Attracting Women to Beer, Non-Beervana Edition

A couple of days ago, I mentioned that Molson Coors was releasing two new beers into the British market. It didn't strike enthusiasm into the hearts of Beervana's women--and no surprise. We've achieved near gender-blindness in our beer consumption here, and the idea of a light-bodied, low-carbonation rose-flavored beer seems a little condescending to women used to drinking toothsome saisons, stouts, and IPAs. But lest we get ahead of ourselves, it is worth considering the plight of the British scene. And Kristy, who commented on that post and works for the brewery, has:

The amount of beer drunk by women in the UK is just about the lowest of any beer drinking country in the world and 60% of women here don't drink beer ever. What's worse is as a beer industry we've effectively ignored women so the numbers should come as no surprise but we believe it's the right time to do something different.

Animee has been developed based on 2 years of research of over 30,000 women (beer & non beer drinkers) and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. What it does is offers real choice in the beer category for everyone - that to me has to be a good thing!!

If you think she doesn't have standing in the discussion, go read her profile and see what you think. Look, it's easy to dismiss macro lager as a lower form of beer--beer geeks do it every day. But it is in fact the beer most people drink by a very large margin. Even in Britain, industrial lagers have displaced the beloved pint of cask bitter as the beer of choice. More to the point, Molson Coors happens to brew industrial lagers, and it's a bit much to expect them to play outside their sandbox. They're trying to expand the market by reaching the half who ignore them. To play devil's advocate: where's the downside? This seems as much a cultural problem as a beer problem. If Molson Coors can make beer acceptable to women, isn't that a good thing? Then it's up to Fuller's to make bitter acceptable to them. Mock the product, but the intent? I'm less certain about mocking that.

A rising tide...

Martyn Cornell, speaking for the prosecution, dissents--by way of satire.