| Near Beer |
20 October 2003
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Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Kill Weak Lagers
British beer is dark, tepid and rather strong. Last week's announcement that Scottish and Newcastle brewery is killing off its lager brands Hofmeister, Kestrel and McEwans is not much of a shock. It's surprising these drinks were ever popular in the first place.
In the 1980s, Brits came back from Continental holidays full of mainland lagers. These highly drinkable brews, though, were about 5% alcohol. This is a bit much for a pint glass if one is drinking in the quantities customary in pubs from Land's End to John O'Groats. So, the British breweries came up with lagers at about 3.2% alcohol.
Americans who grew up in places like Colorado and Washington state, where local breweries Coors and Olympia had a bit of political pull, knew the blandness of 3.2 beer -- at 18 one could drink in special 3.2 bars. Real alcohol had to wait until 21. It was almost a deliberate initiation into the general awfulness of mass produced American beer. What the marketing wizards in the UK thought they were doing with the beer they were brewing as Continental Style Lager is hard to imagine. What they had produced was Yankee style swill.
Mercifully, the market has changed as drinking patterns have altered. One will still see the yobs outside the pubs at closing time barely able to keep it down, but there are people who have discovered why their Continental neighbors serve strong lagers in 330ml glasses. Drinking a large quantity of bad beer is not as much fun as having a smaller amount of the good stuff. The same idea has created the entire microbrewery industry in the US.
Still, one will miss the ads, which the British produced for these. Carling's "I bet he drinks..." campaign almost made it work. In the end, though, people don't drink advertising; they drink beer.
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