result of
lengthy research
Good
flavour
prime
consideration
in
developing
non-alcoholic
beer
"*"3553
32
Buckler
Last year* a number* of countries in Europe
got to know a new Heineken product. It's
called Buckler and contains a negligible
percentage of alcohol. The underlying aim
in the development of Buckler was that the
new product had tó possess all the charac
teristics that the consumer expects of a
beer - except, of course, for the alcohol.
Heineken's brewers have succeeded in
their mission: Buckler is a thirst-quenching
beer with a superb taste, and a beer that
can be drunk any time of the day. The prod
uct - made hy a special brewing process -
does contain a tiny quantity of alcohol.
The idea of marketing a non-al
coholic beer did not come out of
the blue. At Heineken's head of
fice the development of beers without
alcohol had been closely monitored for
some years before a working group was
first set up in February 1987 to get down
to work on developing our own beer
with no alcohol - but with 100% flavour.
Mr. A.J.M. Hakkaart is the man in
Corporate Marketing who is responsi
ble for product development and, as a
member of the working group, he was
closely involved in the birth of Buckler.
Heineken Technical Services (HTB)
were also represented in this working
group. Heineken's Spanish operating
company El Aguila was designated as
'lead country' for the development pro
ject. El Aguila also had the biggest in
terest in the development of the new
product, as the non-alcohol beer market
in Spain is already quite sizable. In that
market segment El Aguila was selling
the Aguila Sin brand, and with a fair
amount of success. But the quality of
Aguila Sin was not considered optimal.
And that was why El Aguila was en
thusiastic in helping to develop a non
alcoholic beer, together with Heineken
Technisch Beheer and Corporate Mar
keting.
150 names
Whilst HTB researched the techni
cal aspects, other working group mem
bers studied possible names and pack
aging designs for the new product. It
was deliberately decided not to intro
duce the new product under the Amstel
or Heineken banner. It's important that
a non-alcoholic beer has an identity of
its own. The British bureau Interbrand
in London was commissioned to develop
a new brand name which could be used
internationally. Not an easy task, since
some 40,000 beer names are currently
registered throughout the world. From
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN