Middleweight champions
In recent years there has been a surge of mid-strength beers, occupying the space somewhere between low
alcohol and regular strength pints. But are they any good? Nigel Huddleston reports
What’s green and promises not to get you too drunk?
Were the question from the British tradition of rubbish not funny jokes the answer might be something like “a frog that’s left its wallet at home,” but actually it’s a bottle of Beck’s Green Lemon.
Unless you’ve been to Germany in the last year and a half, the chances are you haven’t encountered this strange looking liquid, but you might see more of it soon because brewing giant InBev is testing the British market with sales in some Tesco stores and pubs owned by Greene King.
Apart from the colour and its citrussy taste, what’s odd about the beer is its alcoholic strength. At 2.5% ABV, it’s exactly half the strength of full-blown Beck’s, and one of a small but growing band of beer brands that’s pitching into what the brewers hope will be a money-spinning market niche.
The hundreds of thousands of pounds big brewers spend on market research has thrown up the nugget that drinkers want “lighter” beers, a trend that accounts for everything from golden ales from the big players in real ale to citrus-flavoured products like Foster’s Twist and Carlsberg Edge from the lagerheavy majors.
Half-strength beer comes out of the same research findings, and as well as Beck’s Green Lemon, it’s so far resulted in Carling C2 – a 2% version of the lager owned by Coors – and the 2.8% Guinness Half-Strength, which for now is limited to a few bars around Limerick in Ireland.
They’re all responding to a perceived consumer demand for beers tha.....
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By Nigel Huddleston
Section : Beer Trends
Page number : 64
