Red Stripe creates raspberry beer for young drinkers

Red Stripe has introduced a fruit-flavoured beer to the local market, called Red Stripe Burst, aimed at young drinkers.

The raspberry-flavoured drink was rolled out to Red Stripe Jamaica shareholders on Friday, ahead of a national campaign which is to start later this month.

The beer has been designed as a "recruitment-driven" product, primarily for 18 to 24 year olds, according to Red Stripe brand manager Erin Mitchell.

"We hope it will have crossover appeal," she said, noting that earlier testing had revealed that the product "definitely has appeal" for both genders.

Burst's clear long-neck bottle features a label that is predominantly red and pink with an image of two red raspberries. The beer is 4.7 per cent alcohol and comes in a 275 ml bottle.

"Some additional flavours will be introduced inside the next calendar year," Mitchell said, but the company has not yet determined what those flavours will be.

Red Stripe's head of supply, Shane Healy, said Burst is already being distributed through Celebration Brands Limited, the joint venture distribution company formed by Red Stripe and Pepsi Jamaica earlier this year.

It is not the first time that the brewery has released flavoured beers. The company, since September 2011, has created apple, ginger and lime flavours under its Red Stripe Light product line, but this is the first time that the flagship Red Stripe line has brought a flavoured beer to market, Mitchell said.

Mitchell would not reveal projected sales for the product. The decision on whether the product would be sold in overseas markets would be made, she said, by Red Stripe teams in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

richard.browne@gleanerjm.com