Pop the Top on Beer Promotions
The Top Beer Companies Want To Throw a Beer Party At Your Place All Summer Long

Raising beer margins is a bit like wishing upon a star.    
    Or rather it is hitching your bar’s wagon to one of the heavenly bodies of brew with the gravitational pull to bring in customers with their brand equity and their marketing and advertising gravitas.    
    For most venues, whose Budweiser, Miller Lite, Coors and Heineken Light tastes exactly the same at the tavern down the block, it helps a great deal to latch on to brand promotions that can give it the edge and make it the bar of choice for beer drinkers looking to part with their hard-earned dollars.    
    As a rule, there are at least as many on-premise promotion possibilities out there as there are brands of beer.    
    Granted, not all beer promotions are created equal, but some of the latest offerings from Coors, Heineken and from rising craft beer brands such as Flying Dog and Wild Goose breweries hold out the prospect for success. 

Beer Dinners
    Taking their cue from the popular beer dinners being hosted by restaurants and better bars around the country, Flying Dog Brewing Co. of Denver and Wild Goose Brewing Co. of Fredericksburg, Md., have set up a Web site to assist venues in the hosting of their own beer dinners pairing different Flying Dog and Wild Goose beers with various food courses, from appetizers through desserts.
    Via a Web site address that operators can access at beerdinners.com, Flying Dog and Wild Goose spokesman Neal Steward said the site is designed to help people understand the concept, become more aware of beer dinners around the country and discover how to host one at their own bar or restaurant.
    "We will have individual menus on there, with five to seven courses,” Steward said. “Each menu will show you how to prepare each course and what beer (from among the 12 different Flying Dog and five Wild Goose beers) to pair with it and why.”
    Stewart says the beer dinners work well for venues because, typically, a restaurant will charge one fee per person for participating, usually … filling up the restaurant and charging $60 and above per person.
    “Everyone is getting the same meal that night,” he says. “It is a high-profit, high-margin event that is easy to execute. People like it because it is a very social experience. Everyone is eating the same food, and they can share the different flavors they are getting out of the beers.
    “And they can share whether they like a certain entrée, beer, or dessert,” he says. “You can sit down with people you don’t even know, and you have a conversation starter with the beer and the food.”

Icy Cold In Colorado
    For bars frequented by Coors beer fans, there’s a cool new draw in the recent launch of Coors Light Super Cold Draft, a modern and innovative system that pours Coors Light below freezing, offering hot and thirsty beer drinkers what the folks in Golden, Colo., describe as “the coldest tasting, most refreshing beer available.”
Just in time for those dog days of August, when customers need some extra incentive to get out of the house and venture into the heat for a bracing beer beverage, the word from Coors is that the launch marks the first time such a system has been available in the United States.
    How much colder is the new Coors Light Super Cold Draft? At a temperature between 28.5 and 31.9 degrees Fahrenheit, as opposed to the 36 to 40 degrees achieved with traditional pouring systems, the Coors Light will be cold enough to require a goosdown parka in the middle of August.
    According to Coors Brewing Co., the new draft system is based on studies indicating that most consumers enjoy a colder beer. In addition, the new draft pouring system pours less foam, for more beer enjoyment and value for customers in every glass of Coors Light served.

Running The Tables
    Heineken USA’s new Heineken Premium Light beer is riding the wave of a major marketing and advertising push that has moved the beer into top 10 sales status in the United States. As a result, there is no better time to connect with the German import brand that is gaining beer market share by the minute.
    With higher profit margins for every pour, Heineken is hungry for success on-premise, where they know only too well that great and lasting brands are built.
Already, Heineken is hosting launch parties at some of the hottest bars and nightclubs in the country, and actively is seeking opportunity to partner with operators around the United States.
    Heineken USA is out to convince on-premise consumers in 25 of the largest beer markets in the United States to trade up to Heineken Premium Light with a promotion called HPL Undercover.
    Throughout the month of August, young ladies in the guise of secret agents will infiltrate venues in Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and elsewhere to engage new customers for the Heineken Premium Light brand with promotional gadgetry such as heat-sensitive cards. When pressed with a thumb, the cards reveal a secret promotional message to the patron, who, in turn, will receive a bar buck discount card good for a free beer in states where the promo is legal.
    “We wanted to do something fun and turnkey, and of a higher quality than keychain and T-shirt giveaways,” says Karen Quinn, senior promotions and sponsorship manager.           NCB