Our chosen artifact is beer, the oldest and most popular form of alcoholic drink known to mankind. It is produced by a process known as fermentation, in which microscopic organisms called yeast synthesize sugars into alcohol from starch-based products--mainly barley and wheat. But while volumes upon volumes of pages could be written on the various aspects of beer (and indeed, they have), we wanted to focus on something more specific: mainly, the containers used to store and serve beer. Beer containers come in a wide variety of shapes and designs, each of which has its own specific qualities and connotations. In our project, we decided to look at beer containers both in a general context (historical and current), along with a more specific look at one company, Heineken, and how it uses these containers.
Our questions are as follows:
1) What can beer containers tell us about the role of drinking beer in a culture?
2) How do the shape and design of a beer's storage and drinking containers affect the various physical qualities (i.e. taste, aroma, texture) of the beer itself?
3) How do the shape and design of a beer's storage and drinking containers affect perceptions, implications, and connotations of the beer in a societal context?
And so without further ado...
Table of Contents
I. An Introduction To Beer and Beer Containers
- The Brewing Process
- Ye Olde Beer Mugs
- Modern Beer Containers
II. Heineken
- A Little Heineken Background
III. The Marketing Giant
- The Four "P's" of Marketing
- Why Do We Pick Heineken?
- The Keg Can: A Whole New Crowd?
- Running the Gauntlet: Taste Tests
IV. The End
- Personal Thoughts and Conclusions
- Sources and Citations
Posted at Feb 17/2007 04:55PM:
Cori: This is looking promising but I am concerned that this is a huge topic...I would suggest that you narrow your focus. Perhaps you could look at one particular brand of beer (your favourite, an iconic brand or whatever) - with all the imported beer available, you could still take a global perspective if you wanted. Other things to consider might be the form, design etc. of the bottle/ can or if on tap what kind of beer glass is used. Serious beer drinkers really do care about these kinds of things!
Posted at Feb 25/2007 01:41PM:
viveksa: I actually really like the idea of looking at the design of the container for the beer. The type of container (and its form) significantly affects the taste of the beer, the appearance of the beer, and how people perceive the beer. There is also a lot of discussion about the shape of glasses for different types of beer. We might just go with that!
Posted at Feb 27/2007 09:04AM:
Michael: Nice one - this does remind me of a project I did when I was starting in archaeology -
http://documents.stanford.edu/MichaelShanks/65 - learn from my mistakes and start with just one container - see where it takes you - you could be amazed!!
