E-Malt.com News article: USA: Budweiser announced the three winning beers in the Project 12

“Project 12” started in the early spring when Budweiser’s 12 brewmasters across America were asked to write a unique beer recipe worthy of the Budweiser name. After internal discussion and debate, six of the recipes were chosen to be brewed in small batches. Now, after a summer-long nationwide sampling effort involving thousands of consumers at dozens of events, U.S. beer drinkers have provided feedback, which helped Budweiser decide which three beers would be available for sale in a limited-edition sampler pack this fall, beerpulse.com reported on September, 18.

The “winning” recipes, named for the ZIP Code in which the beer was originally brewed, are from brewmasters at the Budweiser breweries in Los Angeles, St. Louis and Williamsburg, Virginia.

Tens of thousands of consumers tasted and gave feedback about the Project 12 beers.

“We’ve never done anything like this before,” said Rob McCarthy, vice president of Budweiser. “With all this feedback from consumers, I guess you can call this the largest focus group in Budweiser history, maybe even beer history. There really were no winners or losers with Project 12, but we wound up with three great beers that slightly edged out the others. It certainly wasn’t an easy choice. Best of all, we listened to what our beer drinkers told us and we let them help us make the decision about what to bring to stores.”

The limited edition sampler pack, available for sale starting on October, 29, is a 12-bottle package containing four each of the special “ZIP Code” beers.

These beers are: Budweiser Batch No. 91406, originated by brewmaster Bryan Sullivan in Los Angeles in collaboration with brewmasters Scott Ungermann in Fairfield, California and Dave Cohen in Houston; Budweiser Batch No. 63118, first brewed in St. Louis by brewmaster Jim Bicklein and developed in collaboration with brewmaster Katie Rippel from Fort Collins, Colorado; Budweiser Batch No. 23185, brewed by Daniel Westmoreland from the Williamsburg, Virginia brewery and was developed in collaboration with brewmasters Mike Anderson in Jacksonville, Florida and Dan Kahn in Cartersville, Georgia.

Budweiser will continue to request feedback from beer drinkers on these three beers. Via a QR code on the package, as well as an in-pack flighting sheet, the brand is asking consumers their opinions of these three new Budweiser-inspired beers. The flighting sheet also includes tasting notes and details about each beer for in-home tastings.

While not available in the fall sampler pack, the Project 12 beers developed in Baldwinsville, N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio; and Fort Collins, Colo. also received favorable feedback from consumers, creating a task for the team responsible for paring the six Project 12 beers to three.

“Budweiser is an exacting style of beer to brew,” said Peter Kraemer, a fifth-generation brewmaster who leads Anheuser-Busch’s brewing operations in North America. “Our brewmasters are responsible for one of the world’s most technically challenging beers and are able to make a high-quality beer that is consistent all over the United States and the world. Project 12 was a way for our world-class brewmasters to have fun experimenting with new ingredients, flavors and brewing processes to bring beer lovers some new options inspired by our flagship beer.”


19 September, 2012