Carlsberg-Tetley to launch Euro guest lagers

C-T goes European to introduce premium beer programme in UK

Carlsberg-Tetley (C-T) has made its first sortie into the UK's burgeoning premium speciality beer market with the introduction of a guest beer programme.

The national brewer has sourced a number of premium European beers owned by its Danish parent company, Carlsberg AS, and introduced them into the UK on-trade.

Borrowing an idea usually reserved for cask ales, C-T will introduce the beers into more than 150 outlets, predominantly style bar and young person's venues, on a rotational monthly basis.

C-T has already introduced Pripps Blå Gold (five per cent ABV), a lager from Sweden, and more than half a dozen beers will be released between now and spring next year.

A Portugese premium beer, Super Bock (5.6 per cent ABV), will replace Pripps Blå Gold in mid November and will then be followed by a Danish Christmas beer, Carls Jul (5.6 per cent ABV) to cater for the festive period.

The new year will see the introduction of:

• Poretti, a five per cent beer from Italy
• Koff, a 7.2 per cent ABV beer brewed in Finland's oldest brewery near Helsinki
• Baltica, a Russian beer brewed in St Petersberg.

Dave Ford, Carlsberg's customer marketing manager, said: "There's a huge selection that we can choose from but we are trying to concentrate on beers around the five per cent mark and above in an attempt to keep it premium.

"Premium lagers are a growth sector in the UK, in particular the growing niche market of premium imported beers.

"We're offering the consumer something they can't get anywhere else and the publican a point of difference.

"It creates an interest in the same way that guest cask ales have been doing for a number of years."

Participating outlets will be supplied with a stylish chrome font that allows licensees to change the badge on a monthly basis.

A range of "Beers of the World" merchandise, including branded glasses, will be supplemented by bespoke point-of-sale material each month.

The brewer is currently in negotiations with a number of national accounts and hopes to roll out the scheme into more than 500 outlets in the new year.

Although there are no plans to bring out any of the guest beers on a permanent basis, Mr Ford added that if consumer response is particularly positive to one individual beer then it would consider keeping it on.

C-T's foray into the speciality beer market follows similar moves by Interbrew (Hoegaarden and Leffe), Holsten (Brok and Duckstein), Heineken (Wiekse Witte and Affligem) and Scottish Courage (Grimbergen).