This can't be good: Beer for kids?

Liar

now with 17% more class
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Kidsbeer proves hit suds for minors

SAGA (Kyodo) Kidsbeer, a nonalcoholic brew aimed at children, is catching on with young drinkers and is posting monthly shipments of 75,000 bottles, according to maker Tomomasu Co.

The beverage, one of whose ingredients is the Latin American plant guarana, sells for around 380 yen per 330-milliliter bottle. The bottles themselves are colored brown to make the drink look even more like its more potent counterpart, the company said.

The drink started out as Guarana, a cola beverage that used to be sold at the Shitamachi-ya restaurant in Fukuoka, run by 39-year-old Yuichi Asaba.

Asaba renamed the sweet carbonated drink Kidsbeer, a move that made it an instant hit.

Asaba outsourced its production to Tomomasu, a beverage maker based in Ogi, Saga Prefecture.

Tomomasu tinkered with the drink by decreasing its sweetness and increasing its frothiness, the company said. It began shipping the transformed drink in late 2003.

Though the initial shipment was only 200 bottles per month, the beverage was soon adopted by other restaurants and even by department stores, which began offering it as a gift package.

Asaba said kids and other people "can raise a glass with this, even if they cannot drink any liquor."

Satoshi Tomoda, president of the beverage maker, said: "Children copy and mimic adults.

"If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

The Kidsbeer label captures a nostalgic mood as it was modeled after classic beer labels.

"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads the product's advertising slogan.

The Japan Times: Aug. 6, 2005
 
In some ways this might seem a good idea, but in reality it isn't smart at all. In a lot of ways its like in the 80's when they used to sell candy cigarettes. Kids pretended the were smoking and felt so cool. Then when they were a little older they nicked a few of their mom and dad's cigs and today they are the ones trying to quit smoking. It teaches kids that beer is cool and that drinking is okay. Who knows, they may try immitating their parent's behavior when they are drunk and then when the opportunity presents itself, they grab a real beer and it starts. Kind of sad, in a way, that this has been considered okay.
 
Asaba said kids and other people "can raise a glass with this, even if they cannot drink any liquor."

Huh? I raised a lot of glasses with the adults in my family. They had beer or wine, I had coca cola, and I was perfectly happy with that.
 
Liar said:
Asaba said kids and other people "can raise a glass with this, even if they cannot drink any liquor."

Huh? I raised a lot of glasses with the adults in my family. They had beer or wine, I had coca cola, and I was perfectly happy with that.


Agree. For fancy occasions, OJ and sparkling Water. I was never excluded from raising a glass because of lack of a beer.
 
It sounds like root beer (except for the guarana, of course)..

My son loves root beer. The only thing I try to do is find Barq's in Diet so he won't get so much sugar.

;)
 
Just what the world needs, a beverage designed to look like an alcoholic beverage to encourage kids to move to the next step.

At my senior prom one kid brought a liter bottle of not too fancy water with him. It did not seem too likely and the chaperone found that it was a water bottle, but the contents was Everclear. Kids today do not require encouragment in this area.

JMHO.
 
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