Sunday, February 3, 2013

Canned Beer and One Man's Mission for Non-shitty Shitty Beer

Canned Beer and One Man's Mission for Non-shitty Shitty Beer

Since today is the day you will see a slew of terrible ads on the superbowl attempting to get you to buy into their marketing gimmick that you gots to drink their beer and what not, let's take a moment and look at some angry consumer;

Miller Brewing Company
Milwaukee, Wisconsin  53201
 
Dear Sir or Madam,
 
I have been a drinker of Miller beers for many years
(actually, ever since that other company donated a big
chunk of change to Handgun Control Inc.  back in the
mid 80's).  Initially, my beer of choice was Miller 
Lite, but some time in mid-1990 while in  Honduras I
switched to MGD smuggled up from Panama.  Now, for
nearly six years, I have been a faithful drinker of
MGD.  For these past years, I have come to expect
certain things from Genuine Draft.  I expect that
whenever I see that gold can of MGD, I am about ready
to enjoy a great, smooth brew.  But wait!  Sometime
around the first of the year, my beloved MGD changed colors,
so to speak.  That familiar gold can was no longer
gold!  Knowing that I am, by nature, somewhat
resistant to change, I forced myself to reserve
judgment on the new can design.  Gradually, I grew to
appreciate the new label.  That was until about May of
this year.
 
That was when I discovered (empirically) that I really
didn't like the new design. Further investigation of
the cause of my distress resulted in the following
observations:
 
  1. Your cans are made of aluminum.
 
  2. Aluminum is a great conductor of energy.
 
  3. Your beer is commonly consumed outside, and thus,
  the container may be exposed to sunlight.
 
  4. Sunlight striking the can causes radiant warming of
  the surface of  the can.
 
  5. The resultant heat (energy) is transferred through
  the aluminum, by conduction, to the contents of the
  can (the beer).
 
  6. Warm beer sucks.
 
This is a process that can be observed in just about
any beer.  However, this process is significantly
accelerated in MGD because you painted the damn can
. . . black!!!  Who was the rocket scientist that designed
the new graphic for the can and implemented the change
right before summer?  Granted, this process may not be
real evident up there in Wisconsin, but down here in
Oklahoma where the summers are both sunny and hot,
this effect is quite a problem. There's no telling
what the folks in Texas and Arizona are having to put
up with.  Knowing that you would probably not address
this issue unless you had firm evidence of a problem,
I and several other subjects conducted extensive
experimentation.  The results of these experiments are
listed below.
 
The experiments were conducted over two days on the
deck next to my pool.  The study included seven
different types of beer (leftovers from a party the
previous weekend) that were initially chilled to 38
(and then left exposed to sunlight for different
lengths of time).  These beers were sampled by the
test subjects at different intervals.
 
The subjects, all normally MGD drinkers, were asked at
each sampling interval their impressions of the
different beers.  The length of time between the
initial exposure to sunlight and the point where the
subject determined the sample undrinkable (the
Suck-point) was determined.  The average ambient
temperature for the trials was 95 degrees F.
 
Beer Type                          Average Suck-point (minutes)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Miller Lite (white can)            6.2
Bud (white can)                    5.5
Bud Lite (silver can)              5.2
Ice House (blue and silver can)    4.4
Coors Lite (silver can)            4.1
Miller Genuine Draft (black can)   2.8
Coors (gold can)                   0.1
 
It was evident that the color of the can directly
correlates to the average suck point, except for Coors
which was pretty much determined to suck at any
point.  It is to be hoped that you will consider
re-designing your MGD cans.  All beer drinkers that
are not smart enough to keep their beer in the shade
will thank you.
 
Sincerely, 
Bradley Lee Beer-drinker
 
 
And here's a little response...


Dear Bradley Lee,
 
Thank you for your letter and your concern about the
MGD can color as it relates to premature warming of
the contents.  Like you, we at Miller Beer take beer
drinking very seriously.  To that end, we have taken
your letter and subsequent experiment under serious
consideration.  Outlined below are our findings and
solution to your problem.  May we add that we have had
similar letters from other loyal beer drinkers, mostly
from the Southern United States.
 
First, let us congratulate you on your findings.  Our
analysis tends to agree with yours regarding Coors.
It certainly does suck at about any temperature.  Now,
it was our intentions when redesigning the MGD can to
create better brand identity and brand loyalty.
Someone in marketing did some kind of research and
determined we needed to redesign the can.  You will be
pleased to know, we have fired that idiot and he is
now reeking havoc at a pro-gun control beer
manufacturer.  The design staff working in cahoots
with the marketing idiot was also down-sized.
 
However, once we realized this mistake, to undo it
would have been even a bigger mistake.  So, we took
some other actions.  From our market research, we
found a difference between Northern beer drinker and
Southern beer drinkers.  Beer drinkers in the South
tend to drink slower than beer drinkers in the North.
We are still researching why that is.
 
Anyway, at Miller Beer, it was never our intentions to
have someone take more than 2.5 minutes to enjoy one
of our beers.  We pride ourselves in creating fine,
smooth, quick drinking beers and leave the making of
sissy, slow sipping beers to that Sam guy in Boston.
However, it is good to know that you feel our Miller
Lite can last as long as 6 minutes.  However, may we
suggest in the future you try consuming at least two
in that time frame.
 
From your letter, we had our design staff work 'round the clock to
come up with a solution that would help not just MGD
but all our fine Miller products.  We hope you have
recently noticed our solution to your problem.  We
found that the hole in the top of the can was not big
enough for quick consumption.  So, we have now
introduced the new "Wide Mouth" cans. We hope this
will solve all your problems.  Might I also suggest
that if you want to get the beer out of the can even
faster, you can poke a hole on the side near the
bottom, hold your finger over it, open the can, tip it
to your mouth and then pull your finger off the hole.
This is a common way to drink beer at parties and
impress your friends.  This technique is known as
"shot-gunning".  You should like the name.
 
Again, thank you for your letter and bringing to our
attention that there might be other beer drinkers
taking more that 2.5 minutes to drink our beers.  Let
me assure you that I am having our advertising
department work on campaign to solve this problem,
too.
 
Sincerely,
 
Tom B. Miller 
Public Relations 
Miller Brewing Co.
Ah, enjoy the superbowl. More about the ads later. 

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