Halewood International is to follow up its successful launch of Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer with a new soft drink for men.
Iron Press, a fruit juice based drink made with malt and barley, which looks like a beer, complete with frothy head, is being launched this month. It is aimed at blokes between 25 and 55 years-old.
The new brand will be the company's biggest launch in 2010 and was inspired by the growth of the soft drinks category in the on-trade and products such as McCoy's "man crisps," Yorkie bars and Lynx.
"At the moment the soft drinks category is very female orientated," said head of innovation Richard Clark. "Yet there is a growing number of men who want to go to the pub with friends or family but who do not always want to drink alcohol. Iron Press gives them an alternative to a pint of coke or lime & soda."
Initially Halewood is launching two flavours, a cider-inspired apple variant containing 30% apple juice and a shandy -inspired lime flavour, containing 5% lime juice.
The 500ml brown glass bottles will sell for around £3.00 in pubs and bars, said Clark.
A TV campaign, in store PoS material and sampling activity are all in the pipeline for this autumn to helps support the launch.