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Here’s to Beer: An Initial Review

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HtB
Here’s to Beer, the new website from Anheuser-Busch and the Beer Institute that’s supposed to be a celebration of beer à la the got milk? campaign that speaks for the entire beer industry was unveiled this morning. And it can be summed up in three words: style over substance. It uses macromedia’s shockwave and flash technology exclusively to deliver what little content is there. That means that if there were anything useful there you couldn’t copy the text to a word processor or other application. Luckily that’s not a problem.

After entering your address to “insure” you’re over 21, the sound of a beer filling a glass begins followed by the sound of the television commercial scheduled to air during this afternoon’s Super Bowl. You can also see the video to the commercial in a small window on the website. It’s very slick and shows (supposedly) real people enjoying beer all over the world and toasting the audience by saying “cheers” in their native tongue. But what does that really mean? In the end it doesn’t really say anything particular about the beer. Those same people could be drinking anything — wine, liquor, soda pop, even Clamato — and still be having a good time. Nothing in the ad explains “why” beer is integral to their enjoyment. It’s hard to believe that’s the best these overpriced propagandists could come up with.

The website’s content is even more comical, at least to someone who’s been involved with better beer most of his life. The site is divided into five main groups: The Brew House, The Beer Archives, The Bistro, The Theater and The Tavern. Only the most basic of information is available about beer’s origins, how beer is made, how to cook or pair foor with beer. And it’s done with such laughable simplemindedness that it feels a little insulting. There’s a big emphasis on “fun” like mini-movies, beer quotes, screensavers and wallpaper. There’s really nothing whatsoever here that hasn’t been said before, and said much better, frankly. I can’t conceive of how a beer novice, even one with a high level of interest, would learn much of anything useful here. There is far more information available from the average craft brewer’s website, in even rudimentary books or by going to any decent beer festival. If you want to turn someone on to better beer, this is not the place to send them.

But to be fair, I never thought it would be. Even though this is Anheuser-Busch’s baby, their name is conspiculously absent from the proceedings. Their name does not appear once on the website. But that’s how propaganda works. To the average consumer who doesn’t follow the beer industry (a safe bet at 99.9% of the population) Here’s to Beer is the work of the Beer Institute alone which in my mind forever stains that organization. They’ve become the face of the Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz. Don’t look behind the curtain. Let’s click our glasses together three times. I want to go home.

NOTE: This post is a follow-up to Here’s to Beer — Here’s to to Making it Appear Relevant and Appealing

Here’s To Beer — Here’s to Making it Appear Relevant and Appealing

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HtB
It’s been talked about since last fall. The world’s largest brewer started seeing the handwriting on the wall, and it said to them of their customers, “we want to drink something else.” To the folks that make Budweiser that meant not beer rather than not their beer. But I guess that’s what happens to you when you’ve been the 100-lb. gorilla for as long as they have. The original rumor about this project was that A-B would be partnering with the rest of the industry, which means Miller, Coors and maybe a handful of others. To them, the craft beer segment is merely an annoyance, like ants at a picnic. So I doubt if any were even approached. Apparently their coalition includes them and Poland — wait a minute — no, I mean the Beer Institute. The Beer Institute is a trade organization that was formed in 1986 to “represent the industry before Congress, state legislatures and public forums across the country.” In consists of around 90 breweries, microbreweries, distributors, beer importers and suppliers. There are approximately 1,368 breweries and brewpubs in the United States and if you remove the distributors, importers and suppliers you’re left with 54 breweries, or less than 4% of American breweries, at least by the numbers. So that’s hardly a coalition of the willing.

The stated goal of the coalition was to persuade consumers that drinking beer is a positive experience in their lives à la got milk?, eggs, give ’em a break, or pork, the other white meat. But if it’s just the biggest brewery with falling revenue and one trade organization who’s more comfortable lobbying Congress than to me it seems more likely that this campaign will have all the subtlety of a galloping rhinoceros. It reeks of corporate desperation to get the share price up and little else. Frankly, I don’t believe that Anheuser-Busch is capable of extolling beer’s virtues simply because they stopped thinking of Budweiser as beer decades ago, if not longer. Like most large corporations, they sell a product. It could be widgets and it wouldn’t make much of a difference. The business is about numbers and in particular that those numbers must keep climbing … no matter what. Now I don’t mean to suggest that smaller breweries don’t care about their numbers — they do. They too are in business and have a bottom line to watch. But the difference is that the bottom line is not the only thing that’s important to them. Equally, and in many cases more, important is the quality and artistry of the beer they brew. Spend enough time with craft brewers and you can quickly see the passion they bring to their work. It’s downright infectuous.

