HUMAN WRECKAGE

Of Beer Packaging and Promotional Swag

Moosehead is Canada’s oldest independent brewery. The Maritime operation was established by the Oland family in 1867, the year of Canada’s Confederation. Despite some recent and particularly salacious allegations of patricide (a guilty verdict since overturned), the dynastic enterprise has managed to sidestep the traditional tri-generation pattern of establishment, maintenance and obliteration.

Moosehead is no longer a regional rare bird eagerly sought by beer label watchers east of the four Atlantic provinces. And so, it must have been a slow national news day last year when the brewer received coverage simply by announcing its intention to revamp its packaging. Green, long-necked bottles were to be phased out in favour of aluminium cans. This in the face of der Trumpenfuhrer’s elastic tariffs on Canadian aluminium and steel; aluminium cans are like automobiles, there is tons of cross-border to and fro.

A cheap nylon and highly noninflammable Canadian flag dangles proudly from one wall of the Crooked 9’s garage. Beer case swag, folded into a discounted long weekend two-four. Landfill fodder from a factory in a country where no patriotic Canadian beer drinker would care to live, let alone work. Junk less sustainable and more disposable than fast fashion. Still, as a soft nationalist winner in a cosmic lottery, I felt a black bin fate to be a conscious act of disrespect. Anyway, Canada’s flag is a triumph of minimalist design, essentially a one-colour stylized symbol highlighted on a white field.

There is beer case swag etiquette too. Refuse the petroleum product “coozies” at the cash. Fingernail ping the durability of branded glassware because it sure isn’t crystal. Hats, trucker or bucket, are verboten unless you’re missing more teeth than the rotten ones left between your jaws. Ask yourself, “Are my parents blood relatives?” Beer swag t-shirts are trickier, Miss Manners and Agony Aunt material of a polyester nature.

Last week life was fraught. DEFCON 11 at the Crooked 9. No beer in the kitchen fridge and no warehoused stash in the garage. After the Tuesday Night Beer Club wrapped its evening up at one of the pubs in our standard rotation, Stats Guy graciously drove me to a particularly sleazy liquor store downtown on Jasper Avenue, the kind of place that caters to the desperate. No need for specials or loss leaders. He idled the engine and locked the car doors while I ventured inside to experience life’s rich down-and-out pageant. An imposing ziggurat of Moosehead lager caught my eye. Hooked me. The price was shockingly competitive and my choice of a free medium or large t-shirt besides. Bonus: the shirts were packaged in plastic prophylactics, impossible to pick over like the flayed wares in Costco.

Beer swag t-shirts are problematic because they’re tasteless and their lives are short. Their ultimate destiny is Molotov cocktail wicks, laundry room rag bag shreds or landfill. And yet they serve a perspirational purpose: vacuuming, painting, yardwork; decent shirts absorb the effluvium secreted by a hard-working man who’s earned a cold beer for waking up in the morning. My mother told me to always wear clean underwear in case I was in an accident and had to be rushed to the hospital. A variation of that rule applies to beer swag t-shirts: NEVER WEAR ONE BEYOND THE CONFINES OF YOUR PROPERTY, NOT EVEN UNDER A SWEATSHIRT OR AS THE FIRST OF MANY LAYERS ON A COLD WINTER’S DAY. Dignity goes to the emergency ward to die – no need to embarrass yourself further.

Beer cans have come a long way since I was underage. Light, efficient containers and like mouse traps in their way as there’s not a lot of room for improvement. They’re now made from two sheets of stamped aluminium (the world's most valuable metal back in the day - it caps the Washington Monument). Three if you count the riveted index fingertip “stay-on-tab” (SOT – tee-hee) opening system or pop top. The top or lid of a can is an “end” in industry lingo, a horizontal noun for a vertical container. Pardon the jargon.

I bought a 15-pack of Moosehead lager. NOW AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY IN CANS! Marketing initiatives payoff. I grabbed a gratis t-shirt because if the spring rain in Edmonton ever lets up, I will mow the lawn because I desire perfect turf when the opportunity arises to release the Umbro Size 5 2026 FIFA World Cup commemorative football to our grandchildren; Yoko Ono off-pitch shrieks.

Moosehead bottles were green. Its cans were always green, but this new design features a red band at the rim which matches the red lid. The pull-tab is still silver. The standard fingernail-shaped punch-out is instead a maple leaf. A precise miniature stencil overlayed on a red field. Subtle, vibrant branding. Clever. On message.

There’s nothing new under the sun. A “King of Beers” pop top sports a crown stencil. Rigid manufacturing standards will always crush a designer’s ultimate vision; factory machinery will never be retooled for a design studio’s affectation. But somebody at Moosehead (and Budweiser or whichever international conglomerate owns the brand, for that matter) or its ad agency, fully aware of the packaging’s constrictive parameters and what big league competition has already done, still sat back and pondered: “What if…?”

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 is your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything meaningless. No AI and little intelligence of any sort since 2013! Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com to purchase either one of my two latest novels from your preferred retailer. Collect the set. While you're there, listen to music from The Muster Point Project and link to TMPP's YouTube channel.