Island beer - Carib lager beer - includes related article

Carib beer returns to the U.S. market, but it's the real thing this time.

The Republic of Trinidad lies a few scant degrees north of the Equator, just off the coast of Venezuela. It is a latitude prone to sweltering heat, where a cold beer is more necessity than casual tipple. On that island and elsewhere in the Caribbean basin, a favored brand is Carib, a golden lager beer brewed by Trinidad's own Carib Brewery.

The authentic Carib beer is now making its debut in the U.S. market (although it has been here once before, as "Caribe," see sidebar). The brand is well-distributed across the Caribbean, and many Americans may have enjoyed it while vacationing in the region. The brewery, and importer DCI-Miami, hope that fond holiday memories will spur people to seek out their favorite island beer once they get back to the U.S.

Trinidad itself is not the number-one Caribbean island on American tourist itineraries, and Trinidadians have pursued economic prosperity via industrial development rather than a dependence on Yankee snowbirds.

Beer brewing has been among the island's successful endeavors, and Carib, located in the capitol city, Port-of-Spain, now exports its products throughout the Caribbean basin. The company also produces Royal Stout and a host of shandies (sweet soft drinks that mix pop and a small percentage of lager beer). Carib also brews Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Mackeson Stout and Heineken lager under contract for the local market.

The Carib brewery boasts a modern semi-automated brewhouse, with Steinecker control panel and two dedicated Texas Instruments PLCs, one for the brewhouse and one for the cellars. The brewery has four stainless steel vessels: mash tun, lauter tun and two whirlpool kettles. "It's a very compact brewery," says senior brewer Ian Forbes, "capable of seven brews a day, with a 400 hectoliter brewlength."

An older brewhouse, complete with traditional copper kettles, is used to produce Carib's shandies.

Forbes says the company is a "U.K. style brewery" using some sugar adjunct in its lager beers and importing two-row malts from Great Britain. But aside from Forbes, who attended England's Institute of Brewing, most of the company's brewers are trained at the Siebel Institute of Chicago.

The management of the brewery also has a somewhat American slant, in the person of managing director Tim Nafziger, a U.S. expatriate.

Nafziger came to Carib in the late '80s, just as the brewery's "Caribe" export experiment was coming to a close. At the time, he was more concerned with winning a local beer war, which pitted Carib against the Heineken-owned National Brewing Co., also located in Trinidad. The conflict was hard-fought, with the victor's laurels going to Carib after the company managed to undercut National's pricing. Carib bought out National in 1991, with Heineken getting a 20% stake of Carib as part of the deal.

At that point, Carib management set out to rebuild the company's export business from scratch. "Trinidad is the manufacturing base for the English-speaking Caribbean," says Nafziger, "but we had not exploited export opportunities for Carib beer in the Caribbean. At the same time, we were running off the the U.S. back in the '80s--it was totally illogical."

Caribbean beer consumption ranges from 24 to 45 liters per person, well below that for developed countries. Consumption has also been static since 1990 in the Caribbean, but the demographic curve is extremely positive from the beer seller's standpoint, with a median age of 20.

Carib has been building the groundwork to exploit this curve, strengthening export efforts throughout the Caribbean basin. "Our focus has been to get every case we could in the Caribbean," Nafziger says. "That has helped us build our export capabilities, and by placing our beer in the island markets we also get tremendous exposure to North American and European tourists."

Carib hopes this exposure will boost brand consciousness in its new export markets. Since Trinidad's neighboring island of Tobago is a mecca for European tourists, Carib is also Europe bound.

"We've signed a deal with Heineken for Carib in Holland, France and Greece," says export manager Albert Chow. "When the package is ready, it will also go into Italy, the biggest import beer market in Europe."

The company's basic strategy will be similar in European and American export markets. "We'll sell the dream of a visit to the islands," says marketing director Dennis Ramdeen, "promoting the Caribbean lifestyle, and the joi d'vivre. We'll go step-by-step, finding markets and then servicing them well. We have the capacity to do volume, but we don't just want short-term volume."

DCI Miami, Carib's importer, is planning to bring much of the Carib brand portfolio into the U.S. market, including Royal Stout and the company's line of shandies. The focus, however, is on Carib.

Thus far, DCI-Miami general manager Tim McGann says reaction has been strongly favorable among U.S. wholesalers. He recalls a recent visit to a large distribution house in California. "They see 20 beers a week, and they are very selective," he says, "but Carib was one that they think has potential."

"People want specialty beers in the U.S.," notes marketing director Ramdeen, "and this opens up exciting opportunities for us. We just have to be faithful to the positioning and give it time."

RELATED ARTICLE: Remember Caribe beer?

Quite a few American wholesalers probably do. It came to this country in late `87, a golden Trinidadian lager beer packaged in a cleat bottle, with a colorful ACL (Applied Ceramic Label) emblazoned with a pink flamingo. At the time, another clear ACL package (Corona) was booming, and the Carib Brewery in Port of Spain, Trinidad thought the time was ripe to jump into the American beer market.

Carib's importer, Domaine Cellars, rapidly pushed the beer into 31 states, and supported it with colorful trade ads and point-of-sale. Caribe sold well in `88, roughly 260,000 cases. So well, in fact, that the brewery soon found it difficult to meet demand. At the same time, the fad-driven segment of the imported beer market began to slip, and the Caribe bubble burst.

Tim Nafziger, the current managing director of Carib Brewery, came aboard as Caribe was slipping. "We shot ourselves in the foot," he says. "It was a unique bottle, and we just couldn't keep up. We weren't set up to export substantial volumes. Lets just say it was a learning experience for the company."

Carib is now back in the U.S., but as Carib (dropping the "e" in Caribe) and using the authentic home market packaging. The brand is still handled in the U.S. by Domaine, now known as DCI, but with a more modest marketing strategy based on depth rather than breadth. "We're not going to be as aggressive as we were the first time," says Tim McGann, general manager of DCI Miami, "and we're selling it based on heritage and culture rather than as fad brand.

Currently the brand is in Florida, New York, Boston, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Texas and California. "California will be the barometer," McGann says. "If we catch on there, we'll be looking at pretty good volume.

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