The funny thing is the overall idea of celebrating beer is a good one. Beer definitely needs a makeover. The wine industry did an excellent job of taking American wine from nothing too spectacular (from a world perspective) to world class acceptance of quality wines in a matter of a few decades, less than a generation. And along the way they managed to educate the public about what fine wine means, how to use the proper glass, what foods to pair with it, and on and on. Beer had an opportunity to do that beginning in the 1980s but ironically any efforts along these lines were quickly stymied by the big breweries, of which Anheuser-Busch stands out as most prominent. Year after year they spend more per barrel on propaganda than any other brewer by a wide margin. Their relentless advertising and deep pockets insured that their voice would be the only one heard. So much so that most consumers today don’t know the first thing about why craft beer is so much better than anything produced in “vats the size of Montana” as one of the big brewery ads proudly proclaimed. Most not only don’t know about why proper glassware is important but believe drinking out of the bottle or can makes no difference. Restaurants still proudly serve beer in frozen glasses and few people even complain because so few recognize the damage being done to their beer. My point here is that there is still much work to be done for the craft beer industry to raise the standing of beer in this country. In addition to the difficulties of changing people’s minds about anything there is the additional, and perhaps more difficult, hurdle of the persistent and contradictory propaganda of the big breweries that has helped form the very opinions that need changing for the craft beer industry to be successful in bringing down the beasts.

History has a few lessons for us here. Before the days of national corporation’s dominance in the marketplace and before transportation was practical on a national scale, small and regional breweries dotted the landscape. No one brewery was national. Television helped change this because for the first time products could be advertised to virtually the entire country. It’s no coincidence that in 1950 Anheuser-Busch was the first brewery to sponsor a national television show. So even after Prohibition wiped out hundreds of breweries, the number of breweries continued to fall steadily. And that continued for at least five decades, or half a century. But it didn’t necessarily have to happen. Look at beer’s cousin, bread. While there are national breads available — Wonder Bread springs to mind — few are taken seriously. The very nature of bread and it’s perishability makes small local and medium-sized regional bakeries far more able to deliver fresh bread to market. Ask the average person to name a good bread they’d serve at a special meal and it’s the rare person who’d name Wonder bread. They’d more likely name a small local bakery. But far more intriguing is that when you ask the same question about beer, you’re not likely to get the same logic in the answer. And why is that? My belief is that beer has been presented for so long by the propagandists in such a bad light that people’s perceptions of beer run contrary to common sense and their actual education level about it is staggeringly incomplete.

So for the most culpable cause of people’s ignorance about beer to take on the task of celebrating its virtues is a bit like the notion of self-regulation. There’s really no incentive for A-B to be truthful or do anything that might really educate consumers about beer, especially since most “truth” about beer reflects rather poorly on the food product they produce that they then pass off as beer. So I suspect they may actually be the least qualified company in the world to undertake this enterprise. The best we can hope for is that they do no harm, and that’s a sad commentary.

Here’s the press release for the Here’s to Beer campaign:

Cheers! Salud! Kampai! The brewing industry will toast beer lovers around the world on Super Bowl Sunday with a new television ad to promote beer’s image. The ad celebrates beer’s global popularity and directs consumers to a new beer-themed Web site, http://www.herestobeer.com

The new ad and Web site were developed by Anheuser-Busch and are supported by the Beer Institute. Anheuser-Busch is donating 30 seconds of its highly coveted advertising time during this Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast to air the “Here’s To Beer” ad called “Slainte,” named for the Gaelic translation of “cheers.”

heres-to-beer

“Beer is about good times with good friends. It’s a social beverage that’s been a part of mankind’s history for more than 10,000 years, and it doesn’t carry the pretense of other alcohol drinks,” said Robert C. Lachky, executive vice president, global industry development, Anheuser-Busch, Inc. “This ad reinforces beer’s appeal around the world and celebrates beer as the beverage of sociability and fun.

