might have closed down by now, but I looked it up in the phone book, and phoned the place. They were very much opened, and operated a beer menu of the Germanic variety (weiss, bocks, lagers). It was, however, too late for me to make a trip to the brewpub.

Of course, I wish nothing but success for Ray in his profession as a salesman for Anheuser-Busch. But I told him the next time I come down to visit him perhaps we can by-pass the A-B world and try something wild, like a hoppy pilsener, or a true German-style bock. He said, "a hoppy what?", and, "something with Germs?"

Send comments and suggestions to: marc@marcobrau.com