Coopers’ Brewery has announced it has signed on to sponsor the inaugural Adelaide Good Food & Wine Show.
In what seems a bizarre twist to the sponsorship Coopers, which makes several beers that offer excellent food matching potential, has elected to base the sponsorship around hosting the Coopers 1862 Clear Bar. The brewery says the bar will see leading food producers matching dishes from their menus with Coopers Pale Ale, Sparkling Ale as well as Coopers Clear.
Identifying the sponsorship so closely with Clear is interesting in that, while Coopers Clear is a perfectly competitive beer within its class, it is a style of beer with a very low flavour profile that even Coopers’ Chairman Glen Cooper admits is “dumbed down”. To suggest it as a serious food match makes a mockery of the growing interest in — and respect for — beer and food matching. The move is analogous to winemaker Penfolds attending the show and trumpeting a tasting of foods matched to a wine cooler.
Such is the nature of modern brand marketing.
Coopers advise in their media release that celebrity chefs will also be matching dishes prepared from Adelaide Central Market’s produce with a stable of Coopers’ beers during the live Celebrity Theatre sessions, though there is no suggestion of what specific matchings will be shown.
“Coopers is thrilled to be a sponsor of the inaugural Good Food & Wine Show Adelaide. We believe that this show provides an impressive platform to showcase South Australia’s best food and beverage producers, and enables customers to get up close and personal with the makers and their products,” Glenn Cooper said in the media release.
“The Coopers’ 1862 Clear Bar is a unique feature to the Adelaide show providing an experience for customers to match our beer with some of the state’s best food products.”
While Mr Cooper acknowledges the show as an impressive platform to showcase the best food, the form of their sponsorship seems a wasted opportunity to highlight the best of beer.
As part of the sponsorship, Coopers’ beers will also be paired with gourmet canapés by The Lion Hotel’s Executive Chef at a media launch on September 7 where they plan to utilising the flavours of the hops and key canapé ingredients to develop a complementary match. This will be an interesting experiment with Clear, which itself is not notable for hop character.
Coopers’ is offering the chance to win one of three Coopers/Good Food and Wine VIP Experiences for themselves and three mates. To enter, book tickets through Ticketek before 6 September 2010 and quote ‘ADELAIDE.’ Your prize includes one hour in the Coopers 1862 Clear Bar VIP Lounge with free Coopers beer and food, plus a meet and greet with a celebrity chef.
Better clear beer drinkers support Coopers than other brands less worthy. Perhaps it is a bit like pokies keeping the pub open. Or the attractive spruiker that draws you in so you can be sold other things.
While I don’t disagree with the sentiment of the comment, it doesn’t address the point of the article.
The Good Food & Wine Show is a showcase for the best in food and drink. As the article says, Clear is a worthy match for other beers in its class. But the tallest pygmy is a pygmy nonetheless. To make it the highlight in that forum risks making food and beer matching a joke in precisely the forum that should be working to have it taken seriously. Feature Clear and 1862 in the matchings and in the tent, by all means – that’s why businesses sponsor these sorts of events, but make the highlight and the showcase the beers best suited to the purpose, not least. To make a highlight of the least appropriate beer for the purpose undermines Coopers credibility. Wose still, rather than promoting beer, it risks diminishing all of the hard won gains made by Coopers and many other brewers toward having beer regarded as a serious partner to food.
I agree it is very odd.
Coopers running with their version of cheap, yellow, mass produced fizzy beer, it might be good enough for music festivals and V8 supercars but good food show?
I think thats pretty much their game, the microbreweries have to get in there in each city, I think the exibitors fees are reasonble and there is potential to sell a lot of beer.
Clear isn’t beer its something to brush your teeth with.