Coors to Launch Iced Tea-Flavored Beer
Flavored iced tea has been all the rage for a while now (passionfruit-acai-goji berry comes to mind). So the brilliant minds at Coors thought: Why not iced tea-flavored BEER? Last week, Golden, Colo.-based Molson Coors Brewing Co. announced it will launch Coors Light Iced T in Canada next month ahead of a possible U.S. rollout, the Wall Street Journal reports. It will have a citrusy, iced tea flavor and about 4% alcohol content, but no caffeine (sorry, Four Loko aficionados).
Coors Brewing Co.
With sales of light beer declining over the last three years, the idea apparently is to make beer more attractive to people who prefer wine or cocktails. In addition, sales of hard teas and lemonade brands were up 54% in 2010, according to Ad Age. Consumers are also increasingly buying craft beers, sales of which were up 15 percent in the first six months of 2011.
"We've got the world's most refreshing alcoholic beer sort of meeting up with the most refreshing non-alcoholic drink in the world. Those two things go really well together," says Peter Swinburn, chief executive of Coors.
Ah, but what does Ice-T himself think about it?
It seems to be a trend rather than an aberration: Michelob Ultra 19th Hole Light Tea and Lemonade hits stores this April in the U.S., where Boston Beer Co.'s Twisted Tea Hard Iced-Tea Light and Arizona Beverages' recently launched Arnold Palmer Hard Half & Half are selling quite briskly.
The latter concoctions seem to be marketed to golfers. Is it really a good idea to drink and drive?
Follow Samantha Bonar @samanthabonar.
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