Monday, November 17, 2014

Beer belongs

You might have noticed some of the chuntering about the recent launch of the "There's a beer for that" campaign.  I can't work out exactly what the problem that people like Matthew Curtis, Chris Hall or (for that matter) HardknottDave are having with this thing.

They seem either to be saying it won't sell more beer, or if it does, it'll be the wrong kind of beer. Allegations of being gagged by the man. There's also a hint of whining about having their brains picked while soaking up free beer at some corporately funded bloggerfest.* Which seems, well,  ungrateful. And really, really, naive.

Whatever, it's maybe a good time to have a look back at some other beer industry campaigns...

Over the last few years we've acquired a few examples of the delightfully dated "Beer belongs" thing, the famous ad campaign by the United States Brewers Foundation that ran from 1945-1956.

It's an interesting campaign, aimed (I'd say) at the newly affluent, those with home refrigerators. No sad old men drinking in crummy bars.

I was going to write at length about it, but it's been done really rather well by one in "All about Beer" magazine in Nov 2009. You can read the article here.  There's additional material by the same author here.  With lots of images. (Scroll down if you're not a reader).

Enjoy.

* Not Dave, the other chaps.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Interestingly I was invited to both the Let There Be Beer and the There's a Beer for That launches, as well as being hassled to interact in other ways.

I've done quite a few things before where I've gone along (Ann says "going along" is northern and common, and I should say "attended" - perhaps I'm just common) to events run by bigger breweries than myself. Or visited other breweries by invite.

Just to digress, but I hope in a relevant way. Both the non-descresionary and discretionary exchange has varied enormously between various such occasions.

As I've been asked elsewhere to name, Fullers and Brains have in the main been very rewarding exchanges and I've been very happy to join in.

However, things like The Cask Report, Let There Be Beer, There's a Beer For That, Cask Marque and other such big industry initiatives not only expect me to give up time to attend, but offer no other exchange that can be considered a reward. And yet pile on the guilt if I don't engage.

A few free beers don't cut it for me. I brew the damn stuff, and you have already been told, it's cheap to make, so why would I travel all the way to London for free beer? A train fare, a meal and a hotel would be the price.

StringersBeer said...

That's the problem with attending these things, oft-times it's a sign of going along. Of course, it's easy for me to take the moral high ground as I'm never asked.

Unknown said...

Never asked? And you being a troublesome blogger? Something is wrong there.

StringersBeer said...

I'm not "troublesome", I'm officially "Scornful".