Dressing up a turd.....

There, it is now cold enough to not taste it!

You hear similar references to this in the beer community every time a mega brewer comes out with a new bottle, or marketing gimmick (i.e. Vortex bottles, or cold blue mountains on your bottle). It seems to be happening a lot more these days, as the mega brewers see their strangle hold on the beer market slipping away. Now, let me say up front, I don't believe for a second American Macro brew is in any danger of going the way of the Dodo bird. They are obviously  a little nervous about the surge in craft beer sales however. Not a month seems to pass, where we don't see what the big boys are doing to try and lure away craft drinkers away from their beloved craft brews, back to the watery macros of the big boys. A while back, the furor was over mega brewers packaging their beers to "appear" to be craft, without printing their names on the package. I don't agree with them doing this, but I can understand why they do, and in many cases, it was/is effective for them. And maybe even a smart, albeit dishonest thing to do.

Everything you ever wanted in a beer, and less???

The area that seems to be their favorite area to lure people back to big beer is packaging and marketing. Dressing up their watery suds in pretty bottles, limited edition cans, fancy case wrappings etc. All over beer threads and blogs all over the internet, you will read the question asked over and over "why don't they just talk about whats in the can, not about the can itself?" Well, its pretty simple, because they can't. They can not compete with craft beer when it comes to complexity of taste. Miller can say their beer "tastes great", but to me, "great" doesn't really describe how it tastes at all. You don't hear the makers of economy cars bragging about how fast their cars are, and how they can go toe to toe with exotic sports cars, because they can't. Its not what makes their cars attractive to car buyers. When you can't compete on taste, what else is there? Marketing and packaging and creating an image of the beer drinker. Now I don't begrudge the big boys for doing this, but it seems to be a weak attempt to reignite sales. I mean, if you are in a failing marriage, you can't stand your wife, she hates you, and all you do is fight. How would you fix it? Go to marriage counseling and fix whats broken right? Not if you are a big brewer. What would they do? They would just go out and buy a new wardrobe, and pray that makes everything all better! Then wonder why it doesn't.

Just looks like a can wearing a belt to me

The latest examples I've seen of these gimmicks are pretty interesting actually. First off. on May 6th, Budweiser is going to start selling 8 packs (that's right, 8 packs) of its flagship brew, in 11.3 oz, bow tie shaped cans! That's right, how cool is that? Um, really, I mean, is this really that cool? According to AB InBev, they are pretty excited about it, and say this about it "Its a conversation starter, eye catching, easy to grip (really?), trendy, and according to our research, appealing to young adults" Trendy? Easy to grip? I can see it now, the only conversation I see this starting is "what the hell is wrong with your can?" So there you go, if you stopped drinking Budweiser because the can was just too boring or difficult to grip, well, come May 6th, you can go back to drinking it with ease and excitement!


This next one is just bizarre. Heineken creates a bottle that lights up? The bottle has built in LED lights that seem to be sound and/or motion activated. check out the video.....

OK, so it might be kind of cool, but why? The only place I see this working is at night clubs, where folks are more concerned with looking good, and spending money they don't have in a pathetic attempt to appeal to club chicks that I guess are impressed by just such a thing. You could probably charge $20 a bottle for this, and in clubs, after folks get a few drinks in them, will probably start snatching these beer trinkets up left and right. Luckily  this is just a concept, and as far as I can find, there are no plans to release this to the general public (for now), but still, the fact that there is a lot of money being spent on crap like this, just makes me shake my head and ask why?

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a cool label, or a clever ad as much as anyone, but still, if the product behind the ad or label is just not good, then all you have in the end is just a cool label, or funny ad. You put a quality product behind that, and you have a real money maker on your hands!

Until next time
Bottoms Up my friends!
The Beer Czar

I saw it on Facebook, so it must be true.....

Earlier this year, I stumbled across a photo of what appeared to be a dogfight, taking place under a row of Heineken banners. With a caption that made one believe that Heineken was a sponsor of this barbaric event. As with about 95% of crap I see on the Internet, especially facebook, I ignored it, because any rational person would assume an international company, as large as Heineken wouldn't be stupid enough to open themselves up to such awful PR. So, like I said, I ignored it, and moved on to ignoring other stupid crap on facebook in my daily attempt to find the 2 or 3 percent of facebook content that isn't a complete waste of time (its getting harder and harder with each passing day.



