News

Light beer. It's everything you want to drink and less.

So goes the conceit of an old TV commercial that helped propel light beer into North America's biggest quaffing trend.

Now less is literally more. As in more expensive.

Beer makers are tapping an emerging thirst for what's been dubbed luxury light, a category that fuses the virtue of fewer calories and carbohydrates with the rising cachet of imported and craft brews.

Canadian drinkers are getting an exclusive taste of that trend this summer with Stella Artois Légère, a calorie- and alcohol-reduced version of the powerhouse global brand, which is using the country as a test market for an eventual worldwide rollout.

"Consumers were ready in Canada," said Martin Archambault, national marketing manager for international premium brands at Labatt Breweries, the Canadian unit of Belgium-based giant InBev, which makes Stella Artois and a host of other brands. He adds that Canada is perceived as a favourable testing ground for premium beers, particularly European brands such as Stella Artois.

"[Canadians] are a little bit more educated in terms of what they drink, and the export segment in Canada is growing really fast."

He says sales of the new beer, which carries 4-per-cent alcohol by volume, compared with 5.2 per cent for Stella's regular lager, are better than projected after just two months on the market. "We are over delivering our plan right now."

Also playing into the trend are two Dutch-made beers, Grolsch Premium Light and Grolsch Premium Blond Lager. The latter, which got its exclusive North American launch in Ontario in April (with a planned rollout to the rest of Canada and the United States shortly), is lighter than Grolsch's flagship lager, with 4.2-per-cent alcohol, compared with 5 per cent.

Microbreweries are entering the less-filling fray, too, including Alberta's Big Rock Brewery with Jack Rabbit, a light lager, and two Ontario independents, Robert Simpson Brewing with Antigravity Light Ale (4 per cent) and Neustadt Springs Brewery with Bruce County Premium Lager (lighter than the regular lager, but at 4.5-per-cent alcohol, technically not "light" in Canada, where the legal cutoff is 4 per cent). Moosehead, the independent brewer based in New Brunswick that might be considered a premium brand, has produced a light beer for some time.

But credit for christening the trend would appear to go to Heineken, the Dutch giant whose U.S. marketing team launched Heineken Premium Light Lager in the United States three years ago explicitly as a "luxury light" follow-up to the long-standing, big-brand imported light, Amstel Light. A spokesman for Molson, which distributes Heineken in Canada, said there are no plans yet to import Heineken Premium Light here.

One might ask what took beer makers so long to identify the luxe light category, which fuses the two biggest trends in barleydom.

Six of the top 10 beers in the United States are light brands, accounting for almost half of all beer volume sold. They include Bud Light at No. 1, Miller Lite at No. 2 and Coors Light in fourth place.

In Canada, where mass market beer tastes have gradually followed the U.S. trend and migrated toward lighter styles, Coors Light ranks second, behind Budweiser, and continues to grow. It's a light beer world.

It's also fast becoming more of a premium world.

"The import market's been growing steadily for years and years," said Rick Sellers, beer director with Draft magazine, a publication for beer lovers based in Phoenix. "There's a perception that there's a bit more flavour in them than the American national brands."

As in the food world, there's a growing demand for more taste but less guilt. "These new brands have a little bit more flavour, but they're easy to drink and they're lower in calories," Mr. Sellers said. A regular, full-bodied beer may have 150 calories, compared with 100 to 110 for a light beer.

"I'll say to people, 'It's like Coors Light but it's got more attitude,' " said Val Stimpson, president and chief executive officer of family-owned Neustadt Springs Brewery in Neustadt, Ont., referring to her Bruce County lager. Husband and brewer Andy Stimpson says he adds wheat for a creamy texture and tones down the hop content considerably to avoid the bitter quality that sophisticated craft-beer connoisseurs tend to love but induces cringes in Coors Light drinkers.

"Mr. Generic Drinker doesn't like hops," Mr. Stimpson said. "[Bruce County] is designed for the job. It's for the person who just wants to sit down and have a nice cold beer that's got some character."

One reason more microbreweries haven't stampeded into the light category is technical, said Koratta Campese, vice-president of sales and marketing for Robert Simpson Brewing in Barrie, Ont. "To design a light beer, you have to have the consistency," he said. "It's like going on the beach with a Speedo; if there's any imperfections, any flaws, any problems, you're going to spot it."

Flavour and fewer calories aren't the only forces behind luxe light, though. This is beer, after all, and image plays into the phenomenon, too.

Mr. Campese adds that Antigravity Light is squarely aimed at "the upwardly mobile middle market," a demographic in which many tend to recoil at big brands associated with ballparks, sports bars and sophomoric advertising.

Stella Artois's marketing campaign for Légère cunningly plays off the European brand's upscale, sophisticated adult image. "What other light beers want to be when they grow up," reads one advertisement.

Corona Light, the 3.7-per-cent alcohol spinoff of the already light-tasting Mexican megabrand Corona Extra, riffed on the upscale theme with the line, "It's the only light beer that's also a Corona."

In beer marketing terms, however, it's certainly not alone.