There's a beer for that!

You know when you are onto a good thing in life when friends give you some beers to try as they thought it was nice and I should blog about it but it is also nice when my wife sends me an email about a beer initiative!

So it looks like the brewery industry in the UK is having a stab at trying to get people to think about beer with food opposed to just thinking wine. 

Here's the advert - http://youtu.be/1-UtQzdDros

When you think about many of the events at Sydney Craft Beer Week it was clear this was the message being promoted over here in Aus as well - food and beer match just like wine and food.

So the UK industry has created a slogan “There’s a beer for that”. It aims to tout the category’s quality, diversity and flexibility, areas where brewers feel they have lost drinkers to wines and spirits in recent years.

A TV ad (see above), directed by 24 Hour Party People director Michael Winterbottom, launches next month to kick off the category’s marketing makeover. From London to North Wales, the creative spans a huge array of locations and cultures across the country to show that for every type of person and occasion there is a matching beer style. Beer and food pairings will appear prominently throughout the ad as a voiceover notes “There’s a beer for that”.

The real reason I am blogging about this is because they are also making a push into social media - a real-time Mindshare-developed “BeerMatch” Twitter service is to launch in the coming weeks that will recommend beers, expertly picked by beer sommeliers, for particular dishes every time someone tweets @theresabeerforthat.

If spaghetti Bolognese is tweeted, for example, the person will be recommended a Belgian-style blonde ale. An algorithm has been coded to match over 1,000 beers with the top 1,000 foods consumed in the UK, while those requests not on the list will be answered directly by the social media team. It is a reimaging of the brand’s food pairing website last year. 
Additionally, weekly discussions on beer styles such as porters, pilsners and stouts will be held on Facebook and Twitter. 

I think this is a great idea and it shouldn't be just used in the UK - this should go global in my opinion so I am spreading the message!

I reckon I will give it a go and see what they come up with!

Neil