Mt Man Lager

"My dad drank Mountain Man just like my granddad did. They both felt it was as good a beer as you could get anywhere," focus group participant.

Mountain Man Brewing Company (MMBC) was founded in 1925 by Guntar Prangel. The company's chief product is the Mountain Man Lager (MML), created by Mr. Prangel from an old family brew recipe. The beer itself had a slightly bitter taste and above average alcohol content that sets it apart from other beers sold in the region. It is this distinct taste that has leads MMBC to be one of the top selling beer brands in the East Central region of the United States. The company in 2005 was selling more than 520,000 barrels of lager and was generating over $50 million in revenues.

Mountain Man Lager is the epitome of beer made for the working class, blue-collared individual. The primary consumer is over 45, male and in the middle to lower class income range. As this demographic ages, and current trends continue to develop Mountain Man is faced with the choice of developing a light beer product or stay the course. They have had over 80 years to develop a brand name and equity with this region and a new, light product may diminish MML's brand equity.

The U.S. beer market is the largest in the world and has annual sales of over $75 billion. Although the amount of people who consume beer products has diminished (2.3% annually since 2001) it is still a large and competitive market. The beer market is separated into four distinct categories: Major and second-tier domestics, imports and specialty brewers. The following graph shows the amount each has in market share.

As the graph illustrates, major domestic brands like Anheuser Bush, Miller and the Coors Company control a majority of the sales of beer in the region. Their position is strengthened by the amount of financial marketing that can be leveraged and amount of product that can be developed and distributed to the region. These facets of operations are realities of the marketplace in the United States. It is also a reason that Mountain Man should maintain sales in their region. Maintaining their area of operations decreases expenses that would be spent competing with large corporate breweries and builds the brand equity in the region they are based out of.

Industry Changes:

The amount of alcohol consumed per person from 2001 to 2005 has decreased at a rate of 2.3%. This is largely due to the increase in consumption of wines and liquor sales, increases in federal taxes and an increasingly health conscious market. Large breweries have also placed a burden on smaller companies due to their economies of scale.

The majority of consumption and profits is driven by the 21-27 age demographic, of which Mountain Man Brewing does not consider as a part of their market segment. The younger demographic has yet to establish a brand to identify with and is essentially an open market to be tapped by MMBC. There are issues that arise from marketing a dark, lager-based beer: the younger market preferred light beer to others, Mountain Man lager was not as smooth tasting as other mainstream brands and cost more to purchase.

SWOT Analysis:

Mountain Man Brewing Company has a long history and in that time they have not changed the core recipe for their lager product. It is established, has a high degree of brand equity with its consumers and there is also a large amount of brand awareness even to non-consumers. MMBC even though has seen decreases in sales they still have a large amount of income after taxes- $3,114,670.

MMBC's main weakness lies in its consumer base. It is primarily sold to males (81%), and the majority of sales is to men over the age of 45 (32%). They also only offer one product, so all their success is tied to the only one