During my wasted life, I've drunk quite a bit of beer and read quite a lot of philosophical logic. But neither had prepared me for the poster for Young's bitter that I saw recently at a bus shelter. The slogan read: "If beer drank, it would drink Young's."
Can a beer, I asked myself, drink? Even if it could, why would it drink beer? Wouldn't it prefer a smoothie? And if not, why not? Are beers temperamentally cannibalistic? Is this supposed to reassure me as I raise a pint to my lips? How does this beer drink? Through its mouth? What are its lips made of? Beer, you'd suppose.
I rang Emily Hudson for help. She is brand manager for Wells Young's. "The point of the campaign is to show that not all beers are created the same, that Young's bitter is sourced from local ingredients and that it's made with passion and commitment," she explained sensibly.
But what does the slogan mean? Hudson paused. "If a pint of beer was to look up the dictionary definition of 'good beer' it would say Young's." Curiouser and curiouser. So it can not only drink but also read: what is this extraordinary beer? It clearly isn't Young's bitter because, according to the slogan, that is what it is drinking. Unless, of course, this bitter is capable of consuming itself, thus offending the very principles of logic that stop me – and probably you – from losing it. Truly, we must not so much drink this beer as fear it.
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