I don’t like beer cocktails.

Let me tell you why.

The beer cocktail supposes that beer is not a finished beverage and should be used as an ingredient towards a separate end. Personally, I think of beer as being a finished product. It’s been designed by someone and is therefore complete. Whether it’s any good or not when it’s complete is a separate question.

On the vanishingly small number of occasions where I feel like having a cocktail, I don’t want beer near my cocktail. A Negroni is its own thing. A Manhattan is its own thing.

They perform different functions. Beer is (for the most part) a long, cool, refreshing drink. Liquor is warming and suited to introspection. The occasions on which you might enjoy the two are usually separate. The combination of the two, while an interesting intellectual exercise, does tend to prompt the question, “who is this for?” In my experience, the answer is, “it’s for the person who came up with it.”

There aren’t beer cocktail bars popping up and there never will be. You can’t walk into a regular bar and ask for a beer cocktail by name; none of them are that famous. Oh, you can have a Michelada once you explain the concept. You can ask for some lime cordial with your lager. You can probably order a shandy. There’s just no complex beer cocktail that the public at large is hankering for.

I have the same feeling about marijuana infused beers.

The existence of marijuana infused beer supposes that beer is not a finished beverage and should be used as an ingredient towards a separate end.

Beer has been around, according to some pretty recent data from Iranian dig sites, something like 11,000 years. There is a reason that it is typically 5% alcohol and comes in standard serving sizes: it is predictable. With only a few minor variables like the amount of food in your system and your experience with it, the results of ingesting beer are predictable.

Marijuana use has gone back about the same amount of time. Wikipedia says that humans were using hemp in the neolithic age and I’m going to bet it didn’t take all that long to figure out it had psychoactive properties. While there are a wide variety of potencies and terpenoid structures, there’s also the ability, with a little experience, to control your dosage for recreational or medicinal purposes.

People like both of these substances. They are now both legal and fairly readily available. This is a good thing.

Marijuana infused beer is a terrible idea.

All of the versions of it that will be available in Canada will be alcohol free. The reason people drink beer is because it contains alcohol. Periodically, I have seen people claim that they drink it because of the taste. Individual preference aside, the reason beer exists is because it contains alcohol. The anthropological conceit that humanity became an agricultural species because they liked the taste of a grain infused liquid is a non-starter. “Hey, that steeped barley flavour is great. Let’s convert our entire way of life.”

So, you’re starting with non-alcoholic beer. Ask yourself how many litres of non-alcoholic beer you drank last year for a purpose that wasn’t curiosity. It’s a pretty small number, isn’t it? Do you know how many palatable non-alcoholic beers are available on the market? I can count them on one hand. If I had to drink one, it’d be Innis & Gunn’s because it actually tastes like hops.

Now, you’re going to add THC or CBD to that liquid. People already have the ability to access THC and CBD in the form of smoke, vape, oil, capsule, and edibles. There’s an entire culture dedicated to controlling different strains and experiences and dosages.

So, you’re adding this to non-alcoholic beer. Large breweries, thinking like large breweries, are going to attempt to create a single flagship product with a single dosage level. That means that you’ve taken away the ability of people to control their dose. It is actually less utile. Smaller breweries might create a number of brands, but essentially it’s the same problem; it still pales in comparison to the things already available. The delivery vector is limited.

Let’s talk about retailing this. I have questions.

The target demographic for marijuana infused beer is what? People who like beer? They have more choice than has ever existed in history. You could have a new beer every day forever without duplication. People who like marijuana? They already have marijuana. Even in places where it’s not legal. Surreptitious internet ordering is a thing.

So you’re aiming for the enormous “people who really like marijuana but don’t want to smoke, vape, eyedrop, swallow, or consume, it in a non-beer form but also don’t want to consume alcohol and are willing to trust an alcohol producer on dosage” demographic. 

Where is it going to be sold? At marijuana retailers once those licenses go out? But not until October, when edibles are legalized? So you’re going to a marijuana retailer to buy beer, are you? Imagine the trepidatious fellow setting foot for the first time in a marijuana retailer to buy beer. It’s like an updated Stephen Leacock bit.

Does it come in singles? Is it, like most beer, predicated on the idea of volume sales? It seems like it might be a bad idea to drink more than one if you’re unfamiliar with the effects. What’s the price point on that, by the way? And how does it taste? All deference to the “drink it because of the taste” people, but if you’ve schlepped to a marijuana retailer to buy a marijuana beer because it contains marijuana, the taste is not your primary motivation for picking it up. Given the other flavour options available to you, which will include actual brownies, it might be a real good motivation to not buy a second one.

And you need a separate building to produce it, do you? That’s a lot of capital expenditure for an unproven product for an unproven demographic.

Like Beer Cocktails, I find myself thinking “who is this for?” And the answer is the same. “It’s for the people who came up with it.” Large breweries are hoping that it’ll stem the tide of volume loss in sales. Collective Arts are in. Cool Brewing is in. Steam Whistle seems to be prepping for it. Constellation brands are in.

Molson Coors is in. For them, I have one word: Zima.

I have been writing about beer for a decade or so and in that time I’ve met a handful of homebrewers who are interested in making this sort of thing. They are, uniformly, pretty eccentric cats. It’s a niche market within a niche market. I suppose the hope is that supplying the product will create the demand. With enough advertising that might work for a while. I just don’t think suitable demand exists to justify the activity we’re seeing. It’s a sort of gold rush mentality, and it comes with what I consider to be an unacceptable amount of “if”.