Before I left on my current US trip (am in LA as I type this) I hooked up with my brother for his 40th back in Australia.

Had a brilliant time (with the exception of one incident with an idiot friend of his) and while sipping a beer or 3... I asked him how his home brewing was going... specifically an idea he had for a beer that he could potentially market beyond friends, family and work-mates.

You see... my brother is quite the brewmiester... and has been fine tuning his craft in small batches for friends and family for a while now. One of his beers... a Pilsner... I would rate as one of my favorite beers ever.

We've often joked that he should go commercial on a small scale with this pursuit... and maybe now he will.

As many would appreciate however... the secret to a good beer is equal parts technique and marketing... so while my brothers beers have always tasted great... that in itself wouldn't make it successfully commercially.

He threw a name at me for the beer which after I stopped crying (literally) with laughter, I thought... "you know what... jokes aside... that is an absolutely brilliant idea for both a name 'and' positioning of a beer..."

An easy to remember name that also accurately positions itself with its target. Brilliant.

I'm reminded of a similar situation back in the 90's when I used to run a nightclub in Australia called Jooce (for the alert readers out there... the Deuce by Cleva Cleva track referred to in an earlier post was originally written as the theme song for a TVC we did for the venue) and one of the countries largest beer brewers released a beer called 'Duff'.

Yep... as in Duff Beer from The Simpsons. As you can see below... it looked very much like it was from (or associated with) the cartoon.

It wasn't... and shortly after its release it was taken from the market.

The point is that what many people didn't realize back then... was that the actual beer in Duff Beer was a poor selling beer (at the time) called 'Long Brew'.

Long Brew would have been lucky to sell 1 box (of 24 cans) per week... and yet re-branded in a Duff Beer can... it was selling well over 100 boxes per week.

Seems people liked walking round the club with a Duff Beer can in hand... the power of branding.

Need now to bed down the beer itself and finalise the branding. Once my brother has done that... he can go hunting for a suitable micro-brewer.

Happy drinking on this 4th of July weekend.