Big brewers hit back with National Lager Week
1 April, 2009
£50m celebration of standard lagers set for the summer
The UK's 'Big Four' brewers are aiming to scupper growing sales of cask beer with a celebration of standard lager.
InBev UK, Heineken UK, Molson Coors Brewing Company and Carlsberg UK have joined forces to declare August 3 to 9 2009 as National Lager Week.
The brewing giants are understood to have been inspired by the success of Cask Ale Week, which kicks off next week (April 6 to 13). They have pledged to invest £50m in advertising and marketing support, believing that they can encourage consumers to 'love a lager' and order standard keg beers.
A spokesman for the newly formed Brewers United Loving Lager group denied that the choice of date - the same week as CAMRA's long established Great British Beer Festival - was a deliberate provocation.
"We've picked the date because it's the height of summer," he said. "When the sun's out, people want an ice cold, fizzy four-per-center - maximum refreshment and minimum taste.
"Cask Ale Week has managed to drum up loads of interest with a budget that's pretty pathetic compared to the resources we can muster.
"So, let the sandal-wearing beardy-weirdies have their festivals and drink their warm, flat ale. In pubs up and down the land people will be drinking our products during National Lager Week 2009, and throughout the year.
"Lager is the UK's best selling beer category and, quite frankly, we're not going to apologise for it any more. We're not going to invent bogus provenance and spurious histories for bog-standard, mass produced keg beer. It is what it is."