Kronenbourg 1664 - Pairing Food with Beer

Everywhere

It's a strange life when you regularly receive emails offering free beer. Usually, it's some unknown brand of Eastern European lager, brewed for seven centuries by left-handed Slovakian Kings. This week, however, it was Kronenbourg. A French big label beer, probably brewing up millions of litres a year, and definitely employing Eric Cantona to tell all about the quality of their hops. Now they want me to say a thing or two about them. I can't blame them really: if Eric isn't working, I'm an obvious second choice.

The angle here isn't some imagined world where Gaelic farmers drive Ferraris and are worshipped for their craft. Rather, it's the serious business of what to eat while drinking beer. So, instead of the usual bag of Mr Porky's, a borrowed dining table - that looks far more rustic than my landlord's - found itself modelling a couple of cold beers, a handful of Alsatian sausage, and a cheese that smells so French it brings tears to your eyes. Sadly, not a pie in sight.

The cheese, a Petit Munster, left a lingering smell on every surface in touched, including my fingers. Not dissimilar to a certain brand of cheesy crisps - "this cheese taste like Wotsits!" - the taste is far lighter than the orange dusted rind would have you believe, yet still manages to bring through a dose of the lingering flavour. The sausage is that German stereotype frankfurter, far better than Ye Olde Oak, though I'm still not a fan of a boiled sausage. I suppose I could have grilled it, but I was following orders.

What about the beer?! I can hear everyone (hi Mum!) shout. It was a Kronenbourg. Plain and simple. Cold, plain, and simple. Standard, cold, plain, and simple. It was a Kronenbourg. Did the food enhance it? Well, it gave me something else to taste and something else to think about, so it was a worthy accompaniment; not one that's likely to kick a bag of Scampi Fries into touch, mind you. I had fun though and that's the main thing, I suppose. To the overture of Eastenders I arranged the plate, took some nice photos, and sipped and nibbled. It's not a trip to France, but the musty cheese definitely took me part-way there.

Jumping on the Craft Beer Bandwagon

The rise of craft beer reflects the growth of the discerning drinker - a segment of the market previously reserved for round-stomached, long haired, CAMRA t-shirt wearing 50+ year olds, but now populated by the trendy, young middle classes.

Not to miss out, big brand beers are jumping on the bandwagon fast. Fosters and Kronenbourg are two brands whose focus has shifted towards heritage and provenance.

Even with the vast expense of an Eric Cantona appearance, these campaigns are doomed to fail in attracting their target market. A discerning beer drinker is someone who looks for quality in the detail. Perhaps not to the extremes of knowing hop types and brewing times, but enough to notice the 'Brewed in UK' disclaimer stamped on both of these ads - suggesting that both the claims of heritage and provenance are complete bollocks.

Beers ads generally focus on humour, shock, 'being clever', or a combination of all three. This is because the brand name alone is the only differentiating characteristic between the various yellow swills. The goal of the ad is then to scream the name so loud its bored inside drinkers' heads, and rests on the tip of their tongue waiting to be shouted back at the bar come Saturday night. The people for whom this mass marketing approach work don't care about a product's provenance or heritage. They're the people who buy Magner's, not because it's Irish or made of apples, but because they've been told to do so while watching Coronation Street or the Champions League.

Big beer has lost the plot, falling in to the classic trap of attempting to tap in to a growth market by taking an existing product and twisting the image to fit the square brand peg in the round hole of consumer demand. It's a ridiculous strategy that will never achieve its goal. Any increase in sales will come purely from the increased exposure, not people running to the pub hollering 'it was founded in 1888 dontchaknow!'. However, I'm sure this won't stop them trying to hijack the next trend - organic Foster's anyone?