British thirst for strong alcohol forces Heineken to call time on weak lager

It once claimed to refresh the parts other beers cannot reach. But not any more.

After at least 40 years, Heineken – the UK's first ever lager to be served on tap – is being withdrawn from pubs in favour of a stronger brew. Tonight at 10.30pm, last orders will finally be called on the famous Dutch beer.

It has fallen victim to a change in Britain's drinking tastes: consumers have developed a more sophisticated palate and a stomach for stronger beer, and drinkers are now apparently just too embarrassed to down a lager brewed at only 3.4 per cent.

Tomorrow, Heineken will leave behind UK favourite Carling Black label as well as its ordinary-strength American and Australian cousins, such as Budweiser and Foster's – like the Dutch brand, brewed under licence in the UK – and replace it with a new "premium" lager, already sold in Europe, which at 5 per cent strength reflects British beer-drinkers' love affair with the Continent. The move has attracted criticism from anti-alcohol campaigners who fear an upsurge in drunken behaviour by Heineken fans unaware of the drink's increased potency.

A £24m promotional campaign has been planned to accompany the launch – with "chic" celebrities including Zoe Ball, Craig David and Jodie Kidd emphasising the brand's desire to be considered cool once again. The list of names speaks volumes in itself: Heineken's last advertising campaign was fronted by such icons of naffness as Paul Daniels, Vanessa Feltz and Peter Stringfellow.

The new Heineken is the result of two years' extensive research into UK drinking habits, and the company is pitching it in direct competition against the upstarts of the luxury lager world – Stella Artois, Kronenburg 1664 and Grolsch.

The premium lager market in the UK is worth an estimated £3.9bn – with market leader Stella Artois accounting for roughly a third, selling 720 million pints. Grolsch alone reported a 61 per cent increase in UK sales in 2002.

The relaunch marks another chapter in a period of major change for Heineken. It began selling beer in 1870 and is still a family concern. Last January, following the death of Alfred "Freddie" Heineken, his only daughter Charlene de Carvalho, 48, inherited a controlling stake in the empire. Worth an estimated £2.9bn, the London-based mother-of-five became the richest woman in Britain – surpassing even the Queen.

The premium Heineken, which is already sold in 170 countries, will be marketed in the UK under the slogan: "Heineken: Loved Around the World, Finally Ready for Britain." But it is unlikely to catch on the way its slogan of the Seventies and Eighties did – "Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach".

Heineken's UK managing director, Rob Marijnen, said the company had decided to relaunch its brand as a response to the increasing "sophistication" of British beer drinkers. "Over the last five years or so, a notable change in taste patterns has occurred among consumers in the UK," said Mr Marijnen.

"The standard-lager segment is in decline, whereas premium lager is growing at an impressive overall rate of more than 10 per cent a year."

Pumps in drinking venues are already being replaced in anticipation of the launch. The first symbolic pint will be poured tomorrow at the Hogshead in Leicester Square, central London.

But some bodies have not welcomed the change. The Portman Group, a charity which campaigns against the misuse of alcohol, is one. "If there are brand relaunches going on, the company in question needs to make sure consumers are made aware of any change in alcoholic strength," said Jean Coussins, chief executive of the Portman Group. "The danger has to be avoided of customers unwittingly ordering the strong stuff and thinking it's still the old 3.4 per cent beer.

"A lot of people think of lager in terms of pints rather than alcoholic volume, and this can be very dangerous unless you know your units."

Her concerns were shared by Alcohol Concern. "We've been campaigning for a long time for drinks to be clearly labeled in terms of alcoholic volume," said a spokesman. "A lot of people are confused by this, and it's vitally important that they are made aware of exactly what they are drinking."

Some Heineken drinkers were also unimpressed when told of the shift to a stronger lager. John Turner, 34, from Ware in Hertfordshire, said: "I wouldn't buy the new stuff. I really like the taste of Heineken as it is now."

Other drinkers were more open.Tom Wilson, 23, has lived in Amsterdam for three months and was already well aware of the lager's premium brew. "I don't think people want strength, they want brand – and that's Stella," he said. "But if they can persuade me that this new Heineken is going to make me look cooler and pull more birds, then I might just drink it."

By Peter York

In the early Seventies Heineken was only 3.5 per cent alcohol, but 96.5 per cent advertising. It was a classic British situation: a bit behind the rest of Europe, a bit underpowered, but terrifically creative.

Heineken was brewed here under licence by Whitbread. Research told them the British wouldn't drink the real thing, the Heineken 5 per cent full-tilt Pilsner lager they sold to 170 other countries around the world, so they concocted a weaker "Brits only" recipe.

But lager became the focus of a baby-boomer social revolution against the cloth-cap, pre-war world of mild and bitter, pale ale and stout. In the Sixties that world was a place to escape from for anyone with an ounce of style and ambition.

Lager was the growing category in beerland, and Heineken the brand leader. It miraculously combined volume sales and brand acceptability, and its advertising was clever, funny and very famous. It was the topic of national water-cooler conversation, 20 years before Britain had water-coolers. Politicians would demonstrate that they were up with things by working "refreshes the parts others cannot reach" into their speeches. An urban forklore story ran in lad-land that what the Heineken ads really meant was simply no brewer's droop (what it was called before "erectile dysfunction"). It was obvious, after all, from the early treatment showing the man with a huge drooping sausage nose which perked up practically 180 degrees.

The format lent itself to treatments that either hit a traditional British shared-culture nerve (Humpty Dumpty with his cracked head restored, back on the wall) or were wildly topical (Carl André's Tate bricks reassembled).

But in the Eighties, a raft of new "authentic" beers, stronger, more expensive, more foreign brands, such as Stella Artois and Becks, were introduced to compete for the newly established "premium" market. More European travel, more bars and more wildly poncy products made Heineken Mark I look a bit British Leyland by the Nineties.

If, as a brand, you live by the sword of clever, topical advertising, you die by it too, when the world turns – unless you change something substantial.