Steinlager throws new light on beer drinkers

By DITA DE BONI

They were drinking our beer - but not as we know it.

Lion Breweries entered the difficult light-ale market yesterday with the launch of Steinlager Premium Light.

The beer, which has an alcohol/volume strength of 2.5 per cent, will go on sale today in central business districts and be in supermarkets in six weeks.

The product, sharing the same bottle colour, size and shape as regular Steinlager, will cost around $1 less for a dozen than the regular brew, but up to $4 more than "mainstream" light beers on offer. While tasters at the launch seemed impressed, those with a memory of previous attempts to crack the low-alcohol market were wondering how long Steinlager Light would survive where others had fizzled.

Lion Breweries said it was confident the low-alcohol ale would be a success, meeting the challenge of providing a light beer with a full-strength taste.

"Other light beers have a hole in the palate where the alcohol used to be," said Lion technical director Donald Nelson.

The market for low-alcohol ales is extremely small, at around 2 per cent of the total market, and is at present dominated by another Lion product, Light Ice. Several previous attempts by both Lion and DB to augment the low-alcohol market have sunk.

One commentator says light products often fail in New Zealand because they are perceived as "too girly" for the archetypal beer drinker.

But Lion now hopes to double New Zealand's low-alcohol market, citing strong demand for light brews overseas. In Australia, light beers comprise 10 per cent of the beer market. But a low-alcohol beer there is classified as 3.5 per cent, "which makes all the difference," says another commentator.

While low-alcohol beers, with their light taste and low calorie count, have traditionally appealed to female drinkers, Lion marketing manager Lee Hill said the product had a non-gender-specific target market. The beer spoke to "busy, successful, driven people with busy social schedules."

"Those people have not had premium, low-alcohol options available to them before ... "

After trying the product, beer aficionado and Herald columnist Gordon McLauchlan said Lion had made a pretty good shot at a flavourful light ale. "It is dry, crisp, with a nice hoppy aftertaste.

"It's a really good attempt. But it doesn't bite at the back of the tongue like a regular beer, and that's something you can't disguise under 4 per cent [alcohol/volume]."