Somebody slap that bitch, please

I find myself getting cranky a lot these days. I recently turned forty and I hope my crankiness is not due to getting old, but I can’t think what else it could be. I know that it’s not because I’m turning into a wowser, because the precise reason I’m getting cranky is that I WANT to drink. As I have said often, I love beer. I love to drink it. I want to drink the beers that I love when I want to, where I want to and how I want to.

I don’t want to be made to drink beer in plastic cups, or only before 10pm, or only drink beer with less that 4 per cent alcohol.

I want to drink a beer and not have it labelled with pictures of withered and spotty livers, or pictures of bleeding bodies littered around a car smashed by a drunk driver.

I want to be able to drink a beer and not to have to wait until the children are in bed and then sneak out to the back yard for a quick beer and then hide the bottle. Hell, I want my daughters to get the same pleasure out of pouring a beer properly for their hard-to-please dad that I did when I was growing up. Actually, I even want to be able to say that previous sentence without being accused of modelling unhealthy alcohol use and getting dragged into Children’s Services to explain myself.

Because of all of this I wrote an article for The Punch arguing the thesis that:

• Times are changing, the levels of alcohol consumption that are considered healthy are lowering and community attitudes to alcohol are changing too.
• What are considered the visible effects of alcohol – street violence and alcohol induced crime, all grouped under the heading ‘binge-drinking’ - are increasingly becoming hysterical front page fodder for the media.
• The hysteria will force governments to act or at least be seen to act to quickly solve what is a problem developed over a generation. When government acts in this way it acts badly.
• The upshot will be that people who enjoy beer (or wine or spirits) and do so responsibly will be subject to the same ridiculous “anti alcohol” rules and restrictions as the relatively small but visible problem group.

As a result I took a shot at the trend amongst the big breweries to chase the 18 –30 market, raised on fruit juice and sweet soft drinks, that are moving away from “bitter” beer (i.e. most beers) and opting instead for sweetened alcopops. The result is that brewers have gradually been lowering the body and bitterness of new beers to try and attract this demographic. Of course, one of the attractions of these beers is that they are “sessionable” – marketing speak for there being no flavour to leave you feeling like you’ve had enough to drink, no matter how many you have. (Ironically, they also tend to use the description “thirst-quenching” and “satisfying” even though the beers are designed not to quench or sate a thirst - the brewers don’t want you stopping after just one or two.)

Despite the above, one thing that can be said for these beers is that they have also been edging down on their alcohol content. Even XXXX’s beer-like Summer Bright Lager is “full-strength” at 4.2%.

While I think these beers pander to a certain type of drinker, they oddly do it in a sort of semi-responsible way…if that’s possible. And that’s exactly why someone should slap Bitch Beer before they ruin it for the rest of us.

This is a beer that has been designed to fill a gap in the market that didn’t need filling – the market for higher alcohol, lower flavoured beers. Their marketing basically brags about being brewed for effect, unashamedly chasing the market that is in the anti-alcohol crosshairs – young people who drink for effect.

Despite the compulsory, but feeble, ‘Bitch is potent stuff. Please drink responsibly’ the rest of the marketing spiel is a single-entendre.

Why BITCH? Simply because we'd had a guts full of beers made for old men. And BITCH embodied our non-conformist, play hard attitude to life.

Sure, we could have brewed it with less alcohol. And we probably could have made it not taste as good, but then we'd be just like the sh*t loads of ordinary beers made for old men that are already out there.

Packing 6.0% alcohol, it has a bit of kick. The extra alcohol adds a slightly sweet flavour. Unlike many high alcohol beers, BITCH is an unexpectedly fresh, easy drinking Aussie beer.

Swigged extra cold straight from the bottle, it's crisp, clean and gob-smackingly refreshing. Like a Mexican beer, you can add a slice of lemon or lime to put a twist on the flavour. Goes really well with food, or without food, which makes it perfect for every occasion, or not occasion.

This is basically just a malt liquor.

Again, it’s not a wowser thing. As I write this, I have a glass of Flying Dog Barley Wine beside me weighing in at 10 per cent…but it has so much flavour that I’ll probably have written another 1000 words before the glass is empty. (And it is satisfying, I won’t want another.)

