Ladies Choice!

Having attended a number of Christmas Fayre's in the run up to the festive period, it's apparent how often beer is bought as a gift, especially by ladies for their fathers, husbands, brothers and uncles, or as that annoyingly difficult "Secret Santa" offering!

Beer does make a great gift. Speaking from experience I am thrilled when I receive beer as a gift because its very likely the beer chosen would not be something I would normally buy myself, hence I'm forced to try something new, or indeed something old - I recently received a bottle of Newcastle Brown, not a beer I'd remotely think of buying so to receive this iconic beer as a gift was very welcome. As a beer drinker receiving beer gifts is often the inroad to a new regular beer purchase of the future, so brewers and retailers should not overlook this once a year opportunity to get people to sample brands.

Choosing a beer gift can be hard as brewers and retailers tend to offer limited clues as to what the contents of a bottle might contain. Also, where a beer style is stated, if you don't understand its meaning it does little to help. For many ladies this is where the problems begin, so as a Beer Sommelier working at the point of purchase can really help. I normally ask where the gift recipient lives, their rough age, perhaps their interests and then if they do have any idea on what beer brands/styles the person currently drinks. I then try to match a beer to suit.

There are many ladies now who are very knowledgeable about beer, but for many who buy beer as gifts at these events that's not the case. So a little guidance is often much appreciated and can lead to them buying the chosen beer as part of their regular shop in the future. Remember, most shopping is done by the lady of the house and if a beer name sticks in her mind that her husband liked at Christmas, then its likely that beer will become part of the regular shop.

But back to Christmas. Another issue is that brewers tend to come at gifts from a very corporate viewpoint. The gift is a brewers box and rarely do you see gift boxes related to an occasion or season. That's not the case with other luxury items as Christmas gift boxes in the world of Chocolate are common place so there is some learning there from other product categories.

Hopefully all the gift boxes sold by myself and colleagues over the festive period will be well received by the recipients and Santa has them safely loaded onto his sleigh for delivery on the big day!