E-Malt.com News article: 2488

USA, New York: Rheingold Beer may boast that it is "100 % New York by volume," but don't expect the city's mayor to stand up and cheer. On April 12, Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted the beer maker after it announced it would begin airing television ads this week poking fun at various city laws, including the mayor's smoking ban in bars and restaurants, according to Beverage World’s report.

Bloomberg noted that Rheingold Brewing Co. laid off thousands of workers from its Brooklyn plant in the 1970s. "Rheingold is a company that walked out on the city 20 years ago," Bloomberg said. "They fired 4,000 people almost overnight." Not so fast, said Rheingold chief executive officer Tom Bendheim. The new Rheingold, he said, is not your father's Rheingold.

"It's as disturbing to us as it is to the mayor as to what happened in 1976," said Bendheim, 41. "But we are different owners. We are all about New York." Rheingold is actually made through a contract brewer in Utica, about 245 miles northwest of New York City. The beer, launched in 1855, virtually disappeared from the market between 1978 and 1998. Now, Bendheim is trying to resurrect the brand as the beer of choice for drinkers in their 20s and early 30s.

As the company sought new ways to win attention for the beer, Bendheim decided to create a series of ads poking fun at city laws that prohibit dancing in bars without cabaret licenses and ban smoking in public places. The ads are scheduled to begin airing Wednesday. Bendheim said the company would begin brewing a limited amount of beer at a small Brooklyn brewery in the next few months. "If capacity existed, we would be brewing in New York City," he said. As the mayor watched the New York Mets' home opener at Shea Stadium on Monday, he sipped a Coors.


16 April, 2004