AB-InBev launches Jupiler Force

That’s what we call serious bad timing. Just as Belgium’s anti-alcohol debate is gathering pace AB-InBev put its first Bionade-taste-alike soft drink into the market. Although Jupiler Force, introduced on 18 February 2011, should have pleased the anti-alcohol lobbyists, many of them, women in particular, still thought they smelt a rat. Because – if it’s a soft drink that should not be confused with a beer, why on earth did AB-InBev have to call the product Jupiler Force after Belgium’s major beer seller Jupiler? Why couldn’t they slab the label Manneken Pride or Ardeur d’Ardennes on it – if they were desperate for a naff double entendre?

To make matters worse, AB-InBev also said Jupiler Force is explicitly aimed at men. Our congratulations to AB-InBev’s marketing men. If they had tried to antagonise Belgium’s female politicians who spearhead the anti-alcohol campaign, they could not have done better.

Jupiler Force isn’t the first brand extension AB-InBev has launched. In 2006 they came out with Jupiler Blue which has 3.3 percent ABV. Two years later they introduced Jupiler Tauro, an 8.3 percent ABV beer, which made the brewer’s Belgian competitors shake their heads in consternation. As if Belgium’s heavy users needed another heady tipple to blow their minds. Already 85 percent of all beer consumed in Belgium is quaffed by men who, if you were to ask their frustrated wives and mothers, drink too much anyway.

In 2009, Jupiler (including Jupiler Blue) sold 3.5 million hl, while Jupiler Tauro managed 16,200 hl, up from 12,300 hl in 2008. Not a great deal if you ask us, but probably enough to bring up Jupiler’s overall market share and make AB-InBev’s execs reach their bonus-linked performance targets.

Now comes Jupiler Force, a fermented non-alcoholic soft drink which supposedly has all the goodness of beer, but in a soft drink format. Slightly bitter, slightly bubbly, with a hint of citrus and of course: it must be consumed ice-cold!

To market it as a beer substitute, it’s packaged in four-packs of 25 cl cans and six-packs of 33 cl cans and will be placed on supermarkets’ beer shelves rather than next to the soft drinks, it was reported.

Let’s wait and see how this macho soft drink will be received by Belgium’s beer drinkers.