Rugby and racing - Beer and brand disloyalty

Last week's Malthouse blog covered burgers, brocolli, the Lucky brewery debacle, the three greatest Canadians of all time, "Spiderman" Emerson and Chimay White. It was called "A spirited defence of brand loyalty":

We would tend to portray the person who eats only corporate burgers and fries as unsophisticated, a little odd and probably quite large. However, the person who drinks nothing but – say – Heineken is seen as a loyal and informed drinker. I simply cannot express the absurdity of this notion any better than noted beer writer and my third favourite Canadian Stephen Beaumont...

In "Rugby, racing and beer", I take at looking at the baffling appeal of the Melbourne Cup, the cultural theft of Phar Lap, the attempted shooting of Phar Lap, the alledged similarities between American lager and horse by-products, West Coast humour at the expense of DB and Monteith's Summer Ale:

At 5pm today, millions of otherwise normal and usually horse-racing agnostic Australians and New Zealanders will stop what they are doing, turn on the television, put a silly hat on their head, throw buckets of cash at the TAB and cheer wildly for a large four-legged animal who, yesterday, they had never heard of.

Glass Tip - Malthouse Blog

Beer & Food Matching by Stephen Plowman – Hallertau Brewbar

Beer and food matching is fun. The most fun about Beer is your not bound by a bunch of pre-conceived wine matches everyone seems to accept like, “Gewurztraminer goes with Asian food” not only is this stupid it also very boring.

The hurdle to beer and food matching in NZ is the lack of character in the mainstream brands. The real challenge for the chefs the Monteith’s Wild food challenge is making the dishes bland enough to match the beer. Hallertau has set about changing that with a range of beers bursting with delicious food matchable flavours.

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Beer lovers to take on DB Breweries over trademark

In response to the frustrations expressed by the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) Inc about DB Breweries trade marking and preventing others from using the generic term “radler” in relation to their beer, James & Wells Intellectual Property has offered SOBA Inc the services of its specialist intellectual property litigation group on a pro-bono basis to invalidate DB Breweries' trade mark registration for RADLER.

SOBA campaigner Greig McGill says “We greatly appreciate James & Wells' involvement. As a young organisation, we couldn't have afforded to challenge this cynical misuse of trade mark law without their assistance. We look forward to justice and common sense prevailing, and the return of radler to a generic term defining a style of beer, as it should be.”

DB Breweries seems to have made a habit of trying to monopolise generic terms for beer styles and along with Radler, has also sought to register “Oud Bruin” and “Saison” with mixed success.

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Monteith's - gone from focus to greed

My issue is that the people at DB Breweries (Monteith's owners) have gone from focus to greed. The brand seems to have done well as a 'mass-boutique', positioning on its authentic West Coast origins and its crafting of a very likable beer range. Now they've launched 'Monteith's New Zealand Lager' and all of a sudden the brand focus is shifted from authentic west coast to premium national lager, including jumping on the naturally brewed band-wagon!

The brand gurus are quick to point to big brand disasters after the fact but slow to predict mistakes before they happen. Well I predict this latest addition to the Monteith's family won't work because it's not focused on the brand's core success factors.

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Breweries fight over Summer beer

However, the judge said DB had tried, and failed, to get a trademark for Monteiths Summer Ale and he refused to ban the Sundance Summer brew because:

"DB has no right to exclusive protection of a generic phrase unless there is proof of deception."

The $60 million craft beer market is the new battleground for breweries and DB says Lion Nathan is trying to play catch up.

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Beerly Writing

From the Free Radical, I have the invididual freedom to reproduce this article about American beers:

This is not what I expect or want from the greatest nation on the planet. The country which invented muscle cars, cheese burgers, smart missiles and Pamela Anderson’s red swimsuit should not be represented by such timid brews. These are beers designed by committees with recipes written by accountants.

And from the Wellingtonian newspaper, I have permission to post this article on the Monteith's Wild Food Challenge:

That said, the pillow of potatoes still stole the show. They were rich, light and fluffy. It was like snogging an angel. Sure, the butter needed to get such a marvelous texture was probably peeling days off my life but it was completely worth it. As a card-carrying carnivore, I don’t usually talk about mashed potatoes in such a way.

Monteith’s drinks to Toast festival

New Zealand beer brand Monteith’s has announced it will be supporting the Toast festival in London next month.

Monteith’s launched in London last month and is set to focus its marketing activities in pubs and bars, before the brand is rolled out nationally.

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The Wellington Food Show - A Beer Perspective

In a plan so cunning that Rowan Atkinson is considering suing me, I went to the Wellington Food Show at 3:45pm on Friday. The intention was to avoid the crowds, particularly that sub-set of crowds who think a packed food show is the perfect place to take a double baby buggy.

The plan worked to perfection with minimal waiting at most stalls. The number of stands displaying tea was way down, the number offering spreads was way up. So how did beer fare?

Here is the tally:

There were 36 wine stands offering (conservatively) 5 wines each so at least 180 wines were available. I saw one person who looked like he had tried to sample them all.

There were 4 spirit and liquer stands offering (approximately) 15 different spirits and liquers to the punters.

Finally, there were 2 beer stands offering (exactly) 9 different beers.

The only places flying the flag for beer were Monteiths and New World (which had the three Bavaria beers).

Am I the only one which finds this just a little bit sad?

Monteith’s Doppelbock

Monteith’s Doppelbock Winter Ale is on sale in supermarkets and liquor stores from July 2. Monteith’s expects the tradition of winter beers to be as strong as ever this year, especially on tap at its 19 concept bars that start pouring in mid-June.

Monteith’s Doppelbock Winter Ale differs slightly to the 2003 Doppelbock speciality release with a 6% alcohol content (previously it was 7%).

Doppelbock Winter Ale replaces the previous Monteith’s Winter Ale seasonal release which boasted cinnamon and clove flavour cues.

Doppelbock was last released by Monteith's in 2003 for a limited time and since then has been the brew most often requested by beer lovers to be returned to the stable.