Shame on you Fosters

For those lovers of the Cascade range of beers, you may have noticed recently that they have been going down a bit quicker than usual. No, it's not that your drinking problem has worsened, but those keen eyed amongst you would have spotted the change in stubby size. Earlier in the year those lovely people at uber brewer, Fosters, started to roll out it's downsized packaging of the Cascade range.

Quite remarkably, a company spokesman cited the decision was made in order to remain competitive with increasingly popular imported brands like Heineken, Becks, Carlsberg and Stella. What utter rubbish. It all comes down to the greed of the accountants running the Fosters Group, who in turn put the pressure on the Cascade crew.

To add insult to injury, he also added, "It still represents great value when you line it up against its rivals. With any change you make like this, you are going to get consumers who are unhappy with it but we are confident that premium drinkers will accept the changes and continue to drink Cascade,". Mmmm, lets have a think about it, so your'e saying we can have the same beer? Great. Your'e also saying that the price isnt going up? Great. But whats that? Your'e going to give us about 12% less volume, and as a makeweight, we can drink it from a sexy new bottle.

Shame on you Fosters. Do you really believe your going to influence the legions of 'style' drinkers by changing the design, surely its what is on the inside the counts? Apart from anything else, are you not risking the relationships you have with loyal Cascade drinkers across the country?

Well, latest news out of Tasmania seems to be echoing that. This article from Tasmania's paper The Mercury shows that the backlash amongst locals is well underway. http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23712767-3462,00.html So watch out for an increase in stubby size on the Pale Ale soon, at least if your based on the apple isle. God bless the big brewers!