Maureen Sharib
Telephone Names Sourcer
513 899 9628

Perhaps this should be a call to create a new empirical approach and metric to measuring web based crap? It would come in quite handy these days on the blogosphere and in the main stream media alike. There’s a parallel here on a topic that I would say is just as vexing, beguiling, grossly subjective and wholly unsubstantiated as crap – the taste of beer. It’s a bit long but given its landmark status I think it’s worth quoting here in its entirety.

“Subj: Letter to Miller Company
12/31/97

A True Story.

The following is a letter sent to Miller Brewing Company
earlier this year. Miller’s response is at the end.

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 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

Miller Brewing Company’s response to the letter sent in by
Bradley Lee.

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 intention 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 pleased 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. How-
ever, 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 drinkers 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 intentions
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 bringing 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 a
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. “