“Can I have an Eagle, please?” It is the phrase that is heard again in bars, restaurants and taverns in Madrid and that dyes reunions after the hardest stage of the coronavirus in black and white. Because it was, until the end of the 1960s, the beer that dominated the market in the capital as well as the national scene, but whose wings were cut off by the arrival of Europeanism. However, it has been 50 years later, with the , when this popular brand has taken flight again in order to return to the top of sales in the sector.
The 20th century had not given its first gasps when the businessman and deputy for the Liberal Party, Augusto Comas y Blanco, decided to found the SA El Águila company in the Madrid neighborhood of Delicias. In a location that little by little would become a benchmark for the Capitoline industry, today the old factory houses the Joaquín Leguina Regional Library and the Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, this beer grew until in the 1930s it was already leading the national market in number of sales.
Undisputed leader of the taverns of Madrid, only the Catalan Damm could match their numbers in all of Spain, the key to their early success was the great purchasing power that the group had. While other beers such as Mahou or Moritz, with more years of history, had to be cautious due to their family nature, El Águila could afford a business development worthy of another era.
Until 1940, beer consumption decreased due to the lack of raw materials. But, with a strong position, El Águila got 20% of the state business, which relaunched its sales again to the point of expanding with factories in Córdoba or Valencia.
Heineken and a pro-European disappearance
A successful model that was consolidated until the 1960s, when it already had 30% of the market share in all of Spain until Mahou began to eat away at it. With constant losses in the 1970s, despite attempts to relaunch the brand such as the creation of one of the first non-alcoholic beers in Spain, in 1984 Heineken took over 32% of its shareholding. Promoting in favor of the Dutch group the idea of introducing a beer with a European character, little by little its production was centralized in the factories of San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid) and Cuart de Poblet (Valencia) in favor of closures such as the mythical of delights.
The Eagle was losing its name and logo in favor of Amstel until its disappearance with the arrival of the 21st century
But the numbers did not finish arriving, and in that opening idea came the end of El Águila (at the beginning of the 90s Damm, Mahou, Cruzcampo and San Miguel had already surpassed it). By then, Heineken, which in 1996 would acquire 100% of the company, decided to gradually replace the traditional brand with Amstel’s. First it was the logo, then the denomination towards Águila Amstel, to later call it Amstel Águila and finally just Amstel.
El Águila had already disappeared from a group that would merge with Cruzcampo in 2000 and would be renamed Heineken España. All until the arrival of the second decade of the 21st century would awaken him from his lethargy.
The rebirth with a growth of 35% in the last year
In the midst of a boom for traditional and local beers such as Turia (Valencia), La Virgen (Madrid) or Victoria (Málaga), Heineken decided to bet its strategy on the rebirth of El Águila. With two formats (1900, for the year of its birth, and Unfiltered, ), the logo also recovered the hand-drawn bird and the blue color reminiscent of the tile on the facade of Delicias.
At present, it has already reached more than 600,000 homes, thanks to its presence in most supermarket chains, and 50,000 catering points, which translates into a growth of 35% in the last year.
In addition, the Unfiltered variety reaches a repetition rate of 37%, which means that almost four out of ten consumers who try it buy it again, staging that flutter that resurfaces in order to return to what it was 100 years ago. It was the reference beer in Spain.
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