American children may someday have a beer to call their own.
The maker of KidsBeer (search), a Japanese soft drink that looks like beer and tastes like Coke, plans to market the beverage in Europe, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reports.
"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads KidsBeer's Japanese slogan, according to the Telegraph.
One Japanese ad shows a boy first crying about a math test, then weeping in delight after a drink of KidsBeer. Another shows a father and daughter clinking mugs, one with KidsBeer, one with the real stuff.
Brewer Tomumasu (search) says 75,000 bottles of the brown-colored, frothy drink are sold per month in Japan.
"Children always copy adults," exulted Tomumasu head Satoshi Tomoda. "If you have this drink at events attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."
Naturally, British officials were not cheered by the prospect of lager for little ones arriving on their shores.
"This product would be an alarming development for a nation which is already succumbing to a binge-drinking culture," said Tim Loughton, the Conservative Party "shadow minister" for children in Britain. "It will only train children to experiment with real alcohol even earlier. Are we to expect cheeseburger flavor baby purée next?"
Tomumasu has not said anything about bringing KidsBeer to North America, but that hasn't stopped public-health watchdogs from denouncing the foamy-headed menace.
"The last thing we need is another product that introduces kids to drinking when the alcohol industry already spends billions doing that," Amon Rappaport, a spokesman for the Marin Institute (search), an anti-teen drinking organization based in California, told the Times.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169825,00.html
The maker of KidsBeer (search), a Japanese soft drink that looks like beer and tastes like Coke, plans to market the beverage in Europe, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reports.
"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads KidsBeer's Japanese slogan, according to the Telegraph.
One Japanese ad shows a boy first crying about a math test, then weeping in delight after a drink of KidsBeer. Another shows a father and daughter clinking mugs, one with KidsBeer, one with the real stuff.
Brewer Tomumasu (search) says 75,000 bottles of the brown-colored, frothy drink are sold per month in Japan.
"Children always copy adults," exulted Tomumasu head Satoshi Tomoda. "If you have this drink at events attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."
Naturally, British officials were not cheered by the prospect of lager for little ones arriving on their shores.
"This product would be an alarming development for a nation which is already succumbing to a binge-drinking culture," said Tim Loughton, the Conservative Party "shadow minister" for children in Britain. "It will only train children to experiment with real alcohol even earlier. Are we to expect cheeseburger flavor baby purée next?"
Tomumasu has not said anything about bringing KidsBeer to North America, but that hasn't stopped public-health watchdogs from denouncing the foamy-headed menace.
"The last thing we need is another product that introduces kids to drinking when the alcohol industry already spends billions doing that," Amon Rappaport, a spokesman for the Marin Institute (search), an anti-teen drinking organization based in California, told the Times.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169825,00.html
