Member Since: 09 Aug 2006
Location: East Manchester
Posts: 4030
Miller Beer Letter
The following is a letter sent to Miller Brewing Company. Miller's response is at the end.
Miller Brewing Company
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
Dear Sir or Madam,
I have been a drinker of Miller beer's for many years (actually, ever since that other company donated a big chunk of change to Handgun Control Inc. back in the mid 80's).
Initially, my beer of choice was Lite, but some time in mid 1990 while in Honduras, I switched to MGD smuggled up from Panama. Now, for nearly six years, I have been a faithful drinker of MGD.
For these past years, I have come to expect certain things from Genuine Draft. I expect that whenever I see that gold can of MGD, I am about ready to enjoy a great, smooth brew.
But wait! Sometime around the first of the year, my beloved MGD changed colors, so to speak. That familiar gold can was no longer gold! Knowing that I am, by nature, somewhat resistant to change, I
forced myself to reserve judgment on the new can design.
Gradually, I grew to appreciate the new label (until about May of this year). That was when I discovered (empirically) that I really didn't like the new design. Further investigation of the cause of my distress resulted in the following observations:
1. Your cans are made of aluminum.
2. Aluminum is a great conductor of energy.
3. Your beer is commonly consumed outside, and thus, the container may be exposed to sunlight.
4. Sunlight striking the can causes radiant warming of the surface of the can.
5. The resultant heat (energy) is transferred through the aluminum, by conduction, to the contents of the can (the beer).
6. Warm beer sucks.
This is a process that can be observed in just about any beer. However, this process is significantly accelerated in MGD because you painted the damn can black!!!
Who was the rocket scientist that designed the new graphics for the can and implemented the change right before summer? Granted, this process may not be real evident up there in Wisconsin, but down here in Texas where the summers are both sunny and hot, this effect is quite a problem. There's no telling what the folks in Oklahoma and Arizona are having to put up with.
Knowing that you would probably not address this issue unless you had firm evidence of a problem, I and several other subjects conducted extensive experimentation. The results of these experiments are listed below.
The experiments were conducted over two days on the deck next to my pool. The study included seven different types of beer (leftovers from a party the previous weekend) that were initially chilled to 38 (and then left exposed to sunlight for different lengths of time. These beers were sampled by the test subjects at different intervals. The subjects, all normally MGD drinkers, were asked at each sampling interval their impressions of the different beers. The length of time between the initial exposure to sunlight and the point where the subject determined the sample undrinkable (The *Suckpoint*) was determined. The average ambient temperature for the trials was 95 degrees F.
Beer Type Average *Suckpoint* (min)
--------- -------------------------
Miller Lite (white can) 6.2
Bud (white can) 5.5
Bud Lite (silver can) 5.2
Ice House (blue and silver can) 4.4
Coors Lite (silver can) 4.1
Miller Genuine Draft (black can) 2.8
Coors (gold can) 0.1
It was evident that the color of the can directly correlates to the average suckpoint, except for Coors which was pretty much determined to suck at any point.
It is to be hoped that you will consider re-designing your MGD cans. All beer drinkers that are not smart enough to keep their beer in the shade will thank you.
Sincerely,
Bradley Lee
Beer-drinker
-----------------
Dear Bradley Lee,
Thank you for your letter and your concern about the MGD can color as it relates to premature warming of the contents. Like you, we at Miller Beer take beer drinking very seriously. To that end, we have taken your letter and subsequent experiment under serious consideration.
Outlined below are our findings and solution to your problem. May we add that we have had similar letters from other loyal beer drinkers, mostly from the Southern United States.
First, let us congratulate you on your findings. Our analysis tends to agree with yours regarding Coors. It certainly does suck at about any temperature.
Now, it was our intention when redesigning the MGD can to create better brand identity and brand loyalty. Someone in marketing did some kind of research and determined we needed to redesign the can. You will be pleased to know, we have fired that idiot and he is now wreaking havoc at a pro-gun control beer manufacturer. The design staffer working in cahoots with the marketing idiot was also down-sized.
However, once we realized this mistake, to undo it would have been even a bigger mistake. So, we took some other actions. From our market research, we found a difference between Northern beer drinkers and Southern beer drinkers.
Beer drinkers in the South tend to drink slower than beer drinkers in the North. We are still researching why that is. Anyway, at Miller Beer, it was never our intentions to have someone take more than 2.5 minutes to enjoy one of our beers. We pride ourselves in creating fine, smooth, quick-drinking beers and leave the making of sissy, slow-sipping beers to that Sam guy in Boston.
However, it is good to know that you feel our Miller Lite can last as long as 6 minutes. However, may we suggest in the future you try consuming at least two in that time frame.
From your letter, we had our design staff work 'round the clock to come up with a solution that would help not just MGD but all our fine Miller products. We hope you have recently noticed our solution to your problem. We found that the hole in the top of the can was not big enough for quick consumption. So, we have now introduced the new "Wide Mouth" cans. We hope this will solve all your problems. Might I also suggest that if you want to get the beer out of the can even faster, you can poke a hole on the side near the bottom, hold your finger over it, open the can, tip it to your mouth and then pull your finger off the hole. This is a common way to drink beer at parties
and impress your friends. This technique is known as "shot-gunning".
You should like the name.
Again, thank you for your letter and bringing to our attention that here might be other beer drinkers taking more that 2.5 minutes to drink our beers. Let me assure you that I am haveing our advertising department work on campaign to solve this problem, too.
Sincerely,
Tom B. Miller
Public Relations
Miller Brewing Co.
P.S. And remember, at Miller Beer we do favor gun control, too. So please use two hands when firing.
7th Feb 2009 11:42 am
heine
Member Since: 07 Feb 2007
Location: Midrand
Posts: 4054
(but I actually like that sissy, slow-sipping beer from that Sam guy in Boston a.k.a Sam Adams....)The next American ex-pat that calls it a "truck" is going to find out what 2.7 tons feels like on their foot...
Club "yes, I too have had the EGR's replaced..."
Club "yes, I too have had the compressor replaced..."
Club "yes, I too once had the car at the dealer for a couple of weeksnearly 4 weeksover 4 weeks...5 weeks"
Club "yes, I too have had EPB failure..."
Club "yes, I too get mysterious bings and bongs..."
7th Feb 2009 12:58 pm
robsmith
Member Since: 02 Sep 2007
Location: Staffordshire
Posts: 2392
What's this about cold beer?
If its a really good beer then cooling it removes the taste, so looses its taste.
The only reason I can think of for drinking a cold beer is that it tastes like p s and you want to hide that.
Sitting here swilling a glass of Hobgoblin, which is cool - kitchen floor temperature, and its refreshing, goes well with the curry being consumed.Rob Smith
Silver rools OK
7th Feb 2009 9:01 pm
Discoeast
Member Since: 19 Feb 2008
Location: Boksburg
Posts: 800
Very good
Rob, no matter what beer you drink hear at room temp,
It don't go down well D3 bullbar-spots-roof rack with spots-ladder-long range tank-swing out spare wheel carrier- upgraded tow bar-dash console-internal water tank-duel awnings-drawer system & T T.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
s and you want to hide that.
