Sales of Budweiser Budvar’s little known Bud Premier Select, the ABV 7.6 strong man of the brewery’s portfolio, are bucking the UK trend towards lower ABV beers sales having increased 56% year on year. Strictly off-trade and listed through the Co-operative network across the UK as well as in independent off licences and conveniences stores Jon Whittle, Budvar UK’s Off Trade Director ,says that his company handle the brew with some circumspection.
“We feel that Bud Premier Select is a grown up lager strictly for consumption by consenting adults in the privacy of their homes” says Whittle. “That’s why we have never attempted to sell it directly into the on-trade and why we are very fussy about who sells it”.
Having said that the cognoscenti who have made the acquaintance of Bud Premier Select are full of praise for it, indeed a report in Vanity Fair described the brew as “probably one of the world’s best beers”. Whittle says that Bud Premier select is essentially the more familiar Budvar Original with a go fast stripe. It is brewed from the same raw materials as the latter. These include Saaz hops and Moravian malt, a 100 year old strain of yeast and water from the brewery’s own ice age lake. Unlike Original however its lagering period is not 90 days but the length of a football season. “That” says Whittle “is what really gives it its oomph”. The encouraging growth in sales he puts down to a word of mouth growth in interest from one serious drinker to another.
RSP is £1.69/ea but the Co-op are on a national buy two for £3 promotion from next month (August) until December.
