For starters, The Minerva brewery in Mexico says and you can see I'm quoting here if you read the piece : The Artisan honey ales would appeal to a section of the beer drinking public that has so far been snubbed by larger brewers. Unquote.
I'm off to brew a beer with Brodies in a few weeks for my London Beer Festival at The Rake and I know that they do a 'Pink Pride' beer with New Zealand hops, Raspberries and the help of the local gay community but not targeted at them; good for them, not a large brewer but still doing it. So Minerva are not the first. They are possibly way out on their marketing though if they think that just because they've brewed a honey beer the gay community will enjoy it. After all a friend of mine on twitter and good customer said and again I quote 'They can keep their Pink Pride and their honey ales, mine's a Bourbon County Stout'.
I of course completely agree with this notion, after all, just because someone is homosexual does not mean they are into fruit beers or sweet beers. It shows massive ignorance on the part of this company to even attempt to market these beers to the gay community and I for one think that to try to is basically trying wholeheartedly to move equal rights back 10 years, if not more.
I have to hold fire slightly here and quote Dario Rodriguez Wyler of Bodega, Minerva's distributor 'We're out in the market with great respect with the idea of offering a product directed to the gay-lesbian community that has been ignored for far too long but is important and very demanding'. So, whilst 'outing' themselves they've decided to release a nice, sweet, honey beer that manly men and womeny-women won't like.
Yeah Right.
So I'm going to try and skip the name of the beer completely for the want of all sorts of Carry On-esque jokes and try and find a positive somewhere.
Testing the water, I asked if we should stock them at The Rake(yes I was joking) and got the answer 'not sure you need another honey or strawberry beer, wait until it comes out in cock flavour'.
What's the packaging like again? Hmm, shall we wait until it comes out in a cock shaped bottle too. Oh that'll be never then!
To put a slightly more serious note on this, I wrote a piece on girly beer a while back, some people loved it and agreed with me, others accused me of being sexist for assuming that when someone ordered a 'girly beer' they meant fruit beer. Surely pigeon-holing a beer for the gay community is just as bad?
So as a responsible retailer, what the fuck am I supposed to think if somebody comes into the bar and asks for a gay beer? Answers in the comments box folks.
13 comments:
Back where I come from, gay beer was always the non-alcoholic option.
At least this might allow those partaking of non-ABV beers to dodge a few bullets...
Progress moves in mysterious ways.
Well said, dude! Being one of those aforementioned women who don't just, if ever, want fruity beers, tokenism is the worst type of beer marketing. We went on a tour of Fullers a while ago and all the ladies were given a bottle of Honeydew to take home. I didn't realise honey was reserved for women (and, it now transpires, gay men) and neither did all the blokes on the the tour who were pissed off they did'nt get a freebie. Gender, sexuality, age, blah, blah, has bugger all to do with your choice of beer flavour-give me a stout any day. Although, I might be persuaded with a cock shaped bottle.
Thanks for the comment Shea(just spat my beer across the room).
In my experience, the expression 'gay' beer has been used either to mean beer lower in alcohol than Stella, or that epicurean poncy stuff part of the aim of which is provide an enjoyable sensory experience, as opposed to just being a mechanism for the transmission of alcohol to the brain at the desired rate.
So with the bar's wide selection of craft beers of differing types, you'll have plenty of options, on either definition, if anyone asks.
If the asker is good-looking, I'd suggest you give him one.
Brodie's Pink Pride is a proper Gay beer, brewed i conjunction with the local Gay community,straight people are allowed to drink it as well...
The only person I know that can drunk twenty pints in a day is gay so I don't think he needs any marketing nonsense.
What I want to know is when metrosexual beer is comming out. A beer for the modern metrosexual man that takes care of his appearance and isn't afraid of his feminine side. Until then I'll neck a skinful of Stella.
@cookinglager Isn't that anything that Mark Dredge drinks?
@Realalegirl I've just fallen a little in love with you.
"@Realalegirl I've just fallen a little in love with you."
I'm revising my latest blog post! (-;
A couple of my best mates are gay (it wasn't too hard finding friends of a different sexual orientation going to art college, Not that everyone who goes to art college is gay, don't get me wrong!)
They both shop in beer ritz, and I'd never sell them a 'gay beer' I just sell them 'good beer' (one of them tried Thornbridge St. Petersburg couple of nights ago and thought it was the best beer ever!) . I think if there were beers directed only at the gay community that could get offensive quick.
In line with the fantastic film In Bruges, I'd have say your fridges are already packed with Gay beers.
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