Created by DDB Chicago, “Slainte” was shot on location in four countries — Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic and Kenya. Instead of using professional actors, the ad features local consumers raising a glass of beer to toast in their native languages. The ad’s tagline directs consumers to the Web site, which features information on beer’s history, different styles of beer, food pairings and the latest “Here’s To Beer” advertising.

This ad and Web site were created to celebrate beer — from its social value to the romance of the brewing process,” Lachky said. “Beer clearly remains America’s alcohol beverage of choice, accounting for nearly 60 percent of all alcohol beverage servings. However, it’s the responsibility of the brewing industry to make sure beer remains relevant and appealing to our consumers, and that’s the goal of the ‘Here’s To Beer’ ad and Web site.”

The “Here’s To Beer” ad and Web site will focus on the following areas:

— Reminding consumers of the social value of beer — it brings people together in an unpretentious way.

— Romancing the product and the art of brewing — reinforcing beer’s refreshment, all-natural ingredients and the beauty of its liquid.

— Encouraging consumers to view beer differently — giving them new ways to enjoy beer including ideas and recipes for pairing with food.

Toward the end of the press release, an A-B exec. is quoted as saying “it’s the responsibility of the brewing industry to make sure beer remains relevant and appealing to our consumers.” My OED defines relevant as “closely connected or appropriate to the matter in hand” and appealing as “attractive or interesting.” The latter one I understand, to a point. But the only brewers making attractive and interesting beers are the ones on the fringes. The craft brewers. As for relevancy, since the damage to beer’s reputation was largely due to large breweries’ indifference and downright condescension toward their customers, as evidenced by both the increasingly bland products they sold coupled with the propaganda employed to sell them, it’s pretty hard to take them seriously when they now decide to take responsibility for beer’s future. Large corporations care about one thing. The present quarter. Keeping growth alive and making the numbers for the quarter. And they’ll do anything to succeed. It’s a short-sighted system we live in but we may have one advantage. If their numbers rebound, the Here’s to Beer campaign will quickly disappear again and will once again leave the job of celebrating beer to those most qualified: the craft brewer, the dedicated beer enthusiast, the home brewer and, perhaps — just perhaps — the lowly beer writer. Wish us luck. We’re going to need it.

UPDATE (Feb. 3): As reported on just-drinks.com today, “Miller Brewing has said it has ‘very low expectations’ that an industry-wide marketing campaign for beer in the US – set to be launched on Sunday – will succeed.” I guess they’re not part of the coalition, although they are members of the Beer Institute.

UPDATE (Feb. 5): See my subsequent Initial Review

Another Tempest in a Teapot: Legacy Brewing

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Every few years one of these pointless beer label scandals comes around again, as if to remind us how Puritanical our American society really is. Off the top of my head there’s been Bad Frog Beer, Polygamy Porter, Wanker and Nude Beer, to name but a few. During their fifteen minutes, the press lavished them with free publicity and pandered to a vocal minority determined to force their own morality on the rest of us. Usually some fake debte is trotted out asking questions on the order of “is it too offensive,” “too obscene” and my personal favorite, “what about the children?”

The latest fake controversy comes from my hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania. The beer is question in from Legacy Brewing, but the last time I visited them it was called Fancy Pants and before that it was Neversink Brewing. This time the offending label is Hedonism Ale because it features — gasp — hedonism. Ot at least an artist’s rendition of hedonism. The artwork is not in the least bit tittilating; it reveals everything but shows nothing.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I like it. I think artist Deric Hettinger’s label drawing nicely conveys the idea of hedonism. And it’s different enough from most beer labels that controversy aside, it would stand out on a beer shelf. But it’s beer. It’s made specifically for adults. You know, people who can probably deal with a little hedonism, or at least should be mature enough to handle things like adults. So when beer distributors themselves complain, I have to laugh at the hypocrisy. Out loud. As reported in the online local news site, Lancaster Online (which covers the county directly southwest of Berks, where Legacy Brewing is located), Bob Dano, owner of Engleside Beverage Mart on South Prince Street sent his back, saying “[m]y wife thought it was obscene and so did I.” Well, golly Bob. Did you know you work in a beer distributor and sell beer to adults. If the state and the Feds approved the label, get over yourself. But wait, there’s more. What about the children? Who’s looking out for the children? Don’t worry, Apal Shah is on the case (pun intended). He’s still selling the beer, but he’s literally wrapping each case up in a brown paper wrapper. You can’t buy publicity like that at any price.

