With its new "2.4", Feldschlösschen is launching a "real beer with half the alcohol". Especially in the restaurant and bar market segment, the new product meets a clear need in light of the newly revised blood alcohol levels allowed while driving. The new beer is produced using a process not seen anywhere else in Switzerland.
The very name "2.4" is a direct reference to the alcohol content, which is just half that of a classic lager beer, which contains 4.8% alcohol by volume. However, "thanks to state-of-the-art brewing techniques, there is hardly any difference between '2.4' and our 'Feldschlösschen Original' lager," says Matthias Kiess, Senior Brand Manager Feldschlösschen. The additional tag "max" stands for "maximum taste". In the next few days, the launch of "Feldschlösschen 2.4" will get underway, beginning in restaurants and bars. The new beer will be available in retail outlets beginning in 2004. Feldschlösschen is forecasting that in the medium term, sales of "2.4" will overtake the current volume of the company's own non-alcoholic beers. To develop the new product, market testing was undertaken with several hundred consumers.
Process unique
"Feldschlösschen 2.4" is brewed using a process that is unique in Switzerland," explains Roland Büttiker, Head of Production Operations. For many years, Feldschlösschen has been a worldwide supplier of non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic beers, allowing the company to build up profound technological know-how which was used in the brewing of "2.4". In fact, its high-quality production processes were the reason why the Carlsberg Group – the fifth-largest brewing concern worldwide, and owner of Feldschlösschen Beverages Ltd. – named Feldschlösschen as the Center of Excellence for non-alcoholic beers within its entire Group. Because of the new technology, "2.4" cannot be compared at all with the "light" beers that were introduced to the Swiss market some fifteen years ago and which disappeared when the "light" wave petered out. In the case of the light beers, the focus was primarily on calorie content. Now the issue is lower alcohol content, even though "2.4" also has fewer calories than a normal lager beer. The difference between "2.4" and non-alcoholic beers is explained by Roland Büttiker with the fact that for many consumers, non-alcoholic beers don't offer the same drinking enjoyment as beers which contain alcohol. "Alcohol is part of the flavor of the beer," he says.
Restaurants and bars are very happy
At the beginning of 1998, Austria lowered the permissible blood alcohol level for drivers to 0.5 per mil, with the result that beer production there dropped by 4.6% by the end of the year. The bar and restaurant segment was substantially harder hit than the market as a whole. In the Swiss beer market, per capita consumption has already declined by 20% in the past 13 years. The new product should help stop a further decline after the introduction of the new blood alcohol level regulations here. "Restaurants and bars, which continue to suffer from the economic downturn, are very happy about our new beer," assures Feldschlösschen CEO Erwin Flückiger. This is even more true in rural areas than urban zones with their well-developed public transportation network.