Pucker up

Lemonades with a serious kick are this summer's hot trends. Sales are good, but how long before these sweetened beers to the way of wine coolers?

By SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 20, 2000

[Times photo: Patty Yablonski] Two Dogs Lemonade Brew, created in 1993 in Australia, is among the hard lemonades gaining popularity among Americans.

Pop one open, and the earthy smell of malt and hops rises from the tall, clear bottle. It smells like beer, but it doesn't exactly taste like beer. There's lemon and sugar in there, too.

Is nothing sacred?

Citrus-spiked malt brews and their various kissing cousins are the new darlings of the beer racks this summer, sharing space with the Buds, the Coors and the Fosters. Called hard lemonades, they are sucking up major sales for brewers.

This isn't your grandmother's lemonade. There's a punch in that pucker, about as much alcohol or more than the average beer.

With macho names like Mike's Hard Lemonade and Bo Dean's Twisted Tea, these malt beverages are a way to snare men who wouldn't go near a wine cooler, but might want something other than the usual brewski.

Remember wine coolers, those sticky-sweet cocktails from the 1980s with the charming TV ads? California Coolers? Bartles & Jaymes? You'd be hard-pressed to find one in a bar anymore and only a few remain on the grocery shelves or in liquor stores.

Along comes hard lemonades to fill that gap, and if you can get past the befouling of beer (and considering the new plastic beer bottles on the market, it's clear all bets are off), a lemon brew may be a pleasant alternative on a hot day.

Sit back for a spell, fill a glass with ice and maybe a slice of lemon and pour in some Hooch or "Doc" Otis' Hard Lemon Flavored Malt Beverage or Rick's Spiked Lemonade or any of the concoctions flooding the market.

Flavored malt beverages, such as Two Dogs Lemon Brew, created in 1993 in Australia, were doing a respectable business until last year, when sales soared. Two Dogs boasts retail sales of $14-million across the United States and reported a 45-percent increase in shipments for 1999, growing to nearly 1-million cases from 530,000 the year before.

Mike's Hard Lemonade, which arrived in the United States last year from Canada, where it dominated the industry, has exploded onto the marketplace. When Mike's was released in the spring of 1999, the company predicted it would sell 300,000 cases. After an astounding 2-million cases in the first year, the big brewers started their own versions. Seagram's already had Rick's Spiked Lemonade on the shelf when Anheuser-Busch rolled out Doc Otis in May.

Not everyone is sweet on lemon brews.

The Canadian chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving two years ago blasted Mike's, saying its ads target young people.

In February 1999, soon after Mike's Hard Lemonade was introduced in the United States, the non-profit National Consumers League urged the Federal Trade Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Beer Institute to look into its advertising and labels because of its appeal to underage drinkers.

Sweetened brews don't hit the spot Anyone who complained about green beer didn't know the worst of it.

"Mike's Hard Lemonade is a mixture of beer and lemonade. It combines more alcohol than most beers with a sweet drink that is a family favorite, especially for children," the NCL said in a press release. "It comes in a clear glass bottle that looks like and is promoted as lemonade. The sweet flavor masks the 5.2 percent alcohol content, making it easy for teens to consume a large quantity of alcohol quickly."

Little came of the plea. Instead, the lemon brew industry has flowered, though Mike's has yet to air television ads.

"We only advertise in bars and restaurants, so you have to be 21 to be there, and in the stores we're on the beer aisle," said Russell Barnett, a marketing executive for Mike's Hard Lemonade. "It's a simple package, no cartoons, no caricatures and we clearly mark the alcohol content. I think we have shown we are deeply concerned that anybody not of legal drinking age not have access to our product."

Most bars in the Tampa Bay area, especially beach bars, stock Mike's, though not too many other brands appear because the drink is still a novelty, bar managers say.

"It tastes like a vodka and lemonade with soda in it, and it goes down easy," said Buddy Thomas, manager of the Undertow, a beachside bar on St. Pete Beach. "It seems like the hotter the day, the more of it we sell."

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