Has something been missing from your life? Maybe something like barrel-aged beer? Well, a solution has arrived. Budweiser and Jim Beam recently announced a new release, resulting from a boozy team effort: Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager.
The stuff was reportedly inspired by the Boilermaker (a beer and a shot of bourbon) and will be released this fall to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the end of Prohibition. The Copper Lager is brewed with two-row barley and aged on Jim Beam bourbon barrel staves, giving the finished product a “toasted oak aroma and deliciously nutty taste with caramel rye and vanilla notes.”
This Lager marks the first collaboration between the two iconic American brands. In a statement from Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser and Jim Beam are “toast[ing] to the future as they join their 365 collective years of stateside distilling and brewing history to kick off a new friendship and marketing collaboration.”
“We are very excited about this partnership not only because both brands share a common history but also an obsession for quality and a decades-long connection to America,” said Ricardo Marques, Vice President of Marketing at Budweiser.
Rob Mason, VP of Marketing for Jim Beam, echoed these thoughts, saying that the partnership “feels especially natural given our brands’ common values and the pivotal roles they’ve both played in American History.” Both brands persevered through the Prohibition era, creating alternative non-alcoholic products until they could bring booze back to America.
Bourbon-barrel aging isn’t a new technique for beers, but it is new to Budweiser, a brand which has been suffering a “long-running sales slump,” according to AdAge. In a market where there are so many types of beer to choose from, the King of Beers has fallen from the top. Bourbon has been thriving, perhaps in part to an ongoing cocktail revival movement.
Chrystalleni Stivaros, a beer industry analyst, told USA Today that “the collaboration makes sense due to the changing landscape in the breweries industry. The meteoric rise in craft beers has caused major brewers to either create their own craft varieties or acquire small brewers already in the market.”
Budweiser and Jim Beam seem to have found a solution, and I think it’s pretty smart — especially as a long-time fan of the “beer-and-a-shot” concept. And does it get better than two truly iconic American booze brands joining forces to create a brand-new beer just in time for baseball season?
When it comes to drinking, I don’t think it gets more American than this.
