Miller Brewing Company
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
Dear Sir or Madam,
I have been a drinker of Miller beer's for many years
(actually, ever since that other company donated a big chunk of
change to Handgun Control Inc. back in the mid 80's).
Initially, my beer of choice was Lite, but some time in mid
1990 while in Honduras I switched to MGD smuggled up from Panama.
Now, for nearly six years, I have been a faithful drinker of MGD.
For these past years, I have come to expect certain things
from Genuine Draft. I expect that whenever I see that gold can of
MGD, I am about ready to enjoy a great, smooth brew.
But wait! Sometime around the first of the year, my beloved
MGD changed colors, so to speak. That familiar gold can was no
longer gold! Knowing that I am, by nature, somewhat resistant to
change, I forced myself to reserve judgment on the new can design.
Gradually, I grew to appreciate the new label.
That was until about May of this year. That was when I
discovered (empirically) that I really didn't like the new design.
Further investigation of the cause of my distress resulted in the
following observations:
1. Your cans are made of aluminum.
2. Aluminum is a great conductor of energy.
3. Your beer is commonly consumed outside, and thus, the
container may be exposed to sunlight.
4. Sunlight striking the can causes radiant warming of the
surface of the can.
5. The resultant heat (energy) is transferred through the
aluminum, by conduction, to the contents of the can (the
beer).
6. Warm beer sucks.
This is a process that can be observed in just about any beer.
However, this process is significantly accelerated in MGD because
you painted the damn can black!!!
Who was the rocket scientist that designed the new graphic for
the can and implemented the change right before summer? Granted,
this process may not be real evident up there in Wisconsin, but
down here in Oklahoma (OR TEXAS) where the summers are both sunny
and hot, this effect is quite a problem. There's no telling what
the folks in Texas and Arizona are having to put up with.
Knowing that you would probably not address this issue unless
you had firm evidence of a problem, I and several other subjects
conducted extensive experimentation. The results of these
experiments are listed below.
The experiments were conducted over two days on the deck next
to my pool. The study included seven different types of beer
(leftovers from a party the previous weekend) that were initially
chilled to 38 (and then left exposed to sunlight for different
lengths of time. These beers were sampled by the test subjects at
different intervals. The subjects, all normally MGD drinkers, were
asked at each sampling interval their impressions of the different
beers.
The length of time between the initial exposure to sunlight
and the point where the subject determined the sample undrinkable
(the Suckpoint) was determined. The average ambient temperature for
the trials was 95 degrees F.
Beer Type Average Suckpoint (min)
Miller Lite (white can) 6.2
Bud (white can) 5.5
Bud Lite (silver can) 5.2
Ice House (blue and silver can) 4.4
Coors Lite (silver can) 4.1
Miller Genuine Draft (black can) 2.8
Coors (gold can) 0.1
It was evident that the color of the can directly correlates to the
average suckpoint, except for Coors which was pretty much
determined to suck at any point.
It is to be hoped that you will consider re-designing your MGD
cans. All beer drinkers that are not smart enough to keep their
beer in the shade will thank you.
Sincerely,
Bradley Lee
Beer-drinker
I have a friend that works for Miller Brewing in Milwaukee and she
knew about the letter sent in by Bradley Lee. She sent me the
Miller response and it appears below. She says they have had a lot
of fun with this guys letter.
Enjoy.
Dear Bradley Lee,
Thank you for your letter and your concern about the MGD can
color as it relates to premature warming of the contents. Like
you, we at Miller Beer take beer drinking very seriously. To that
end, we have taken your letter and subsequent experiment under
serious consideration. Outlined below are our findings and
solution to your problem. May we add that we have had similar
letters from other loyal beer drinkers, mostly from the Southern
United States.
First, let us congratulate you on your findings. Our analysis
tends to agree with yours regarding Coors. It certainly does suck
at about any temperature.
Now, it was our intentions when redesigning the MGD can to
create better brand identity and brand loyalty. Someone in
marketing did some kind of research and determined we needed to
redesign the can. You will be please to know, we have fired that
idiot and he is now reeking havoc at a pro-gun control beer
manufacturer. The design staffer working in cahoots with the
marketing idiot was also down-sized.
However, once we realized this mistake, to undo it would have
been even a bigger mistake. So, we took some other actions. From
our market research, we found a difference between Northern beer
drinker and Southern beer drinkers.
Beer drinkers in the South tend to drink slower than beer
drinkers in the North. We are still researching why that is.
Anyway, at Miller Beer, it was never our intention to have someone
take more than 2.5 minutes to enjoy one of our beers. We pride
ourselves in creating fine, smooth, quick drinking beers and leave
the making of sissy, slow sipping beers to that Sam guy in Boston.
However, it is good to know that you feel our Miller Lite can
last as long as 6 minutes. However, may we suggest in the future
you try consuming at least two in that time frame.
From your letter, we had our design staff work 'round the
clock to come up with a solution that would help not just MGD but
all our fine Miller products.
We hope you have recently noticed our solution to your
problem. We found that the hole in the top of the can was not big
enough for quick consumption.
So, we have now introduced the new "Wide Mouth" cans. We hope
this will solve all your problems. Might I also suggest that if
you want to get the beer out of the can even faster, you can poke
a hole on the side near the bottom, hold your finger over it, open
the can, tip it to your mouth and then pull your finger off the
hole. This is a common way to drink beer at parties and impress
your friends. This technique is known as "shot-gunning".
You should like the name.
Again, thank you for your letter and bring to our attention
that there might be other beer drinkers taking more that 2.5
minutes to drink our beers. Let me assure you that I am have our
advertising department work on campaign to solve this problem, too.
Sincerely,
Tom B. Miller
Public Relations
Miller Brewing Co.
P.S. And remember, at Miller Beer we do favor gun control, too. So
please use two hands when firing.