This is the photo that cuased all the "uproar"



Well, it seems this picture has popped up again, and well, this time, I have had a few friends actually either send me this pic via email, or one was even "kind" enough to tag me in the picture, gee thanks (I promptly removed said tag). All assuming I would be all worked up about this picture, and asking me if I 'hated Heineken even more now??" Well, my response to them was, well, honestly, my opinion of Heineken hasn't changed a bit, as a result of this photo, since, well, I assume this picture is either fake, taken out of context, or at least given an inaccurate description. One of them got seemingly a little upset with me, that I could brush off something seemingly SO heinous, so easily, without the least bit of research. Isn't it just as wrong to get so worked up about something, and make some horrific accusations without doing the least amount of research? Well, since everyone else seemed to be to friggin lazy to do it, I did, and it took me all of about 12 seconds to confirmed what I already figured was the case.

Ha!

The picture, is not a fake, it is real, it was taken in a nigh club in Mongolia in 2010. Heineken had no financial interest or sponsorship, or even knowledge of the event taking place. The banners were put up, by Heineken, the night before to sponsor (I am assuming a much less barbaric) event the previous night, and, I am sure much to the dismay of Heineken, were not taken down after the event. As a result, Heineken has dissolved its relationship with that night club, even removed all of its remaining stock of products from the club once this was brought to life.

See, Heineken is too classy

I like Heineken's response to this. They were made aware of the problem, and dealt with it, swiftly, and without and grandstanding, or theatrics. The didn't threaten any action, or pander to all the idiots that thought they were sponsoring such barbarism by donating to some charity or something. They did nothing wrong, and they didn't apologize for someone else's discretion's. So, if anything, my opinion of Heineken my have actually gone up a little as a result of this. I still think, as a beer, their product is pretty horrific, but as a company, they seem level headed, and not prone to pander.

So, rest assured my friends, Heineken doesn't sponsor dog fights, they only sponsor those high brow events one normally associates with beer, stuff like beer pong tournaments, and wet t-shirt contests. Oh, they also are the preferred beer of James Bond, so they must be doing something right! So please people, if you are going to pretend to get all pissed off over something, PLEASE make sure it at least makes sense before you go spreading it as gospel. Remember, if you read it on Facebook, its probably bullshit.


Until next time my friends
Bottoms Up
The Beer Czar

You can read the write up on snopes here...

James Bond giving up the Martini??

Bond, James Bond

So, there is a new James Bond movie coming out this winter. This movie however, is just slightly different then Bond movies of the passed for one small, but very noticeable shift in Bonds character, and one that is likely to put the Bond purists panties in a twist. Bond will no longer be asking for his martini, and characteristic "shaken, not stirred" and instead will be reaching for a nice, cold beer! Is this a step in the right direction for the "beer community" or is it just a case of Cooperate big wigs selling out in a greedy effort to milk as much cash out of their movie. Given the fact that its a Heineken that Bond will be drinking, makes me feel its really more the later. Heineken, reportedly paid millions for the chance to put one of their green bottles in the hands of the worlds most popular (and awesome, I might add) super agent. I couldn't find an exact number of how much they paid.

"Shaken, not stirred"

Like a mentioned above, Bond purists and even and ex Bond himself have expressed "outrage", and displeasure with this. BTW, the ex Bond? No, not Pierce, not Rodger, not Sean, and no, not even Dalton, it was George Lazenby, who played Bond I believe for just one movie (in "Her Majesty's Secret Service"). So, I guess its not that big a deal, I mean, pissing off attendees of a Bond convention is probably not that dangerous, but still, this was beer related, so I wanted to mention it.
I at least hope 007 pours it into a glass before he drinks it. I mean, seeing James Bond drinking a beer, right out of a green bottle seems far to unrefined for someone of Bonds reputation.

To sort of commemorate the occasion, Heineken will be releasing a series of "Bond themed" commercials featuring 007 himself, Mr Danial Craig. They just released the first one...check it out.

I really like James Bond movies, so I'll be sure to check it out. "Skyfall", the 23rd Bond movie, Daniel Craigs third go as 007, is due out Nov 9th.

See you at the movies!

Bottoms up my friends
The Beer Czar