UK: Carlsberg toasts success of its Export premium lager

A year on from the launch Carlsberg UK says its Export premium lager is up +9% in retail sales and +49% up (in retail value) in its platinum and gold outlets, the Drinks International reported on March 27.

To lock into the move to so-called craft beers principally by Millennials, Carlsberg launched 1883, using a yeast strain from Jacobsen’s original brew and will introduce an unpasteurised variant in June.

VP marketing Liam Newton told a group of invited journalists in London on March 26 that they were in the process of “revitalising Carlsberg”.

As well as the main lager brand, Carlsberg UK also looks after the American craft beer brand, Brooklyn, Mahou-San Miguel, Italian beer Angelo Poretti, traditional Yorkshire bitter, Tetleys, Czech gluten-free beer, Celia and London Fields, which it bought in conjunction with Brooklyn.

Carlsberg’s sponsor of the England football team ends after the forthcoming FIFA World Cup but it remains in football through associations with eight Premier League club.

Newton said that while they acknowledge there will always be that association between football and beer, the brewer is switching its focus to music festivals which it can readily leverage.

VP national sales, Alistair Gaunt, said the company was switching emphasis from volume to value and to that end was testing/introducing a “Rotational Tap’ to allow bars to change which Carlsberg beers it offers. There is also a collapsible ‘Draught Master’ keg for smaller outlets and its ‘Quality Dispense System’ to maintain quality and reduced wastage.

Newton spoke of “renovation and innovation”. He said while Carlsberg Export was on its way and in innovation territory, the traditional English bitter brand, Tetleys, was in need of fundamental re-appraisal with a view to stablising and renovating the brand.

San Miguel was doing well with a gluten-free variant introduced last year and a more premium expression, Selecta, available.

The Brooklyn Mix Take Volume 1 mixed case of beers had proved very popular with craft beer drinkers looking to explore. While London Fields was doing a lager, pale ale and a white IPA.

Asked about plans for Carlsberg Pilsner, the company’s core, largest-selling standard lager brand, Newton and his team visibility twitched. Obviously plans are afoot.

27 March, 2018