LSU officials have a message for students who ignore warnings about underage or binge drinking.
Do not buy your beer from Miller or Bud. Switch to our brand.
What else to make of the news that the university is to start brewing and marketing its own suds? It is hard to inveigh against the evils of drink and make money from it at the same time.
There is little doubt that LSU beer will prove profitable. Loyal students and alumni will be falling over one another to grab a case, provided the flavor meets their exacting standards.
It will be produced by Tin Roof, a Baton Rouge microbrewery, from a recipe drawn up by the LSU food science department. Perhaps due diligence would have required yours truly to sample Tin Roof?s other brews, but a rare lapse has occurred. Still, microbreweries typically excel bland national brands, and chances are good that LSU will provide the region with a decent cold one. It will come on draught and in cans.
Tin Roof, formed with assistance from the LSU?s business incubator, sold its first Beer less than a year ago. The new partnership with LSU looks like a major break for the business, but it is also touted as an educational opportunity. Food science students will start reporting to the microbrewery for fermentation class in the fall.
The business school is working on branding and a marketing plan, while the LSU official-beer logo will be rolled out soon. The launch is planned, naturally, for the upcoming football season. Although alcohol may not be sold at Tiger Stadium, there is plenty of it about on game day. Tiger fans and tailgaters are the prime target for the new beer, says William McGehee, an LSU alumnus and co-owner of Tin Roof.
The study of booze is hardly new to academe. The University of California, Davis, for example has a highly regarded viticulture school, but then wine is not only big business out there but a somewhat more hoity toity tipple than Beer.
No doubt LSU students in various disciplines will learn a great deal by making and promoting their own brew, and running a real business has obvious advantages over mere theory. But universities are traditionally expected to dispense wisdom rather than beverages.
Perhaps students will be more tempted to stray when they walk onto a campus with its own official beer. Certainly, the authorities will be in no position to say drinking it is wrong, except that, thanks to federal decree, it is illegal for anyone under 21. Nobody pays any attention to that, however, as a visit to any bar within walking distance of a college will confirm. If they are old enough to vote and fight in Afghanistan, let them have a beer, is the general view. As of football season, it might as well be an LSU Beer.
Although hitherto abstemious souls may take to LSU beer out of loyalty, its introduction is unlikely to make a discernible difference to the overall market. Vast quantities are going to be drunk anyway, and whatever success LSU enjoys will be at the expense of the Buds and the Millers, and nobody is going to shed any tears over that. If students and alumni will be sucking them down regardless, it might be argued that there can be no harm in launching a new brand.
LSU, moreover, needs money. Nobody knows how big profits will be, but Charles D?Agostino, director of LSU?s Business and Technology Center, thinks it may be impossible to brew enough to meet demand.
D?Agostino?s faith in his students and alumni is probably well founded, but if they can drink more beer than the university can brew, there are going to be some sore heads out there. Enthusiastic drinking has always been a feature of college life, but, hitherto, the authorities have at least been able to affect disapproval.
Now there is a bottom line to think about, the official line must be ?Cheers!?
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James Gill can be reached at jgill@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3318.
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Source: http://www.beerbooznews.com/home-brew-will-be-on-tap-on-the-lsu-campus-james-gill-new-orleans-times/
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