I don’t know about you, but I have noticed a new trend among the pseudo-craft beer brands lately. A couple of years ago, they were all about the White – Rickard’s White, Keith’s White. They were trying to emulate the refreshing taste of original witbier like Hoegaarden and Blanche de Chambly. Of course, they did not succeed, offering instead insipid versions of a wonderful style (check out my review of Rickard’s White here – one of the most withering reviews I have ever written. I couldn’t bring myself to review Keith’s version).

I bring this up because I have noticed in the past few months a new push – for Dark beer. Both Rickard’s (which is Molson-Coors) and Alexander Keith’s (which is AB-INBEV) have released beer called Dark. This follows on the heels of Sleeman’s (which is Sapporo) Original Dark.

This intrigued me enough that I did up a column on it, for the moment in Planet S, which ran last week. The thrust of my argument is that this trend is a good thing. Sure the beer being promoted is weak-kneed – offering slightly sweeter, darker versions of their regular beer. I can’t say it is bad, because it does have flavour, just not as much as I would expect from something labeled “dark” – and particularly due to their over-the-top advertising. If you mention “robust” and “coffee”, there had better be some dark roasted malts in that beer. And trust me, there ain’t.

But I stand by my positive evaluation. The reason is that if the big boys are getting into dark beer, their research is telling them that the beer public are asking for darker beer. And that means people are opening up to trying beer with flavour and body. Rickard’s and Keith’s Dark would not exist if the global corporations that run them didn’t think they needed to nip an exodus in the bud.

So, I say rejoice. If the big boys are doing dark, then dark is in. Feel free to read the whole article here. And after you do so, I offer a challenge. Name a beer that would take a Rickard’s/Keith’s Dark drinker to a real craft beer. Feel free to post your suggestion. The best one will be feature (with full credit) on whichever outlet I next decide to discuss this topic.