I read an article today at thedrinksbusiness.com titled Molson Coors to Launch Beer for Women.

Ahem. Excuse me? Does that imply that other beer is not for women? Or that, if you’re a woman and you like other beer, you’re not as female as the non-beer drinker?

I call BS.

According to the article, the beers they’re creating are more like champagne overall, like Boston Beer Co. and Weihenstephan Brewery’s collaboration, Infinium. My issue with the entire idea is this:

I am a woman. I like beer. In fact, I love beer. I can even go so far as to say that I enjoy most styles of beers that I’ve ever had the opportunity to taste. Perhaps the funniest part of this entire diatribe is that of all the styles I have tasted, many of the ones I like the least happen to be lighter and oftentimes more champagne-like in nature.

Whattaya think of that, Molson Coors?

Look, I may not be your typical woman. It’s true, I do love American football (even the draft) and good bourbon, neat. But before alienating an entire group of women who, like me, do love beer, maybe Molson Coors should’ve went about their new marketing strategy in a different way.

I tend to steer clear of Molson Coors brews and this new targeting strategy certainly isn’t changing my mind.

TAGS [ MOLSON COORS | BEER FOR WOMEN | INFINIUM | BEER RANT ]

What is the first thing you think of when you think of Oktoberfest?

Beer, right?

Sure, visions of ladies in dirndls and men sporting lederhosen, while consuming Bavarian pretzels the size of your head, may dance through your thoughts but at the end of the day, the thing most people think of when it comes to Oktoberfest is beer.

What would Oktoberfest be without beer? In my humble opinion, it wouldn’t be Oktoberfest at all. It would be more likened to a lawn fete with a tent, with maybe a carnival ride or two.

When I read this article about a northern Alabama city finally legalizing alcohol sales, which would allow for their "dry" Oktoberfest celebrations to go "wet," I thought, why on Earth would they even call a festival "Oktoberfest" if there wasn’t any beer? Wouldn’t it just be some kind of Fall Fest?

Maybe I’m thinking too much into this. What do you think? Can Oktoberfest actually be Oktoberfest without beer?

TAGS [ OKTOBERFEST | DRY OKTOBERFEST ]

I’m 26 years old, I haven’t even been out of college for five years and I definitely know how to have a good time. Still, I’m old enough and smart enough to know that packing several drinks’ worth of alcohol and a lot of caffeine into a single container is a very bad idea. Making that can ridiculously cheap (between $2.50 – $3.00) is even worse.

Alcoholic energy drinks are all the rage on college campuses these days, with the sweet and fruity Four Loko being especially popular. Students fondly refer to it as "blackout in a can" or "liquid cocaine." Lovely! Universities and schools all over the country are issuing warnings about the stuff and some have already banned it. Between the brightly colored cans, 12% ABV and the false sense of sobriety you have as you’re drinking it, it’s really dangerous.

With that, please consider the following:

Top 5 Reasons Four Loko Shouldn’t Be Legal

1. Stimulants in the drink delay the "feelings of drunkenness," often times causing the person to consume even more alcohol. If you’re going to idiotically choose to get dangerously drunk, you should at least be able to gauge how dangerously drunk you are.

2. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that drinkers who consume alcohol mixed with caffeinated energy drinks are three times more likely to binge-drink and twice as likely to report being taken advantage of sexually. (Source: The Boston Globe) In fact, there have been several cases where people (almost exclusively high school and college students) seriously thought they were roofied– only to find out they had just consumed too much Four Loko. These people also more likely to engage in drunk driving, risky behavior and violence, as well as suffer alcohol poisoning, heart attack, coma and death.

3. Even the State of New Jersey is seeking to ban it entirely and the State of New Jersey is pretty much the unofficial capital of cheap, scandalous things. (NJ residents please forgive me – I’m half kidding.)

4. Drinking just two cans of Four Loko in an hour is equivalent to chugging 10-12 beers, except you’re not full or tired so you can keep drinking. Your body can’t really metabolize 12 hours’ worth of alcohol right away, so the alcohol builds up in your bloodstream and can do crazy things like shut down the respiratory centers of your brain.

5. They’re almost indistinguishable from non-alcoholic energy drinks and they’re clearly marketed to younger people who aren’t really into drinking responsibly or making good decisions. The cans are flashy, the flavors are appealing and "it’s promoted to a young audience for consumption in multiple servings."

That last point is well made by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) who asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Phusion Projects, the company behind Four Loko and has also urged the U.S Food and Drug Administration to deepen and make public the results of a yearlong probe into marketers, launched after a letter by 18 attorneys general expressed "grave concerns" about the drinks’ safety and asked the FDA to remove it from the market.

Schumer also calls the beverages’ frequent placement next to ordinary energy drinks a "highly disturbing" cause of confusion for both legal and illegal consumers. I recently heard a story about a real life mix-up, which resulted in a 7th grade JV football player puking his brains out half-way through the first quarter of a game because his mom had naively given him two cans of Joose (10% ABV and similar to Four Loko) because she thought it was just a regular energy drink (which the kids all chug before games) and the cashier hadn’t carded her when she bought it.

That being said, if these drinks aren’t taken off of the market they NEED to be better regulated. Just take a look at this report from the Houston Press’ Craig Hlavaty who decided to try Four Loko for himself, see if all of the hype and criticism was valid and write about his experience, as it happened. It’s pretty funny in a scary kind of way.

In the wise words of Antoine Dodson, "Hide yo kids, hide yo wife"- whatever you do, please drink responsibly and don’t support this stuff.

TAGS [ FOUR LOKO | ALCOHOLIC ENERGY DRINKS | BAN ALCOHOLIC ENERGY DRINKS ]