This sort of cynical-half-smart-marketing-concept-cash in-contract-brewed (not that there’s anything wrong with contract brewing as a rule) garbage only hurts the beer industry and, I fear, will end up making it harder for people who want to drink beer (not just consume alcohol) to enjoy it. It will tar all higher alcohol beers with the same brush. The hysteria around BrewDog’s Tokyo shows that when it comes to a good frenzy, logic and facts will not calm things down (even if the frenzy was probably self-generated). The big brewers are already shy of putting out higher alcohol beers, even from their craft arms, lest there be public outcry. With branding and marketing like this on a product designed for one thing, these clowns are just painting a huge target on the back of all beer and the rest of the industry should call code red. Failing that, bars that stock it are pretty much signalling that they’re high risk and should start ordering the plastic cups and extra security now as well as putting the lawyers on stand-by.

And don’t get me started on Skinny Bitch, their planned low carb offering…

Ads without people?

Fosters hasn’t quite stopped making beer, but they obviously want to focus on what they do best. They have just appointed Sydney-based ad agency Droga5, creators of The Regulars and the controversial, cynical and extremely successful Raise A Glass campaign, to handle advertising for Crown Lager and Cascade in addition to VB. Expect to watch more advertising brilliance in the future…while you drink something else.

Fortunately, they don't advertise in Russia which prohibits the use of people in beer ads.

In 2004, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service prohibited the use of human or animal images in beer commercials and limited the time that beer advertising can be shown on television to between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

In May, however, the regulator complained that the beer industry was circumventing the law by using images implying the presence of people without showing the people themselves — such as clinking beer glasses and off-screen voices conversing.

Now obviously advertisers use people in ads for a reason. They want to establish a brand identity that their target market will indentif ywith, and will hopefully prompt beer drinkers to think they will look as cool, wealthy or as discerning as the pretty and handsome young things in the ad and hopefully encourge them to buy that brand of beer to cloak themselves in those brand attributes. While this in all probability does have a flow on effect to make drinking seem cool as well, I'm not quite sure that that's the biggest problem that alcohol faces. It's just one of the easiest for government's to tackle and to be seen doing something to pander to the ever louder voices of prohibition. You will still have endless images of footballers celebrating with beer (and the scandalous stories of how the night ended up in the papers for weeks to come), champagne corks popping at Formula One trophy presentations, cocktail parties in the social pages and so on and so on.

Drinking and any problems surrounding it is a huge issue and Government's just tend to distort the problem with half-arsed bans like this one.

I enjoyed the quote from Konstantin Garanin, creative director of the unusually  named Reclamafia advertising agency.

“If we’re banned from using people’s voices and other human-related stuff, we’ll just show more beautiful landscapes and flowing water,” he said.

They gotta pay for the ads somehow...

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIdDLWNtfHA] The play it well Fosters. Their new beer ad was a huge hit (and deservedly so…though I am reminded of this story from The Onion and think that maybe Fosters should quit the beer market to concentrate on ads).

But in all the fuss about the ad for the beer, they managed to squeeze out a media release announcing they have again reduced the alcohol content in VB…

VB Remains Great Value

Melbourne, 01 July 2009

VB remains great value, retaining its wholesale price unchanged on stubbies and cans despite Federal Government excise increases and rising input costs.

With bi-annual CPI-indexed excise increases applying from 1 August and in the face of rising input costs including malt and hops,  VB will hold its wholesale price in stubbies and cans, through tough economic times. VB will reduce alcohol-by-volume from 4.8 to 4.6% from August to fund this.

"With a microscopic change in alcohol content, VB will come in line with most Australian mainstream beers", said VB Group Marketing Manager, Paul Donaldson. "The beer tastes exactly the same, has the same standard drinks, and offers better value to stockists."

"We're investing behind the brand with one of Australia's biggest ever beer ads - VB Regulars - launching next week", Paul said.  "VB is Australia's favourite beer and we're making sure it remains the real Australian beer.

Talk about making it a positive: despite the Government, the cost of ingredients and economic conditions - not to mention the cost of the huge ad we're unveiling next week...

This is becoming an annual event, following on from the move in July 2007 when Fosters cut the alcohol-by-volume from 4.9% to 4.8%, and a similar move by Castlemaine Perkins in July last year to reduce XXXX Bitter to reduce their ABV to 4.6%.

