Sixpack Sez

Jan. 30, 2009 | The State of the Sleaze: 'Drinkability'

DRINKABILITY (adj.) - Suitable or fit for safe drinking; potable.

In the history of advertising, has there ever been a more inconsequential description of a product? Anheuser-Busch has spent a reported $50 million to propound the less-than-reassuring assertion that the leading quality of Bud Light is that you can swallow it without doing any serious damage to your digestive system.

I'll stipulate, if it moves things along.

Otherwise, in Joe Sixpack's 7th Annual State of the Sleaze, I'm left to wonder: Have beer companies run out of things to say?

The 2008-09 beer commercial season, which closes this weekend with Super Bowl XLIII, was entirely unmemorable. No catchphrases, no talking animals, no Man Laws.

And, in this post-nipple era, no cavernous expanse of cleavage.

(Speaking of which, have you noticed that when hot women show up in beer commercials these days, they're always part of a small, mixed gathering of healthy Americans having fun at a clam bake or other group activity? Is it me, or do they all look like horror movie bait, ripe for getting picked off one at a time by some hatchet-wielding mutant?)

I saw exactly one commercial this season that almost made me run out and buy a sixpack: The Miller High Life delivery-truck dude indignantly removing cold beers from a stadium luxury box because its occupants were oblivious to the game below.

The spot perfectly reflected the growing beer-stained sentiment, during this economic collapse, of populist anger toward the rich. First we take their beer, then we tar and feather the bastards!

The rest had me yawning. They're coasting on Madison Avenue.

I mean, when will Coors Light pull the plug on those insipid, make-believe post-game press conferences? Do they realize that Jim Mora retired eight years ago?

And then there are the Drinkability ads.

In brewing circles, "drinkability" is a measure of the ease of consumption. And what, you may ask, makes a beer easy to drink?

A 2004 peer-reviewed paper published by the Master Brewers Association of America said that carbonation and bubble density are among the major factors that increase drinkability. Among the negative factors: aroma, flavor, malt, hops, bitterness and aftertaste.

In other words, the less character, the more drinkable.

One other factor improves drinkability, according to the paper: The rate of gastric emptying. The faster a beer makes you pee, the more you can drink.

Which, frankly, would make for a good commercial.

Instead, we're left with the Bud Light campaign. At first, the ads seem a clever reach toward eerie irony, as if this most banal of qualities is worthy of network airtime. That's why, as I watched the fake freeze-frames, I kept waiting for a bigger joke, at least a chuckle.

Nothing.

Instead, we're led to the oft-heard yet dubious claim that, contrary to available evidence, all light beer does not taste the same. And what is the difference between Bud Light and the rest?

Drinkability.

As People Paper movie critic Gary Thompson told me, that would make Bud Light "the perfect dinner table companion for food that is 'edible.' "

If peanut manufacturers keep poisoning us with salmonella, the ability to safely consume a commercial product may one day be worthy of an advertising campaign. But for now, I'm looking for just a little more from my beer.

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Will Sunday's batch of Super Bowl ads redeem the beer commercial season?

Word is there's a funny Conan O'Brien spot in the lineup. But Bud, which monopolizes the beer ads during the game, is mainly going to rely on the beloved Clydesdale horses this year.

That's partly because our iconic American beer is now made by a Belgian brewing conglomerate.

The Clydesdales, AB-Inbev chief creative officer Bob Lachky told the Associated Press, reinforce "the most important traits of our company and that's the Budweiser brand, tradition and heritage and strength and quality."

Another company exec went so far as to say that, in these troubled times, the Clydesdales are "reassuring and uplifting."

As much as that saccharine message makes me gag, it's better than Miller's. In a series of online ads, it scoffs, "Paying $3 million for a 30-second commercial makes as much sense as putting sauerkraut on a doughnut."

Sorry, Miller. There's nothing more American than spending your last dollar on beer.

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