For Dessert, How About a Beer?

ByABC News
October 12, 2006, 1:11 PM

Oct. 13, 2006 — -- The $9 billion beer industry is getting a face-lift of sorts.

Beer mugs across the country still bubble over with healthy heads of hops, but more and more drinkers are tipping back beers for other reasons -- to get an energy boost, to improve health, and even to satiate a chocolate craving.

The last several years have seen major brewers introduce a widening variety of flavors to their stable of products, including caffeine- and vitamin-infused drinks and, yes, a chocolate beer.

It's all in an effort to tap into consumer demand that has slanted more recently toward spirits like vodka and rum, which offer drinkers a multitude of fruity, salty and spicy flavors.

Brewers are getting creative with flavors and the way they package and market their beers to draw customers back to beer -- and some of the new offerings are a long way from the traditional light and dark beers of decades past.

Miller Brewing Co. announced Wednesday that it was launching a new chocolate-flavored beer for the holiday season.

Frederick Miller Classic Chocolate Lager is brewed with six different malts and will be available from October through December in Wisconsin and in Midwestern cities including Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland and Indianapolis.

It's the second time in two years that Miller has offered a specially packaged and flavored seasonal beer, something the company hadn't done in a decade, according to spokesman Pete Marino.

"It's about demonstrating what beer can be all about," Marino said. "Today there's a lot of expectation from beer drinkers for variety, and we can create a lot of different flavors and options outside of traditional beer."

Anheuser-Busch has gotten in on the act, too, introducing flavored beers like Michelob Honey Lager and Michelob Amber Bock as well as several seasonal beers and even the regional beer Zeigenbock Amber, created as a Texas-style beer and only sold in Texas.

Beer has been slowly losing market share in the adult beverage market, according to Eric Shepard, executive editor of the industry trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights, which estimated that in 2005, beer consumption fell to 55 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States, down from 59 percent in 1998.