“It’s not proper for my store,” said Beer Ink (another yahoo beverage store, this one on Centerville Road) owner Apal Shah. “We have lots of small kids coming in here with their parents. I don’t want them seeing those pictures.” Small kids at the beer store? With their parents? Oh, the humanity! Are you kidding? Your objection is that children might see vaguely representational drawings of people touching one another. Do you think they’ll rush right out and try what they saw in the pictures. And then you’ll be somehow responsble? Will the parents who brought their kids in your store in the first place think it was your fault because you didn’t make a beer store safe for the kiddies? Hey Apal, your sign says “think you are old enough for this beer?” Isn’t everyone at the beer store old enough? My understanding of PLCB regulations is that you have to be of legal drinking age to shop in a beer store. Unless, of course, you’re fool enough to take your kids with you on a beer run. You never know what sort of hedonistic sights they might inadvertently see, ruining their innocence forever. Why they’d have to run home, bar the door and only watch clean, wholesome television. My point here is simply that kids are exposed to far worse — from the prude’s point of view — in an average hour of TV watching. And I’m not even talking about the programming, what’s affectionately known as “filler” by TV execs. Just look at sixty minute’s worth of television commercials and then look at this beer label. What’s the first thing you notice? That only a complete buffoon would have an objection to it, especially on the grounds that have been reported.

But since Legacy Brewing has thoughtfully provided a link to every story that has reported on the controversy, I’m pretty sure they’re on to the game. As PR people are fond of saying, there’s no such thing as good publicity or bad publicty, only publicity. So while I can’t necessarily blame Legacy for creating the controversy, I suspect that they had some idea of how some of their customers might react. After all, there are certainly no shortage of uptight, narrow-minded conservative types in the Reading area. Believe me, I grew up there. Religious intolerance is rampant in the Commonwealth I knew. They’ve got Arlen Spector and Rick Santorum. I defy you to find a state where both U.S. Senators are as conservative as these two chuckleheads. In Pennsylvania you can only buy wine and liquor from the state, in state stores, many of which in 2006 are still closed on Sunday because of traditional religiously-based blue laws. So the Legacy folks had to know what they were doing. They may not have been able to predict with absolute accuracy what would happen, but they must have known they were stirring the pot.

Anyway, the real test is how the beer tastes. Wanker and Nude Beer are mercifully no longer with us while Bad Frog isn’t really taken seriously by any beer enthusiast I know. Polygamy Porter is, at least, a decent Porter. So when the controversy ebbed, the beer could still flow. And that’s as it should be. If Hedonism Ale is a good beer, it should still be around when I make my next pilgrimage to Pennsylvania to see the family. And if that’s the case, I can’t wait to try a pint.

Hahn Premium Light: Fun with Gondolas, Fish & A Revealing Dress

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Now to be fair, I’d never heard of Hahn Premium Light. It’s the “premium light” that tells you why. I tend to ignore beers with either “premium” or “light” in their name as not worthy of serious attention. Almost any beer — I can’t think of a single example, but there must be one — with the name premium cannot ever be premium, whatever that even means. It’s very use cancels out any possibility that it is, indeed, premium. A truly premium beer will be known by its taste, not its name, which is after all an extension of its marketing. And light beer is perhaps the most useless beer category ever invented, along with its step-children diet beer, low-carb beer and anti-aging beer. But as far as marketing goes, it’s an unmitigated, mind-boggling success. Like most beer geeks I know, I tend to eschew marketing and walk a different path, or is that drink a different path, or perhaps I drink to the beat of a different drummer? Alright, enough mixed metaphors, the point is there is absolutely no reason to drink a light beer … ever.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy their marketing. A case in point is this pretty funny ad for Hahn Premium Light, a beer made by Lion Nathan of Australia (and New Zealand). Lion Nathan is more well known — at least here stateside — for their other brands: Toohey’s, Steinlager, and Lion Red to name the most popular. I can only guess that Hahn Premium Light is Toohey’s Amstel Light. But enough speculation, it’s the ad that caught my attention and you’ll soon see why. I’ve always felt that the Australian sense of humor is broad and unpretentious and this ad is both of those. So take a look for yourself.

