Lager Heads

by Paul Brent

What s beer all about? It s certainly not about brewing. Canada s two largest breweries continue to slug it out over products that, with a few exceptions, taste pretty much the same to the average... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0002006499
• ISBN13: 9780002006491
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Globe & Mail review.

TODAY'S PAPER Less taste, more filling By NICHOLAS PASHLEYSaturday, June 12, 2004 - Page D6 Lager Heads:Labatt and Molson Face Offfor Canada's Beer MoneyBy Paul BrentHarperCollins, 256 pages, $34.95Are Canadian beer drinkers stupid? In 1983, 70 per cent of our Miller High Life consumers acknowledged that they drank it because they liked the bottle. Six years later, many of these same Canadians took to Molson Special Dry, partly because it promised "no aftertaste." In big-time brewing, less flavour means more sales.Most people don't actually like the taste of beer. Most people also don't like Brussels sprouts, so they just don't eat them. If the agricultural technologists could manufacture a sweeter Brussels sprout that tasted of corn syrup, they might be on to something. It certainly worked for our big brewers, two major corporations that produce a range of nearly identical, unchallenging beers. Sometimes they put the world "ale" on the label, other times "lager."The challenge facing the megabreweries is simple: If all the beer tastes the same, how do you get the consumer to drink your beer rather than the other guy's beer? This struggle is the subject of Paul Brent's informative and often entertaining Lager Heads, an account of the battle between Molson and Labatt for our dollars.Once there were many breweries in this country, each serving a largely local market. By the 1970s, there were three national producers, a figure that was reduced to two in 1989 when Molson merged with Carling-O'Keefe. Reading Lager Heads is like watching an old Saturday morning cartoon: It's full of OOF! and POW! moments as the heavyweights duke it out. Molson introduces dry beer, steals market share (oof!); Labatt counters with Labatt Genuine Draft (pow!) and then Ice Beer (double pow!). Molson buys the Montreal Canadiens; Labatt becomes principal owner of the Toronto Blue Jays. Labatt invests in Mexico; Molson invades Brazil. Molson improves bottom line by closing plants and firing employees; Labatt develops the reusable screwtop bottle, removing the expression "church key" from most beer drinkers' vocabularies. Miniature Stanley Cups in every two-four! Low-carb beers!Lager Heads is a business book, not a beer book. It won't tell you what sorts of hops, if any, our leading brewers use. Brewmasters are bit players here, trailing in significance to ruthless CEOs, brilliant advertising geniuses and clever lawyers -- all operating in almost implausible secrecy to outfox one another. While the point is generally to keep the corporate name utmost in the beer drinker's mind, sometimes the big brewers have to be more self-effacing. This process began in 1980, when Canadian breweries started producing big-name American beers under licence, and continued more recently -- particularly for Labatt, now owned by Belgian giant Interbrew -- when they became agents for imported beers. The most interesting example of corporate camouflage is what Brent calls "stealth" brands, beers d

Edmonton Journal

The Edmonton Journal Lager Heads by Paul Brent Harper Collins 244 pp., $34.95 Lager Heads is a fascinating look at a business that, until the 1970s, was dominated by family brewmasters, with guys named Labatt and Molson still stirring the kettles and making beer. The art of brewing changed dramatically when corporate boards put the business into the hands of marketers, ad agencies and bottom-line executives who didn't care whether they sold beer or soap. That's exactly the diversification strategy that nearly did Molson in a decade ago with its disastrous expansion into the U.S. with an industrial cleaning supplies business. Subtitled Labatt and Molson Face Off for Canada's Beer Money, this account by National Post writer Paul Brent fills in the gaps of modern beer history. Brent picks up the story in the 1950s when Molson, Labatt and Carling O'Keefe were nothing more than a string of regional breweries, given provincial trade restrictions on beer. It was not until the '50s that millionaire entrepreneur E.P. Taylor put Canadian Breweries together, linking the brands of three separate beer operations: Carling, O'Keefe and Dow. That was the start of the modern era, with the emergence of national brands and cutthroat competition. Then, in the '60s, Molson and Labatt moved towards making their flagship labels, Canadian and Blue respectively. Because Carling-O'Keefe never really consolidated its operations, it was easy for Labatt and Molson to poach market share without hurting each other. That formula worked fine until the 1970s and '80s, when the baby boomers reached their prime beer-drinking years and decided they liked more variety and a taste for imported European beers. By then both Blue and Canadian were viewed by the suds-consuming public as "dad's beer," and Molson and Labatt had to re-invent themselves. The 1980s and '90s turned into a revolving door of executives at both Labatt and Molson as each tried to outdo the other with gimmicks to steal market share. Molson had already swallowed Carling O'Keefe, so there was no little guy to mutually beat up anymore. What followed was a series of stealth secrets of marketing expertise, usually with Labatt leading and Molson playing the role of fast adopter. First, there were long-necked bottles to replace the brown stubbies. That in itself was a work of wonderful subterfuge. There were other marketing coups and fiascos in the '90s, with "genuine draft," dry beers, ice beers, light beers and new secondary brands that came and went with the seasons. While those tactics did little to advance either Labatt or Molson, the move that really worked for both was aligning with U.S. brands. At first just another stop-gap gimmick to grab a point or two of market share, the licensing agreements that Labatt has with Anheuser-Bush for Budweiser and Molson for Coors Lite have given both strong market gains. As a lesson in corporate gamesmanship, bruising egos and marketing bloody-mindedness, Lager Heads is a filling

A toast to a fine book.

This book guides us through the internecine world of marketing beer wars. The fascination springs from being in the malt-scented trenches along with the players. It's an opportunity for the reader to peek behind the curtain and see how those beers ads actually get created and sold.A must read.

informative and entertaining

The best Canadian business book of the year, bar none. Way better than that much-hyped Air Monopoly. It takes me to the inner world of beer marketing. Now I know why they always have good looking people having a good looking time. Not enough about my favourite beer, though, Foster's.