While this has generated considerable media coverage and all sorts of mainstream debate about whether the flavour will change don’t expect too much different. Even when the alcohol was around the 4.9% ABV, the flavour profiles were trending light. It reminds me of an article by Rory Gibson in 2006 when Castlemaine Perkins launched the short-lived Special Brew…

Brent Wright, XXXX's head brewer and the creator of Special Brew, says the beer was designed to attract those that inhabit “the night-time zone”.

“We've done a lot of research which identified a niche market for XXXX, aimed at the younger crowd who are essentially impervious to mainstream advertising,” Wright says, which explains why Special Brew had such a low-key launch at the end of November.

“These people go out to a bar and they tend to drink something with more taste to it, like wine, spirits or the RTD (ready to drink) cans.

“They don't want to have too many -- they might have five or six drinks a night -- but they want to taste them.

“XXXX Gold is a beer you can drink a lot of but it has no taste memory. Special Brew is a step-up in flavour.''

Although it still uses the Golden Cluster hops and special yeast that its older brothers are made with, the Special Brew clocks in at 6.5 per cent alcohol, is a darker colour and carries more bitterness and fullness.

Although comparisons are odious to brewers who put a lot of effort into creating what they have every right in thinking is a unique beer, Brent names James Squire's Golden Ale as a drink that shares similar characteristics.

“I can still remember the original XXXX, which had a lot more bitterness and bite than the beer we have today. Special Brew reminds me of that,'' Wright says.

“It is a challenging beer, hoppy and malty, and we are proud of it.''

If it doesn't make an impression on the market, it may disappear into the "good idea but no one wanted it'' bin.

When asked if it was a permanent fixture on the XXXX menu or just a fishing exercise by the marketing department, Wright wouldn't say.

“If it shows stickability Special Brew is here to stay,'' he says. Given Wright spent a year perfecting it he has his fingers crossed that all his 20-year-old son's mates get a taste for it.

There is so much going on in this article that I want to comment on (which is why it immediately leapt to mind) but the phrase “no taste memory” just screams “tasteless” and the sentence “I can still remember the original XXXX, which had a lot more bitterness and bite than the beer we have today'' . Just says it all. Obviously stickability wasn't one of its attributes as it sank pretty quickly.

These mainstream beers are going the way of water anyway as brewers frantically try and chase a generation raised on sweet, fizzy drinks for whom bitterness holds no attraction. It’s not about quality (at least in terms of being ‘good’ as opposed to ‘consistent’), it’s about marketshare. And they are businesses afterall. They will be here in some form of multinational megacorp long after many of the great little craft breweries springing up today have folded because their reasons for being are so different. These breweries have been around for so long because their "portfolio of brands" is just the means to make a return for shareholders. They don’t really care what those fast moving consumer goods are so long as they are moving.

The mindset is just confirmed when you see someone with Chuck Hahn’s standing in the beer community, someone who I greatly respect, saying things like:

"What we do to lighten the beer up is use three to 30 percent cane sugar to make the beer thinner and more thirst quenching," he told ninemsn.

"It's more refreshing on a hot day than German beers — it's brewed for our climate."

"Nothing's more natural than cane sugar," he said.

"There is no sugar left in the beer, it is fermented out by the yeast."

But while Ms Pavoni pointed out that German beer contains less calories than full cream milk or grape juice, Mr Hahn said it was harder to drink Bavarian beers in large amounts because they are richer in flavour.

"With richer tasting beer you don’t drink as much," he said.

With up to 30% cane sugar being used in mainstream beers dropping the ABV back .2% just means a little less of the cane sugar, which is just there for alcohol because it adds nothing to the body or flavour anyway. It is what gives these beers their “sessionability”. No one will notice the difference, except maybe the sugar cane farmers. Which, returning to VB, makes it interesting that nowhere in the discussion about input prices is sugar mentioned, although they have increased over the past 12 months.

As for the phrases “They don't want to have too many -- they might have five or six drinks a night” and  "With richer tasting beer you don’t drink as much," I’ll leave them to the anti-alcohol campaigners to comment on. It’s a separate issue, but if you want to know who painted the huge target on the beer industry for the neo-prohibitionists to aim for, you don’t need to look much further.