On the Edge

Last month A le Coq beer factory introduced a new product – classical rootbeer, that has some alcohol in it – up to 0,8%. According to the law a naturally fermentated (up to 1,2% of alcohol) beverage is not considered as an alcoholic drink and thus may be sold to minors. The package of this drink is also provocative – it is bottled in same size and form bottles as beer, which as we all know is an alcoholic drink. The choice of packaging serves to objectives, it’s cheaper to produce in existing bottles plus it gives a feeling of real beer for adults and a sense of forbidden fruit to minors. Funny thing is that sometimes in slang beer is referred to as “kali” (root beer in Estonian). Probably A le Coq has people who did see this coming and saw it as a great way to get some publicity.

It didn’t take long for the subject to pop-up in media. Kopli Art High School’s principle Märt Sults said publicly in media that he will lower the behavior grade of everyone who drinks A le Coq’s root beer in school after an incident where some students were consuming it. Even the police got called to school (http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/eesti/article.php?id=22826163). On what grounds I’d like to know? In the eyes of law it is equal to lemonade. Punish someone for drinking lemonade is like the medieval which hunts – if you drown you’re cleared of the charge (but dead), if you don’t you are and will be burned to death.

This brought some opinions to the media which were polarized, some favor it, some not. Any case, A le Coq had a PR issue on their hands, which they have handled well: they bought a page in Postimees and provided facts and figures about their product and also involved a specialist to give an opinion. “The stories about possible harm the fact that “Kali” is unsuitable for children is over exaggerated and misleading,” says Raivo Vokk, Tallinn Technical University’s Food Institution professor.

An online poll conducted by Postimees Online shows that 52,7% of people who answered favor the selling of “Kali” to minors and 47,3% are against it (http://www.postimees.ee/?id=107551).