Whatever Happened to Amstel Light? The Beer That Taught America to Drink ‘European’ — Then Vanished

Amstel Light may not be terribly popular among today’s beer fans. But it sure could make a great case study for business students.

Once so much a part of pop culture that the New York Times language columnist William Safire wrote a feature about its advertisements, Amstel Light ranked as the No. 1 imported light beer in America for a generation. In the middle of the light beer boom, Amstel Light was credited with teaching millions of Americans that light beer could be flavorful — and maybe even slightly sophisticated.

That cachet earned it an enviable position in East Coast bars of the 1980s and 1990s, says Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer’s Insights, a trade publisher for the brewing industry.

“It was a powerhouse brand,” he says. “It was ubiquitous on premise.”

At its apex in 2004, Amstel Light was moving some 10 million cases per year, according to Steinman. But then came slowing sales, with what was once promoted as “the beer drinker’s light beer” shedding 47.7 percent of its volume from 2006 to 2011, a loss that earned the brand a spot on 24/7 Wall St.’s list of “nine beers Americans no longer drink” in 2012.

For industry analysts and insiders, it makes for a cautionary tale, highlighting the importance of consumer preferences, brand focus, and consistent messaging.

Invented for America

Originally, Amstel was a standalone, independent brewery in Amsterdam, named after the Amstel River that flows through the Dutch capital. Founded in 1870, it was once famous for its pilsner, which competed with local rival Heineken until the beer in the iconic green bottle took over Amstel in 1968, after which it turned into one of Heineken’s many sub-brands.

Initially, Amstel Light wasn’t part of that portfolio. But in 1980, Heineken’s U.S. importer, Leo Van Munching, Jr., asked Heineken to send over a light beer. Miller Lite had been given a nationwide rollout in 1975, followed by a massive, hugely influential advertising campaign (“Tastes Great, Less Filling”) and soaring sales that ushered in the light beer era, altering the entire landscape of American brewing. If imported Heineken was meant to compete with standard American lagers, perhaps an imported light beer could compete with Miller Lite, Bud Light, and Coors Light, among others.

“It had a distinctive brand positioning that really resonated with consumers, particularly in northeast urban markets, especially in New York and Boston.”

It might have been about brand differentiation. Or it could have had something to do with the old Heineken-Amstel rivalry that had only ended 12 years earlier. But for whatever reason, when Heineken acquiesced to Van Munching’s request for a light beer import, what arrived was not called “Heineken Light,” but “Amstel Light.” Heineken, the best-selling import in the United States at the time, would remain the full-bodied, full-strength beer, while the Amstel name was used for the company’s light beer segment.

For a while, that approach worked swimmingly. For over a decade, Van Munching & Company owned two enviable slots: the top-selling import, and the most popular imported light beer. It promoted the two brands together, with Heineken and Amstel Light appearing in the same advertisements, using “The Tops in the Field” and “You’re the Tops” taglines. Amstel Light had found its audience.

“It had a distinctive brand positioning that really resonated with consumers, particularly in northeast urban markets, especially in New York and Boston,” Steinman says.

Even outside of the Northeast Corridor, Amstel Light was picking up market share. R.A. Medina spent over 40 years working for a distributor that carried both Heineken and Amstel brands in Central Texas. In that dry, hot region, Amstel Light did very well, especially on tap.

“It actually sold better than Heineken draft,” he says.

Its reputation wasn’t hurt by its brown glass bottles, he recalls, which avoided the characteristic skunkiness associated with Heineken’s green glass.

Following its breakaway success as a U.S. import, Amstel Light was even launched on the Dutch market.

Launching an In-House Rival

It’s impossible to say if there was any internal resentment toward Amstel Light, a brand named after a former rival, among the folks at Heineken, who ended up buying out Van Munching & Company in 1990, with Leo Van Munching staying on until 1993, and renaming it Heineken USA. But just one year after Amstel Light’s best sales ever in 2004, Heineken spent an estimated $50 million promoting a new light beer, Heineken Premium Light, at the start of 2006. (Later, “premium” was dropped from the name.) The New York Times reported on Heineken’s plan to “unleash a barrage of advertising on Web sites,” a newsworthy approach at the time.

“They got a really great running start with Heineken Light,” Steinman says.

That launch — and massive ad spend — meant that Amstel Light wasn’t getting the same attention from the parent company.

“They shifted focus to the brand that had the name on the door,” he says. “The reason why it went down after this is because they introduced Heineken Light.”

