Shotgunning, Inc.
More thoughts on beer technologies! These should go down just as smoothly as my post on canning craft beer (written up more fully here). I'll focus on MillerCoors, one of the industry's biggest packaging innovators, and in particular on one of their best-selling beers, Miller Lite.
The fact that taste isn't the most interesting thing about Miller Lite (as the company itself has basically suggested*) is, I'd argue, not unrelated to the fact that the brand has been on the leading edge of a packaging revolution for the last half-decade.
Consumers have a lot of trouble telling the difference between "light American lagers" by taste (just listen to these experts!). To distinguish themselves on the marketplace, a lot goes into (big surprise) marketing – but here I think we've got something more. Differences in packaging might in fact be mostly talk, but there's at least a claim to technological superiority – and that's enough to get me interested.
Much …
The fact that taste isn't the most interesting thing about Miller Lite (as the company itself has basically suggested*) is, I'd argue, not unrelated to the fact that the brand has been on the leading edge of a packaging revolution for the last half-decade.
Consumers have a lot of trouble telling the difference between "light American lagers" by taste (just listen to these experts!). To distinguish themselves on the marketplace, a lot goes into (big surprise) marketing – but here I think we've got something more. Differences in packaging might in fact be mostly talk, but there's at least a claim to technological superiority – and that's enough to get me interested.
Much …