Beer adverts fall flat with watchdog

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) warned parent company Heineken UK about its emphasis on the beer’s connection with France in relation to a television ad featuring footballer Eric Cantona and another press ad.

The press ad said: “If you find a better tasting French beer, we’ll eat our berets,” and continued: “The French know a thing or two about taste. That’s why Kronenbourg 1664 is always brewed with the aromatic Strisselspalt hop for a taste supreme.”

The television ad, featuring Cantona, said: “Here in Alsace, things are a little bit different. The hop farmers are treated like the footballers of Britain. They are idolised and adored. And why not? They are living legends. They are the men that grow the noble hops that make Kronenbourg the taste supreme.”

Small print in both ads read: “Brewed in the UK”.

The ASA received two complaints, one that the ad misleadingly implied that Kronenbourg 1664 was brewed in France and a second that it misleadingly implied that the hops used to produce the beer were grown in France.

Heineken UK said Kronenbourg 1664 was “an inherently French beer” that had first been brewed in 1952 in Alsace by Brasseries Kronenbourg and was now brewed under licence in the UK in a process supervised and approved by Brasseries Kronenbourg.