Bostonians (and other residents of major metro areas) can't escape the ads. O'Doul's non-alcoholic brew has begun a marketing blitz that is omnipresent on the streets, atop the taxicabs and along the walls of the T. A mocked-up subway map with stops including the Upper and Lower Yeast Side, Ucan Dr., Circlegetza Sq., and Designated Dr. sits behind a big green bottle of O'Doul's, which is flanked by some sort of insipid (and evidently forgettable) catch-phrase.
It's all rivetingly unfunny, making it clear the A-team of marketing geniuses, having been diverted to the top-priority "Whassup?" campaign, have left the industry's dregs behind to try and market the non-alcoholic stuff. O'Doul's is not running a very good campaign. The witticisms are wince-worthy. Moreover, some of the fake subway names could be thought through a bit more thoroughly: When I last went down to the Lower Yeast Side my girlfriend at the time was thrilled, but I certainly wouldn't describe the experience as "cool and refreshing."
But, in a way, it all works. People are looking at the ads, grimacing, and thinking about something that rarely crosses their minds: non-alcoholic beer.
Say what? Why does such a thing exist? Beer is for pitchers. Beer is for quaffing in enormous quantities, with large groups of boisterous people. Beer is for getting progressively more intoxicated while enjoying your own inexplicably improving wit and charisma. Beer, ladies and gentlemen, is not like wine. It has not traditionally been about taste. It has, however, been about alcohol content.
The O'Doul's website asks: "Want the great taste of beer? Go ahead, it's an O'Doul's."
Yes, but who really drinks beer for the taste? There are some strikingly tasty beers out there — beers like sour Belgian lambics, wheaty German hefeweizens, Alagash White, chocolate-esque Abita Turbodog, New Glarus's Spotted Cow, and many others. But these aren't what Joe Public is consuming on a regular basis, for better or worse. He's drinking slop, because it makes you drunk. As opposed to drinking expensive, finely-tuned microbrewed beer because it makes you drunk.
So when Anheuser-Busch steps up and presents a beer lover with a "richer, smoother, premium non-alcoholic brew," that beer lover is likely to be very, very cautious about trying the first one, to say the least. Flak Magazine gave it a try, however, under semi-scientific conditions.
At first, O'Doul's has a clean, crisp taste, a bit like ginger ale minus the sugar, plus some hops. It also has a nice smooth aftertaste, which somewhat compensates for the weak body of the brew as a whole. Not overwhelming.
But after finishing one, I opened another. I finished that, too. I'm tempted to chalk it up to the heat, but the truth seems pretty evident: to at least one veteran beer-quaffer, O'Doul's tastes pretty good. Is it a pitcher of locally-brewed Golden Ring ale? No, not quite. But it's not bad — and certainly not as bad as expected.
However, it's probably not good enough to stock a fridge with. On those nights that demand sobriety (work-related functions, construction work, contract killings, etc.) I'll stick with the old-fashioned non-alcoholic alternative: IBC root beer. Now that's a non-alcoholic brew we can all groove to and rally behind.
— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)
