Black on booze: shake off those woolly jumpers

Chris Lewis, of Wells & Young's, is right when he says there are "too many woolly jumpers and cosy corners" in ale marketing.

The category is full of brewers relying on a terrible pun and a logo created on the back of a beer mat as a marketing ploy. It needs a shake-up.

So a warm welcome to the two campaigns this week aiming to do just that, while attracting some younger drinkers into the sector to boot.

First up, Marston's attempt to give EPA a "cooler image"​ via music and festivals. Hot on its heels comes Wells & Young's recruitment of Rik Mayall​ in a whopping £4m campaign to boost its Bombardier brand.

But critics will ask if festival sampling and a celebrity from the '80s and '90s are enough? As Mayall himself once put it in The Young Ones: "Did you see that? Did you? The voice of youth? They're still wearing flared trousers!"

But the critics overlook the fact music festivals and Mayall are bang-on for the younger drinkers that ale needs to recruit - "young" in this sense is relative. We're talking men in their late 20s and early 30s — not nubile 20-year-olds that never knew Bottom, let alone The Young Ones.

These campaigns won't be enough on their own (though a £4m shot in the arm for the category is not to be sniffed at).

Hopefully it will, at least, be the start of giving those "cosy corners" some sharper edges.