Regular Becks beer seems to have disappeared recently and has been replaced by some strange beverage named Becks Vier. Becks Vier is being advertised quite heavily at the moment, all the adverts I’ve seen revolve around the number 4 and the concept that the drink is 4% alcohol. These billboards sent shivers up my spine when I first saw them as they reminded me of the dreadful Carling C2 larger of a few years ago (officially worst drink ever). Cs’s gimmick was it had only 2% alcohol so you can drink more of it and drive, legally. Not a bad concept unfortunately it tasted of stale piss (even more so than “classic” Carling) so it bombed, haha! A 4% beer however is neither particular strong or weak so the plot thickens..

Now Vier means 4 in German, a quick bit of Google research also reveals that Becks Vier is brewed using only 4 ingredients, this is starting to make a bit more sense. But the adverts do not draw attention to either of these facts they just push the Number 4 gimmick in general. Does this advertising work? does it somehow embed a deep rooted urge to purchase Vier somewhere in your sub-concious? Well it worked on me as I bought a crate of Vier from the Supermarket the other day.

When I got home to drink my Vier’s I was disgusted to find the cans were vier-y small, only 375ml! There seems to be a disturbing trend these days with selling beers in cans/bottles of decreasing sizes. Take the recent Grolsch Dutch bottles campaign. Yes look at the bottles lovely embossed logo on the side, hopefully you’ll get so distracted that you’ll not notice that its only 300ml! Are Grolsch suggesting dutch people are midgets or that they just can’t drink?

Any way back to the Viers.. 375 seems a very non-standard can size. You’d think if they really wanted to push the whole “Number 4″ thing they’d have made the cans 444ml. Stella had it right a few years ago when they started making pint size cans.. Ah you can’t go wrong with Stella, well until you beat your wive an she leaves you.

Pete xXx