Greta finally arose and let me have this very interesting letter. It's no joke, somebody really sent this letter to the Miller Beer company! N-joy
An actual letter sent to Miller Brewing Company and their response:
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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 Suck-point) was determined.
The average ambient temperature for the trials was 95 degrees F.
Beer Type | Average Suck-point (minutes) |
Miller
Lite (white can) |
6.2 |
It
was evident that the color of the can directly correlates
to the average suck point, 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
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The Miller response appears below. They have had a lot of fun with this guys letter. Enjoy...
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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 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.
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 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 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 will 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.
I really need some beer after this!!!! anybody near me got some?