Molson Coors Announces Their Top Stories Of 2022

From MolsonCoors & Alex Parker:

Big bets. Banquet. Beernaments.

Of the more than 160 stories we published this year on Molson Coors’ Beer & Beyond website, these were the stories that readers clicked the most in 2022.

Ranging from brand announcements to industry analysis to personnel changes to quirky marketing programs executed by our brands, this year’s top stories ran the gamut.

We celebrated big wins like the launch of Simply Spiked Lemonade and Molson Coors’ return to the Super Bowl. We welcomed new leaders, like Brian Feiro, who is soon to take the reins as U.S. president of sales from the retiring Kevin Doyle, and Tony Bugher, a sixth-generation Leinenkugel family member, who takes over as president of Leinenkugel’s upon his uncle Dick Leinekugel’s retirement.

And we wrote about beer. So much beer. Thank you for reading Beer & Beyond. Happy holidays and happy new year!

Here they are: Our top stories of 2022.

MOST-READ STORIES

1. Our most-read story of the year builds on one of last year’s favorites. Miller Lite not only brought back its immensely popular drinkable Beernaments this holiday season, it introduced its Christmas Tree Keg Stand, making it easy to enjoy a cold one while decking the halls.
2. Molson Coors’ collaboration with The Coca-Cola Company took a giant leap forward in 2022 with the launch of Simply Spiked Lemonade. The initial announcement made huge waves, while the beverage emerged as one of the top-selling new products of the year, according to IRI.
3. When hundreds of millions tune in the Super Bowl in 2023, they’ll be treated to Molson Coors’ first national TV ad in more than 30 years. Molson Coors’ brands have successfully piggybacked off the Super Bowl in recent years, and they’ll be looking to make a splash in Super Bowl LVII. Just which brand or brands will be featured? We’re dying to find out, too.
4. Beer drinkers in the Pacific Northwest were tickled when Hop Valley Brewing in Eugene, Ore., resurrected a classic: Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve. Hop Valley began brewing and packaging the Oregon OG in the spring, bringing production back to the state for the first time since its aging Portland brewery was shuttered in 1999.
5. Few beer brands generate the kind of passion Yuengling does. Fans have been salivating for the beer since Molson Coors and Yuengling announced a joint venture to bring it west of the Mississippi. Its 2021 Texas launch was followed this year by an expansion into Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.
6. Coors Light, fashion accessory? With Chill Polish, the beer brand found a unique way to expand its blue mountains iconography with nail polish that changes from gray to blue when holding a cold beverage, ideally a Coors Light. Coors Light also won acclaim for its innovative “Chillboards” campaign, in which is painted slogans atop residential buildings in Miami with super-reflective paint, highlighting the perils of a warming planet.
7. Coors Banquet made big headlines this year with its appearances on “Cobra Kai” and “Yellowstone.” What our readers really loved, though, was Banquet’s newest heritage packaging, which introduced three cans that celebrated the brand’s 149-year legacy.
8. Two years after Molson Coors broke ground on a massive overhaul of its Golden, Colo., facility, the construction site is starting to look more like a brewery. When the project is complete, it’s expected to save Molson Coors millions of dollars a year, making the facility — which produces about a quarter of the company’s beer in the U.S. — one of the most efficient breweries in the world.
9. It was a big year for Coors barley, which not only made its way into plenty of Coors Banquet and Coors Light. In 2022, the prized crop was used to make the award-winning Five Trail blended American whiskey and its latest expressions. Not only that, the same barley served as the key ingredient for Golden Wing, Molson Coors’ new barley milk. Yes, barley milk. It debuted amid massive growth in the plant-based milk space, giving Molson Coors a product that is undeniably beyond beer.
10. Miller Lite drinkers love summer and, summer loves beer. That’s according to Miller Lite’s summer campaign, which aimed to trade off of the beer’s flavor bonafides. The result? Talkers like Beer Coal, beer-infused charcoal, Beer Drops to enhance the flavor of your beer and ads that zinged the bland taste of competitors.

OUR FAVORITE FEATURES

Our editors also chose their favorite stories of 2022, which range from deep dives into the history of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy to the origin story of Coors Light’s color-changing blue mountains to the haunting of the Milwaukee brewery.

We also amped up recurring features highlighting our people. Our heritage month profiles and our Career Paths series give a glimpse of Molson Coors through the eyes of our colleagues, like HR professional Courtney West and U.S. Air Force Lt. Patrick Mosley.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Everyone knows that when the mountains are blue, Coors Light is cold enough to drink. But where did they come from? We got the scoop on how Coors Light’s color-changing cans came to be.

In another timeline, people might be enjoying a cold Leinenkugel’s Sour Puss Shandy. Luckily, we don’t live in that timeline. Instead, we have Summer Shandy, which debuted 15 years ago.

This year Leinie’s brewed up a special beer for a good cause. Captain Jack Helles Bock honors Cpt. Jack Edwards, a Marine Corps pilot who died during the Gulf War. Proceeds from the beer, conceived by Edwards’ daughter, a brewer in Texas, benefited the National Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Miller Fright. Champagne of Fears. Ice-cold fear. We had fun with this story, looking into rumors that our Milwaukee brewery is haunted. Any questions?