Opinion

I heart beer

I was raised on beer. Literally. My dad began making beer before I was born and has continued, off and on, through the years; he now has a brewery in the basement. I’m a child raised with hops in my back yard, who crushed malt in the kitchen and sampled beers before it was technically legal. I love beer.

So being both a beer lover and a girl I was intrigued to hear that several breweries have plans to release new beers targeted towards women. I probably should have been wary – my favorite beers tend to have lots of hops, yielding an often strong and slightly bitter flavor that turn off many women and some men. Sure enough the girl beer news was not, let’s say, impressive.

The two major releases of “beer for woman” are both “lighter-tasting” and “less gassy”. The Molson option, “Animee” comes in three flavors: clear filtered, crisp rose and zesty lemon. The second option is both better and worse: designed and brewed by a woman, “Chick” beer is “light” and also low-carb. While I admire more than words a woman making the effort to brew her own beer, why does it have to be light beer? And did she really have to use Curlz MT for the logo font?!

The thing is, I know lots of cool women who like lots of cool beers and none of them have pink labels or rose flavoring. Furthermore, I don’t think the pink labels or rose flavoring are things that are going to intrigue my female friends – beer drinkers or not. Before they got to the point of pandering to the lowest common denomenator of what they thought a woman would want in a beer, maybe they should have tried marketing beer to women.

Think about it: when was the last time you saw a beer ad targeted to women? Other than the occasional Corona Light ad (and having a women in a bikini drinking a beer on the beach is hardly appealing to the feminine masses, by the way) can you name a beer who’s made the effort to intrigue the female population? Even Miller, the lite beer “MGD 64” ads target men making toasts and men at parties. Perhaps before we started redesigning beer to fit women the marketing guys could take a stab at things? Try a little education on what tastes good with your brand of beer. Take a humorous looks at how women might deal with their hangovers. Redefine the “bros over beers” with the female camaraderie from a shared six-pack.

I’m heading out tomorrow night for an evening of drinking beers with women. I was recently pointed to a new local group, NC Girls Pint Out (@ncgirlspintout) that focuses on women in the Triangle who love beer. The Triangle chapter is part of a larger Girls Pint Out group spread all over the country. I’m really looking forward to chatting with chicks who appreciate and enjoy the finer aspects of beer – all kinds of beer – without losing sleep over their calorie intake. You go, girls.

2 Comments

  • Cathi

    Did no one learn a lesson from Zima?! Come on, people. You are not the person the Mrs. Beer is for, it’s for people like me – the woman who habitually took a blender and teensy little multi-colored umbrellas to parties. I am not a beer drinker, nor do I particularly like the taste, but on occasion I’ve been known to toss back a Corona or a Stella or that one with the lime; light, easy-to-drink beers. And I think THAT is where the Mrs. Beer people are missing the point. They need to make beer look irresistible to the girl folk; that’s what made me race out and buy the Miller Chill in the first place, despite all the advertising being male-oriented (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PzDFpJCz5E for perfect example).

    Where is the commercial where the working mom races around doing soccer-practice type errands, then gets home and puts her feet up on a block of ice and the dude from the Old Spice commercial appears to feed her nachos? That’s a beer I would buy. Rose flavor – blech.

  • Sarah

    This post was even more fun to read when it wasn’t accidentally displayed on a projector screen in front of 8th – 11th graders…

    No, but really, Riehle, love this post. I know we debated it some, and I AM trying to stick up for the girl (Curlz font and all) for trying because–sadly–this beer WILL probably appeal to the masses. Is Jersey Shore a good show? No. Should it be on TV? No. But do people watch it? Emphatically, yes. I think this beer could find a spot in the world, even though I AGREE that the marketing companies of beer land could try a little harder to target ads to women, because the truth about consumerism seems to be that it doesn’t matter what we should produce– it’s what will sell. So, while this beer is offensive to you, your Dad’s backyard hops, and any girl who can down cheese fries and a good beer while thinking about more than her waistline–it’s going to be slurped down by others who think the pink is adorable and the light flavor “is, like, beer champagne!”

    On that note, I am glad to have you, beer warrior, as a friend and crusader against those without the same appreciation of ales. So cheers to my cool female friend–thanks, but no pink bottle necessary.