NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/soc/motss/57944

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-22 | 4.1 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Brett {Druid Queen} Manz)
Subject: Re: Gay soda! I'm so excited!
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Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
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Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 06:22:51 GMT
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In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Graham Toal) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> Ellen <[e-mail]> writes:
>: This could be old news but a recent discovery for me: Ian (Silver Tiger) and
>: I went to one of the campus pubs and saw a new beer there.  The label is a
>: bright pink triangle with the word PRIDE written through the centre.  Neither
>: of us tried it that evening but I'm sure we'll go back soon :)

>Queer beer  who'd have thought it.  I hope you remember to pay with queer
>money... :-)

>Was it Fuller's London Pride by any chance?

This article was posted here sometime around July of last year (I can't
remember who posted it though.)

(Pinched without permission from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record)

  Thanks to Brick Brewing, gays and lesbians can now drink beer with pride.

  The Waterloo brewery is producing a new beer for the gay community.  It's
called Pride and is sold in bottles and on draft in about 25 gay and lesbian
bars across southern Ontario.

  The label features a pink triangle, a symbol of gay pride.

  Bob Amyotte, a Toronto bar owner, approached Brick with the idea of brewing
a beer that bar owners could use to raise funds for the gay community.

  "The thing is there is always a fund-raiser going around and people are
asked to give and give," he said.  "We saw this as a way they could give
without really feeling that they are giving."

  Amyotte, who owns the rights to the name and label design, said he
pitched the idea to Brick because the brewery's sales representative happened
to be in his bar when he thought of it.

  "We told them: `If you supply the art for it, we'll be glad to do it,'" Fred
Gallaugher, Brick's sales manager, said Thursday.  "It is not something we
have been ramming down anyone's throat.  It is just that we beleive it is a
good marketplace to sell beer in."

  Sales of Pride, which Gallaugher describes as a Canadian style lager, total
about 400 cases a month.  That represents less than one percent of the brewery's
average monthly production.

  Gallaugher said the gay and lesbian community represents a significant market,
but one that is probably too small for Labatt's and Molson's to go after.  He
estimated that Toronto's 25 gay bars sell 12,000 to 13,000 cases of beer a month.

  "I guess we are innovators and we are small enough that we can do these
things," Gallaugher said.

  A share of the profits from the sale of Pride will go to the Gay and Lesbian
Community Appeal, a Toronto charity that provides financial support for the
development of gay theatre, art, film and literature.

  Cicely McWilliam, the charity's administrative director, said Brick's decision
to appeal to the gay community "is a good move."

  "We have encountered so much abuse and ignorance and oppression that the
first companies that start to recognize us and market to us are going to
notice a great swell in loyalty," she said.

  "Gallaugher said Brick has received a crank call about Pride, but doesn't
expect a backlash from its customers.

  "I think people are grown up enough to accept everyone," he said.  "It's just
another segment of the market."

--
---------------------------------+-------------------------------------
 My opinions are my own.         |  You can't be proud of who you are
 The truth belongs to everyone.  |  if you're ashamed of what you are.
   I can't even *think straight! |    Cruise Men, Not Missiles! - anon