Molson Coors Adds Iced Tea and Citrus to Goose Beer Sales

Molson Coors makes almost all of its sales in Canada, the U.S., and Great Britain, so it's no surprise that the brewer is looking to expand internationally. The Chicago-based company is also developing new products to entice those new markets.

Case in point: an iced tea brew called Coors Light Iced T, which it unveiled in a presentation on Tuesday to analysts. "The citrus-like, iced tea-flavored beer will have roughly 4% alcohol content but no caffeine," the Wall Street Journal notes. The drive to innovate and develop new products is simple. "Someone else is eating our lunch in the alcohol space," Molson Coors CEO Peter Swinburn told analysts.

The tea brewski will be found in Molson's homeland of Canada first, according to Reuters, “where consumers are interested in flavored beers,” and could end up appearing on U.S. shelves in time as well. Reuters reports that Molson Coors will also introduce the citrus-flavored Carling Zest, which will be sold for a limited time, as well as an autumn-inspired Leinenkugels beer.

The idea is to “spur sales so the company can put less reliance on cost-cutting to drive its profit” and to bring back consumers who have left beer behind in favor of wine or cocktails, according to Reuters. The brewer is also putting extra energy into the craft-beer market, with its Tenth and Blake unit developing a new beer brand, Batch 19, which should be entering the U.S. marketing in the fall and is being billed as “pre-Prohibition-style lager.”

The countries it will be putting extra effort into grabbing more revenue from include, of course, the two most populated nations in the world – China and India – as well as Russia and the Ukraine. Beer drinkers there should expect to see more advertisements for Coors Light, Carling, and Cobra. The hope, Reuters reports, is that the revenue from these nations will be a "significant contributor" by 2015.

"MillerCoors, the U.S. joint venture between Molson Coors and SABMiller PLC, also is tackling the cider market, which is small but growing," WSJ notes. "MillerCoors enjoys roughly a 25% beer-market share in the U.S., largely on the back of its Coors and Miller brands. But like Anheuser-Busch, that share has been slipping."

Coors Light Iced T will will take on existing competitors in the "hard iced tea" category, including Twisted Tea and Mike's Hard Iced Tea. And as WSJ points out, "Anheuser-Busch is launching Michelob Ultra 19th Hole Light Tea and Lemonade in April."