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Marketing folks must get really bored or have an idea quota because some of the stuff they come up with is just bonkers. Here is exhibit A….
Forgoing the easy, mints that taste like water joke, why would anyone pop a Lite beer mint? My guess is that it is a co-packaged mint with no beer from whomever bulk manufactures mints for dirt cheap.
Pass, so very hard.
First up is thankfully only in Japan….
KFC Japan has a new fried creation, the “Ninniku Crispy” or “Garlic Crispy” chicken. It was created “specifically to complement alcoholic beverages, this new chicken features a tantalizing blend of garlic, soy sauce, and a crispy batter, all culminating in a final touch of garlic-infused oil sauce.”
Unfortunately, the second is straight up Americana as Miller High Life and Leinenkugel’s — have collaborated on a limited edition beer, “Cheers!” a strawberry lager “offering a blend reminiscent of white wine and strawberry jam, finishing with a sweet touch.”
Miller High Life , the (don’t call it the) champagne of beers, is getting into chocolate.
They have tasked the chocolatier Phillip Ashley with creating not just truffles made with the watery beer but “Bar Snack Truffles, a collection of beer-infused chocolates that celebrate iconic bar snacks.” All for $35.00!
The weird and unappetizing flavors are:
– Grilled Cheese: triple cream cheese white chocolate ganache in a blond chocolate shell
– Lemon Pepper Chicken Wing: a fried chicken ganache infused with lemon pepper seasoning
– Pretzel Praline: salted pretzel and roasted pecans combined with handcrafted caramel and blond chocolate
– Beernut: freshly roasted peanuts soaked in the beer then ground into our fragrant butter and enrobed in a milk chocolate shell
– Buttery Popcorn: white chocolate ganache infused with movie theater style popcorn
– Sweet Potato Fry: garnett sweet potato mash blended with blond chocolate.
Needed? – Truffles and chocolate can work well but this is too much savory. So the answer is Not.
I have plenty of brewery t-shirts and merch but I have never once thought to myself, I wish that Miller High Life would have a clothing line that was classy, priced between $44-$78.
But apparently if you get a hyped clothing brand to join forces with, then it is greenlit.
Verdict – put that money into your beer ingredients and not clothing.
Cut to the chase. Not needed. A light flavorless seen better days beer simply ain’t gonna add much of anything to chocolate or ice cream. I bet that if blindfolded, you could not taste the difference between plain and “High Life”.
But if a craft brewery added a stout or a fruited sour to an ice cream treat, then I would be 100% on board. But adding water beer, nah.
This here blog talks a lot about collaborative beers. It is an essential aspect of craft beer (in my mind) that there is a working together that you don’t see in other realms of business. No Starbucks / Intelligentsia special coffee releases being one made up example.
But this latest collab is quite different. At least one half is. Off Color Brewing of Illinois is teaming up with none other than Miller High Life. Off Color’s brewer went to “old” Milwaukee and brewed on Miller’s pilot brewhouse (yes, even big brewers have pilot systems) and then the Miller team did the same at Off Color.
No word on what the final beer is but Los Angeles gets a trickle of Off Color beers so we might actually see it in the future.
It being Halloween. I thought I would scare you with the last installment of the industrial water lager reviews!