Coors Creating High-End Beers?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting Coors has recently alerted their distributors that a new subsidiary has been created solely to develop and release high-end specialty beers at a deliberate pace. The new unit will be run by Glenn Knippenberg, an industry veteran who worked previously for Coors Brewing.

The report goes on to state the new high-end beers will be cultivated at a similar pace to how 'Blue Moon' was built i.e. over a decade.

Is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? Could Anheuser-Busch be far behind? With the recent steady growth in the craft beer segment and - although slight - but still a decline for the big 3's (Bud, Miller, and Coors) market share who still control 80% of the market, this could be alarming news for the "little guys" who don't have the advertising, distribution, etc that those titans of the brewing world have.

This development will be very interesting to follow over the next couple of years to see what happens to craft brews once the big boys start playing.

Frank Bennett