Cheers to 'glassware execution'

AFTER listening to Steve Cahillane just talk about his work schedule, you feel an overwhelming need to lie down.

The new head of the British and Irish operations of Belgian-owned Interbrew is out of bed by 5.15, goes on a six-mile run, is off to work by 6.30 and is rarely home before seven in the evening.

And getting home doesn't necessarily mean he can relax. After the summer upheaval of moving to Britain from the US with his wife and three children, a fourth child was born two weeks ago.

But the man responsible for producing nearly a fifth of all the beer sold in Britain still reckons he will have the energy to run the London marathon next April.

'I was supposed to do the New York marathon with my brother and my sister,' he recalled as we chatted at Interbrew's head office in Luton, Beds. The move to Britain means he will have to be more modest in his ambitions.

Cahillane somehow manages to find time for running four or five times a week. 'I've just finished putting together a treadmill in my garage so I can run in the winter when it's dark,' he said.

It is not as if Interbrew UK is a long-established operation that simply needs to be kept ticking over. In its present form it is young, having spent two agonising years between 2000 and 2002 buying the brewing businesses of Whitbread and Bass and then being forced to sell large chunks of what it had acquired.

Cahillane admitted this is a challenge. 'People here introduce themselves as ex-Bass or former Whitbread,' he said. 'There is still more work to be done to unify the company.'

And despite the huge success of Interbrew's Stella Artois - sales have doubled since 1998 to £1.4bn a year - Cahillane insists there is still enormous potential for further growth. In supermarkets and off-licences, Stella is ubiquitous. But in pubs? 'It is in 40% of bars,' he said, 'so what about the other 60%? It points to a gigantic opportunity.'

Cahillane may be able to put Stella into more pubs, but how do you persuade people to drink it? The brand may have done well, but beer sales are going nowhere. Beer just isn't sexy.

Cahillane starts talking in a way the old guard of Britain's beerage simply wouldn't understand. 'We have to drive better glassware execution,' he said.

Eh? Put simply, it means having a specific glass for each type of beer. 'So when you order Stella, it is served perfectly with just the right head and in a beautiful branded glass at just the right temperature. Get all that right, and beer can be sexy. There are things we can do to make drinking beer special, more of an occasion.'

Cahillane is 38 and has spent his working life in the drinks industry. He was brought up in New York, the son of a fireman. After a degree in politics, he joined E&J Gallo Winery, had a spell at Harvard University, then, with a group of colleagues, set up a contract brewing company and produced drinks under licence.

'The market dive-bombed,' Cahillane recalled. 'So we sold it.' Then came a period with Coors and in 1998, he joined Labatt US - part of the Interbrew empire.

The British operation he now heads embraces much more than Stella. There is Castlemaine XXXX, Boddingtons, Bass and Tennent's.

Though he says Castlemaine has done 'remarkably', Cahillane admits that 'we have to do better with standard lager. It is a chink in our armour in England and Wales.'

There is no such problem in Scotland where Tennent's has more than half the market for standard lager.

But Stella is the subject of much pride. The 'reassuringly expensive' tag has been sustained, though the beer can no longer be described as exclusive. Take-home sales make it Britain's fourth-largest grocery brand behind Coca- Cola, Walkers and Nescafe.

Cahillane admitted: 'It's a challenge. As any luxury brand becomes more popular and more approachable, it makes it more difficult to maintain that distinctiveness. But even when it's discounted it will almost always be more expensive than the standard lager on the next shelf. The consumer has to make a conscious decision to spend more.'

That, of course, is the name of the game in marketing premium lager. Hence the desire to make beer sexy. Hence the drive for better glassware execution.