Los Angeles, CA – Anheuser-Busch is importing its first Mexican lager to the US in a concerted campaign to tap the fast-growing Hispanic market.

Anheuser-Busch said that starting next month it will sell Montejo lager in bars, restaurants and grocery stores in California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Nearly 55 percent of all imported lagers in the US are imported from Mexico, including such brands as Corona, Modelo, Tecate and Dos Equis, according to market researcher Euromonitor International.

The Mexican import market in $2012 was valued at $1.8 billion with South of the Border brands currently commanding a 60 percent share of the US imported beer market.

“There’s obviously a growing consumer demand and preference for Mexican beers in the US,” Ryan Garcia, Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of regional marketing, said in a press interview.

That’s due to both demographics, but also to price as Mexican beers tend to be cheaper because import costs are lower, said Euromonitor.

With origins in Mexicos’s Merida, Yucatan, Montejo is brewed at Cerveceria Modelo S. de R.L. de C.V. in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Its export to the US market will be the first time the brand is available outside of Mexico. According to InBev, current plans don’t call for Montejo to be made available beyond the southwestern US, where most current sales of Mexican imports occur.

Anheuser-Busch, a subsidiary of Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer maker, will launch Montejo in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas with an integrated advertising and marketing campaign that includes Hispanic targeted radio, digital, print, experiential and outdoor advertising.

Consumers in Los Angeles, Houston and San Antonio residents will also catch a glimpse of one of Mexico City’s classic VW Beetle “vocho” taxicabs delivering Montejo samples to various local events and festivals.

08/11/2014