Prior to this week, if you wanted to drink a real version of Duff Beer, you had to go to The Simpsons-themed area of Universal Studios in Orlando and Los Angeles. This is great if you are at an Orlando or Los Angeles Universal theme park, but pretty crummy if you’re not. Luckily, that’s about to change this week, as Fox has plans to start rolling out a commercial version, first in Chile and South America, then Europe, and then hopefully in the United States.
Now, you probably read that and thought “… uh, Chile?” And it turns out there’s a good reason why they get it first. Because they refuse to stop making counterfeit Duff. From the Wall Street Journal:
But why launch in Chile first? It was a case of, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Fox has been fighting the rise of unauthorized versions of the brew in the Chilean market, and has had some success. The company filed an intellectual property complaint that led Chilean police to seize contraband bottles by the tens of thousands.
But demand for rogue versions of the beer has continued to ramp up across the region, from Colombia to Mexico, and the company decided to jump in.
“Once you see enough piracy, you are faced with two choices,” Mr. Godsick said. “One is deciding to fight it, and the other is deciding to go out [into the market] with it.”
So the next time someone tells you crime doesn’t pay, sit them down, look them in the eyes, and say “Let me tell you a little story about a group of Simpsons-obsessed Chilean bootleggers…”
As for how the beer will actually, like, taste, we have the following description to work with. “It’s got a very good balance of flavor and refreshment to it. It’s fairly deep golden in color. It’s got a hint of fruit to it. It’s got a caramel aromatic to it.”
A hint of fruit? A caramel aromatic? This sounds kinda like a Shelbyville beer to me. We’ll have to wait for a full report from those Chilean miscreants. Those beautiful, beautiful Chilean miscreants.
(Via WSJ)
