Carabao is best known as one of the largest energy drink brands in Asia. In its home base Thailand, it is comparable only to international brand Red Bull.
In recent years, Carabao has been taking major steps to diversify its portfolio beyond energy drinks, most notably with its large-scale expansion into the beer market last year, which has widely been viewed as a successful venture.
Building on this momentum, the firm has launched a specific new variant of beer this year targeting a younger audience, dubbed the Pattaya Beach Beer.
“Pattaya is a major tourist destination that is tightly linked with the concepts of beaches, sunshine and vacations, and this has inspired our new Pattaya Beach Beer,” Carabao Group Head of Marketing Pichayapa Chaisuwirat told us.
“This is why the main characteristic of this beer is its low alcohol content, the lowest in our entire portfolio at 3.9% ABV, so that it is an easy-to-drink variant that can be drunk all day long whilst lazing on the beach.”
The Pattaya Beach Beer is a light lager with a prominent lime twist.
“The lime aroma is all natural, but does not come from limes or lime flavouring,” she added.
“This aroma in fact comes from the hops we use to make the beer – these are hops we carefully select that will give the lime aroma once used to brew the beer, giving it another unique stand-out characteristic.”
Because the beer focuses more on aroma to bring out its refreshing character, Carabao has also innovated with the beer packaging to ensure that this stands out.
“We have developed the first beer can in Thailand with a fully openable lid, meaning that the entire top lid is removed by pull-tab instead of just a small opening,” she said.
“Once opened, the can is thus transformed into a cup where the consumer is able to better smell and enjoy the lime aroma.”
With Pattaya Beach Beer, Carabao has big ambitions to not only capture a younger audience that prefers lower-ABV options, but also to become the ‘symbolic’ beer of Pattaya.
“To this end, we have already developed both the 490ml can variant for local consumers as well as the smaller 320ml bottle variant to cater to tourists,” Chaisuwirat said.
“Pattaya is one of Thailand’s representative tourist areas, and we want consumers who drink beer in this area to automatically link this activity to our Pattaya Beach Beer.”
Affordable appeal
The Pattaya Beach Beer also looks to tap on a rising demand for affordable, value-for-money options in the region, prominent among both locals and tourists alike.
“Innovation is important for any industry to grow, but the fact is that whether we look at healthier options or organic options or other innovations, it often comes with a price to be paid,” she said.
“This is the same in the beverage market, across both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic sectors alike, but the situation is that Asian consumers and especially Thai consumers are looking for more affordable options with good value, which is what we want to focus on.”
Carabao believes that the best way to achieve this is by emphasising on high quality ingredients but not hiking up prices just to increase profitability.
“Our beer for example uses imported malt, hops and yeast but we choose to continue selling it at competitive prices – a bottle of Pattaya Beach Beer sells for THB45 (US$1.38) and a can for THB60 (US$1.84),” she said.
“Affordability is important to ensure accessibility, and we also choose to use local ingredients where possible such as in our spirits business – we also make whiskey, vodka, gin, rum and so on and we use Thai jasmine rice, Thai herbs and Thai spices so we can support the local industry.”
