Discover the Colours of Beer

October 3, 2008: A new Colours of Beer holder is being trailled in eight Spirit Group pubs in London as a way of creating theatre around customers’ experience of beer in the on-trade.

Spirit Group is the first pub company to pilot Colours of Beer, developed with Beautiful Beer. Pubs taking part in the trial are selling a beer holder containing six third-pints of different coloured beers for £5.95.

Colours of Beer presents beers in six colour categories: white, blonde, amber, red, brown and black. Posters, flyers and T-shirts in the pubs create awareness and drive sales of the beer holder, while new beer menus on the pub tables tell customers about beer’s diversity and how to match it with food. The seven-week trial runs until mid-October, though the beer menus are a permanent item in the pubs.

“Colours of Beer is an innovative way of presenting beer to our customers,” said Spirit Group operation director Dan Robinson

“We already do a great job with beer at Spirit Group; we have more pubs with a Beautiful Beer award than any other pub company. Colours of Beer was an opportunity to do something different to attract new customers into beer and we jumped at the chance to trial it.”

The eight pubs taking part in Colours of Beer are predicted to sell around 700 beer holders. Total beer sales will be analysed at the end of the trial, along with the feedback from the hundreds of consumers who will have completed a questionnaire in one of the pubs. Managers also also being interviewed, and are generally positive about the initiative.

Consumer responses show a clear appetite for the beer holder, with comments such as:“I’m trying different brands I wouldn’t normally try”; "never knew there were so many different colours"; "you want to try more beers”; "I like the pretty colours and the variety”; and “love the small glasses”.

In general, the beer holder was favoured more by occasional beer drinkers, mainly women, rather than regular ones, and also proved popular with tourists in several pubs.

Ros Shiel, PR manager at Beautiful Beer, said: “Colour has been used successfully as a communications tool by a number of brewers in the UK and in other countries. The Colours of Beer trial with Spirit Group has taken elements of those campaigns and created a vehicle that encourages pub customers to try beer, and to expand the range of beers they drink from.”