The new king of beers is a Mexican-American success story

The king is dead. That is the cheer ringing through drinking dens this summer as Bud Light, America’s self-styled “king of beers” for 22 years, is dethroned by Modelo Especial, a Mexican brew. Spare a thought for the vanquished. Rarely has an effort to rejuvenate a brand gone as spectacularly wrong as when Bud Light’s marketers entered into a liaison with a transgender social-media star, only to fall victim to America’s culture wars. On the bright side, it offers a chance to examine a little-known success story. Constellation Brands, an American firm that went into brewing only a decade ago, offers a lesson in how to wage an old-fashioned corporate insurrection, Mexican-American style.Schumpeter should declare an interest. Having lived for many years in Mexico, parts of his life have been spent accompanied by one Mexican brew or another. Modelo Especial was rarely one of them. South of the border, it doesn’t have huge cachet. Yet in America the same beer, with the same taste, has overtaken even Corona Extra, its better-known sister brand. That is because, in straightforward business terms, Constellation got everything right, from manufacturing to distribution to retailing. Most of all, it grasped the growing power of the Latino consumer.