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Molson Coors Set to Retire 11 Beers From its Beverage Company

There’s some beer going into permanent retirement, whether we want it to or not. It’s time to prepare to sip for the last time ever.

The next time you show up to the liquor store and reach your hand into the same part of the fridge you’ve always reached your hand in, you may come out empty-handed, confused, and disappointed.

However, at least now you can know your favorite beer is going off the market before showing up to purchase it.

Molson Coors Beers Getting Retired

Luckily, most of the beers are offshoots products from popular brands at Molson Coors. So, while the names sound familiar, there’s still likely the original core product remaining on the market.

According to Food & Wine, there are 11 of these brands soon vanishing. One of the company’s most popular beers is the Keystone Light. This will remain, however, Keystone Ice and Keylightful are both getting axed. Keystone Ice has actually been around since the 1990s when the ice beer craze gripped us hard. Keylightful was an attempt to resonate with those that drink Natural Light’s very popular Naturdays beer.

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Similarly, Icehouse is staying, but the ABV Icehouse Edge will be ripped off those grocery store aisles. Mickey’s Ice is also leaving, but the rest of Mickey’s beers are staying.

Milwaukee’s best premium will no longer be made. You can still purchase the Light and Ice versions of that beer. Despite the surge in popularity for “lite” beers, Molson Coors is dropping a few non-performing beers in this category. That includes Miller High Lite Lige and Hamm’s Special Light. Both of which are pretty obscure, to begin with.

The last of the retired beers are the original Steel Reserve 211, Old English HG 800, the Magnum brand, and Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve.

Reason for Discontinuation of Beers

While you may be hearing some of these beers for the first time, somewhere out there it may just be another person’s all-time favorite. Many small local places have gravitated toward brands like Magnum and Mickey’s, which are both getting that retirement plan.

“After an extensive analysis of our business, we are meaningfully streamlining and premiumizing our U.S. portfolio. This will improve supply chain flexibility for our more profitable priority brands, enhance our innovation efforts, enable us to better focus resources and ensure dependable and on-time shipments to our distributors,” the CEO of Molson Coors Gavin Hattersley said.

Many beer brands have scrambled to keep up with a changing market environment.

According to Statista, beer consumption has dropped in the U.S. by 7.5% from 2015 to 2020. Market share for beer in the country slipped down to 3.5% and is now at 44%.

Consumers have become interested in new beverage options, whether they are alcoholic or not. The changes Molson Coors has been making recently have helped with sales. The company is up 17.4% in sales compared to a year ago.

Several beer-centric companies have also flocked to the hard seltzer world, which has rapidly been on the increase for years.