Budweiser Budvar goes from strength to strength

Budweiser Budvar is the UK's number one Czech imported premium lager, the number three imported premium lager overall and the sixth best-selling premium lager in the UK.

According to the company's wholly-owned UK subsidiary, Budweiser Budvar UK sales, in draught and bottle, are currently running at 40% growth year on year.

It says this position has been achieved not on a wave of synthetic marketing hyperbole, but by continuing to brew a world classic lager.

According to John Harley, chief executive of Budweiser Budvar UK, the whole of the brewery's marketing effort has been to get this message across to the drinker.

"Considering the way our sales have grown, year on year, I think the message is getting across," he says.

"We have a unique proposition in Budweiser Budvar ­ it is both craft lager and international brand.

For the ever-growing numbers of well informed drinkers this makes its appeal irresistible."

He says the craft lager part of the Budvar proposition means a number of things.

"Firstly that every drop is brewed at source at the brewery in Ceske Budejovice, Southern Bohemia.

Add to this its 5% abv

and you have the classic profile of a genuine foreign imported premium lager.

With all of the other big Czech names of yesteryear now in the hands of the international breweries this has never been of more significance to people.

PU, for instance, is brewed under licence in Poland and Staropramen is now being brewed in the UK," says Harley.

Budvar also attaches great importance to how it brews as well.

The inheritor of a local brewing tradition that goes back 700 years in Ceske Budejovice, the "Budvar brewers know that good beer takes time to make".

The brewing cycle is 100 days, 90 days of which is spent being lagered.

The brewery cultivates its own yeast strain and uses whole Saaz hops from the main Czech hop growing region of Zatec.

In addition it uses malt made only from Moravian barley, which is "the mother of all great lager barleys" and Budvar chooses only the finest which is grown in the Hana region.

Water used in the beer's brewing comes from its own aquifer that dates back to the ice age and its source is 300 metres beneath the brewery.

He says a few years ago this kind of deep delving into the components of a beer might have seemed a bit anorak-like, but not anymore.

"People are becoming more and more concerned about the ingredients that go into what they eat and drink," adds Harley.

"At Budvar, because we have always stuck to our guns and brewed an absolutely natural beer, we find ourselves the trail blazers into the 21st-century beer market".

He says as Budvar offers a craft lager with an international brand aspect it can "support its retailers in the manner to which they are accustomed".

"In the past few months, for instance, new fonts and POS have been introduced as well as a choice of branded glass styles suitable for different occasions," explains Harley.

"Budvar also derives strength from the fact that it appeals to the broadest spectrum of drinkers and is just as at home in a cutting edge bar as in a cask ale pub."

According to Harley this diversity of appeal is reflected in the company's own research which shows that it is the lager of choice for both cask ale and wine drinkers.

"Budvar doesn't recognise age, class, sex or any of the fanciful divisions of humanity beloved of the marketing man," claims Harley.