E-Malt.com News article: Czech Republic: K Brewery challenges Pilsner Urquell

The largest Czech-owned brewing group, K Brewery, is taking on the homogenous Czech beer market, dominated by foreign-owned breweries producing similar varieties of light and dark beers, with a strategy based on a broader variety of beers on tap, The Prague Post communicated on February, 3.

The brewery recently launched a new 12° beer and a marketing campaign to rival the ubiquitous Pilsner Urquell. But the brewery has a long way to go to knock the undisputed king of Czech beers from its place of prominence, experts say.

K Brewery, a conglomerate of six breweries in the Czech Republic, including Protivínský Platan, Ježek and Lobkowicz, has begun promoting its 12° Lobkowicz Premium Quality beer as its flagship brand, hoping to crack the premium beer segment. To seasoned beer drinkers, bottles of Lobkowicz Premium will look and taste familiar: The green bottle with gold foil looks strikingly similar to Pilsner Urquell. Priced between 25 and 30 Kč, the beer is set to go head to head with the most famous Czech beer and other main premium competitors: Budvar, Heineken and Stella Artois.

Barbora Burešová, spokeswoman for K Brewery, acknowledged the company has a hard road ahead if it wants to gain a significant share of the premium market, but added the underdog status of Lobkowicz is one of its greatest advantages for pub owners and beer drinkers looking for something different.

Currently, 20 pubs and restaurants in Prague carry Lobkowicz Premium, and the company plans several nationwide marketing events to boost that number in 2010, according to Pavel Prchal, business director for K Brewery.

Prchal described the company's insistence on using traditional brewing methods as characteristics that set Lobkowicz beer apart from some its more famous competitors. The brewery does not dilute its beer to modify the gravity, or use recently developed technologies to speed up the fermentation process, he said.

Lobkowicz is banking on pub owners who want to distinguish themselves from the plethora of local pubs and restaurants offering Pilsner, Gambrinus, Staropramen and other beers owned by SABMiller and CVC conglomerates.

Last year, K Brewery's six breweries brewed 850,000 hectoliters of beer of the total 18.8 million hectoliters produced throughout the country, according to the Czech Beer and Malt Association. Plzenský Prazdroj, which produces four major types of beer and several offshoot brands, sold 10.5 million hectoliters of beer worldwide in 2009. Such numbers show just how far K Brewery has to go to catch up with Pilsner. But, according to Jiří Mareček, spokesman for Plzenský Prazdroj, Pilsner Urquell's success is more than just a numbers game.

'Premium' isn't just a word on the beer label. Of course, you can launch a new brand saying 'This is premium,' but will anyone care? The 'premium' quality in beer is gained over decades, he said.


05 February, 2010