“Nobody asks for a chalice here”

Picture from the Facebook group “Wij willen dat de Stella-ribbeltjesglazen blijven”

Like many large, lumbering brewing corporations, ABInBev appears to care little for its own heritage, save for those parts of it currently deemed useful for marketing purposes.

The latest wheeze from InBev’s marketing department is to abolish the classic Belgian Stella Artois glass – a simple branded tumbler with fluting at the base. The Belgian media reports that the brewery will now only supply a plain boerkje tumbler and the notorious “chalice” as used for Stella in other countries.

Not that I drink much Stella, but this makes me a bit sad. The ribbeltje glass reminds me of a time when Belgian cafés were perhaps more down-to-earth than they are now. When I first visited Belgium a typical café would have only one draught beer, Stella (or Jupiler, Primus or Maes), with all the more interesting specialities in bottles.

It was also usually the cheapest. As is widely known, despite the brewer’s attempt to punt it in other countries as a “reassuringly expensive” premium beer, in Belgium Stella is the bog standard café beer, with a basic, proletarian glass to match. This, of course, is precisely why the marketers hate the glass so much. It’s not chic enough for their pretensions.

InBev has been trying to introduce the ridiculous blingy chalice in Belgium for a good few years, in the interest of a globally identical brand, but has met with resistance from consumers, who think it’s a load of bloody nonsense, and say so. A barman in Leuven is quoted as saying “Nobody asks for a chalice here. Maybe that is different abroad, but here Stella is an ordinary people’s drink and they like it in a ribbeltje or a boerkje.”

Now, in a massive two fingers to Stella’s own home town, the chalice is going to be forced on them whether they want it or not.

Other marketers have mocked Stella’s pretension in the past