In the last few years there have been some fairly unique marketing initiatives within the craft beer market. This includes Skinny Blonde lager which uses special ink technology to reveal an undressed lady character as the beer warms, to a beer named after Mark ‘Chopper’ Read and a beer from Yeastie Boys in New Zealand that puts their recipe online for home brewers to recreate.

Now there is a new one from Casella Wines – the makers of Australia’s number one export wine to the USA, YellowTail wines. It’s called the Perfect Lager Project and involves their quest to create the ideal lager for Australian consumers using a brand they call ‘Arvo’.

To achieve this two highly acclaimed brewers were recruited to Casella’s ranks; Brew Master Andy Mitchell, fresh off the boat from South Africa where he worked for more than 30 years at South African Breweries (now SABMiller), and Anthony Clem, who worked most recently for Knappstein Enterprise Brewery in the Clare Valley, providing complementary knowledge and experience from the Australian beer market.

Both have moved into a state‐of‐the‐art brewery at the family winery in Yenda, NSW to create two different lager variants; Arvo 34 and Arvo 51. There has been a big marketing campaign for the two beers, including development of a website, iPhone app and Facebook page. Through each you can cast your vote to tell the brewers which one of the two beers you prefer. The winning beer will then become the first beer of their permanent range.

For more info visit: ArvoBeer.com