Other challenges cropped up around the same time. Dave Williams, president of Bump Williams Consulting, notes that the landscape for imports looked very different during Amstel Light’s salad days of 1980-2004. For nine full years, Amstel Light didn’t have to compete with Corona Light, which first appeared on U.S. shelves in 1989.

“When it was at its highest in the U.S. market, there wasn’t as broad an array of import depth like we see today,” he says.

Of course, there was another big change in American beer around the same time. For a brand that was already positioned as a “trade-up” or “upscale” alternative to mainstream choices, a lot of other options soon started to show up.

“In the early to mid-2000s, craft beer started to take off,” he says. “As the other higher-end offerings in this craft world became viewed as the new elevated alternative to the mainstream choices that were out there in the beer market, it took a hit.”

With the combination of new competition, both in the import sector and in the “upscale alternative” category owned by craft beer, things quickly went off the rails. Look up “Amstel Light” on Google Ngram and what comes back looks like a misshapen letter M, rising straight upward at its launch in 1980, dipping slightly over the next few years before soaring to an even higher second peak in 2004, which slides just a bit in 2005. After that, it drops like a suplex.

For Steinman, Amstel Light could be seen as an example of fixing something that wasn’t broken.

“If there’s any lesson at all I see, they left behind something that was working for them to try something vastly more ambitious that didn’t pan out,” he says. “It ended up that both brands got hurt.”

In fact, the light version of Heineken sank almost as fast as Amstel Light, with sales slipping by 36.7 percent from 2007 to 2012.

The next year, Heineken Premium Light had its own spot on 24/7 Wall St.’s list of “nine beers Americans no longer drink.”

Amstel at Home

That’s not to say all is lost. Despite bad management and marketing missteps, historic Old World breweries often manage to keep some of their mystique and lore. In Amstel’s case, you’re talking about a brand that was originally founded over 150 years ago, and which still maintains a decent customer base in its home country today.

A Dutch data scientist by day who also blogs in English at Tasting Craft Beer, Marcel Haas remembers Amstel from when he first started going out to pubs around Utrecht nearly 30 years ago.

“For me, it was kind of my default beer when I was in a bar,” he says. “It was always considered fine, never perhaps a ‘premium’ choice, but also not a very bad choice. It was just one of the regular brands that bars would have on tap, at least where I grew up.”

In that setting, Amstel obviously wasn’t an import, and it wasn’t seen as particularly fancy or sophisticated. And what Haas remembers is the standard Amstel pilsner, not the designed-for-America light beer.

“They shifted focus to the brand that had the name on the door. The reason why it went down after this is because they introduced Heineken Light.”

“Amstel Light was never big in the Netherlands,” he says. “But it did exist for a while.”

It has since disappeared from the brand’s Dutch-language website, which currently includes a number of similar extensions, including Amstel Bright, Amstel Gold, and Amstel Blonde, all pilsner-ish golden lagers. In the Netherlands, Haas says, Amstel seems to be doing well with its radlers, in both non-alcoholic and low-alcohol (2 percent ABV) variations. Unfortunately, its non-alcoholic beer, Amstel 0.0, sits in the same category (and with a very similar name) as a priority product for its parent company, the top-selling — and heavily promoted — Heineken 0.0.

What beer aficionados like about Amstel, he notes, is something else entirely. At one point, Amstel might have been seen as roughly equal to, or possibly a step down from Heineken, at least in terms of the pilsner style. But when it comes to the strong, malty lagers that the Dutch reach for once the summer ends, Amstel has a solid reputation among connoisseurs.

“Many beer snobs actually do appreciate Amstel Bock,” he says. “Amstel Bock is generally seen as one of the very good Dutch autumn bock beers.”

Those positive associations with the Amstel brand could keep the mystique going, at least until its next moment in the sun. Even in a down market, Williams says, brands still have opportunities to grow. Consumer trends are cyclical, and brands that were once way down can find themselves heading back up again. Some of that is already showing up in the increasing popularity of several Japanese beer brands, as well as once-familiar names like Red Stripe. Heritage lager brands from Europe could be in a prime position to regain customers.

“I think we’ve seen a bit of a reversion back to some of these core styles,” he says. “It’s like we’re out of that era of ‘What’s the hot new thing?’ and it’s more like, ‘What’s the one with provenance? What’s the one with some weight, with some gravitas behind it?”

Among light beers, that used to be Amstel. And perhaps it will be again.

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