And Now, Sweet Beer

What the beer bust was to many generations of students, the pot party is to countless thousands of today's collegians —and the trend saddens brewers as much as it does old grads. Nationwide, beer sales are rising about 11% this year, but around campuses sales are barely holding their own, despite the increasing college population. The tastes of malt and marijuana, it seems, just do not mingle well. Instead, youths seeking to prolong their highs have been turning to a new kind of campus ferment. They are buying cheap, sweet wines, especially two Gallo brands: Ripple and Boone's Farm Apple. Nude swimmers at July's Goose Lake Rock Festival in Jackson, Mich., appreciatively christened one of the beaches they used "Ripple Beach."

Brewers are making a few ripples too. Within the past few weeks, they have begun test-marketing three sweet-tasting concoctions of their own: Pitts burgh Brewing's lemon-lime-flavored Hop 'n Gator; Lone Star Brewing's low-calorie Lime Lager; and National Brewing's Malt Duck, a combination of beer, alcohol and an unfermented concentrate of red grape with twice the alcoholic content of ordinary beer. The brewers say only that, whatever the reason, a lot of young people seem to like sweeter drinks —and the manufacturers are trying to win those youngsters. "We are dealing with a Pepsi generation grown up," says Bud Allen, National Brewing's general sales manager.

Initial sales of the new drinks suggest that the brewers have sized up that generation's preferences accurately. Lone Star Advertising Director Harry McEldowney admits that "hardhats do not seem to like Lime Lager," but adds that the drink "sells well at rock festivals." The new brands have not escaped controversy, though it has been of a different kind from what the breweries might have expected. Early this month Stokely-Van Camp Inc. asked a federal court to enjoin Pittsburgh Brewing from selling Hop 'n Gator, claiming that the drink's name—and the taste and formula of the part that is not beer —violate Stokely's trademark right on Gatorade.