Hey, did you hear? Apparently sex sells. Who knew?

P.S. – The two prior ads, which are there on the website, are also worth watching for a laugh.

Heineken Light? Do We Really Need Another Light Beer?

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heineken-white
Heineken announced today that it is set to launch its Heineken Premium Light brand nationwide after a “successful” test launch in four states last year. For years they resisted this and in fact that was the reason Amstel Light was created. For the big beer business, light beer is only the category that has shown much growth in recent years. Since our economy is built on naked growth without regard to consequences, the last few years have seen the introduction of such useless products as Corona Light, Rolling Rock Light, Sam Adams Light and Edison Light.

What nobody ever talks about, especially not in the media, is the fact that the caloric difference between a regular beer and a light beer is virtually insignificant. Not to pick on them — the numbers are about the same for all brands — but a 12 ounce bottle of Budweiser is 145 calories while Bud Light is 110 calories. That’s a difference of 35 calories, which is the caloric content of an average size orange. Big freaking deal. The way light beers are advertised you’d think light beer had almost no calories. Even if you had an entire six-pack you’d only “save” 210 calories, or a little less than a cheese omlette. An entire category of goods — light beer — has been built on nothing. The dietary benefits are all but illusory but the propaganda machine called advertising pounded home the opposite message for years and years. And the viewing audience, with a gullibility that knows no limits, swallowed it without question. So ask most people if light beer is healthier or better for you and they’ll reply with a confident “yes.” But that’s just a magnificent success by advertising of convincing people of something that’s simply not true or at best, is greatly exaggerated. Every time I see someone drinking a light beer I can’t help thinking “another duped fool.” Of course, most people who drink light beer probably don’t care about how bad it tastes because it’s unlikely they can taste the difference.

Ironically, the man who invented light beer, Joe Owades, passed away last month in Sonoma County. He created light beer for Rheingold Breweries in the 1960s and they marketed it as a diet beer. It failed. He then took the recipe to his next job with the Meister Brau brewery where they did reasonably well with it. In 1972, Miller Brewing bought Meister Brau and released Miller Lite, which neither tasted great nor was less filling. But as they say, the rest is history. I’d met Joe a couple of times. He was a nice man, and I’m certainly sorry about his death, but the hard truth is he was no friend of the craft beer industry. He believed that ale yeast was defective. Of course, the majority of craft beer is ale. So according to Joe, most craft beer is defective. Now to my knowledge he never explained how a naturally occurring living organism like yeast could be defective but such was his disdain for beer not mass produced.

But Joe’s legacy is one, I believe, that has helped to ruin people’s taste for flavorful beers. By selling people a more watered down product, the popularity of light beer fools people into believing that it is a healthy product that is good for them. But like most, if not all, mass-produced beers it is loaded with chemicals. As Garret Oliver put it, mass produced beers are “highly engineered food product[s], the equivalent of Wonder Bread, Twinkies, and Kraft slices.” So the end result is that people’s perception is that light beer, virtually unflavored, is the taste of health, diet and trendiness. So actual real craft beer that has few, if any, added chemicals and is loaded with flavors is perceived as unhealthy, fat-creating and by extension uncool. This certainly won’t give craft beer’s paltry 3.5% market share much of a chance to rise.

So while I think regular Heineken is undrinkable swill, a Heineken Light will almost certainly be even worse, which is frankly quite hard to believe. That Heineken is perceived as a “premium” beer is yet another amazing coup for the propagandists. The millions they’ll spend to convince clueless America that Heineken Light is a really good idea will no doubt succeed in further damaging the quest to increase the demand for better beer.