The Big Two plus A-B InBev, through their IBEC umbrella body the Irish Brewers' Association, have started a marketing campaign to promote beer in all its wonderful forms. Their website (
www.beernaturally.ie[/url:3bsoaw4s]) includes tasting guidelines to different styles of stouts, lagers and ales -- the sort of thing you'll find in any beginners' guide to beer.
All well and good, except nowhere on the site is any commercial beer named as an example, and only a handful of the styles mentioned are actually brewed (poorly, for the most part) by the three companies for sale in Ireland. In fact, the ale guide features Blonde Ales and IPAs, but makes no mention of Irish reds.
What's going on? Why are they spending money on this instead of more Stella/Bud/Heino billboards? If they're so concerned with promoting quality beer to go with quality food [i:3bsoaw4s]why the hell don't they go and brew some?[/i:3bsoaw4s]
I'm confused. Should we write to them?