United Kingdom: UK’s four largest brewers to hold National Lager Week in August

UK’s four largest brewers are planning to scupper growing sales of cask beer with a celebration of standard lager, the Publican posted on April, 1.

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.

“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.”

01 April, 2009