Tie-Ins

This Brewery Launched a Fifty Shades of Grey–Themed ‘Performance-Enhancing’ Beer

This marketing is painful.
This marketing is painful. Photo: Innis & Gunn

A surefire blockbuster about bondage is an obvious invitation to awkwardly eroticize your product, so the stampede of brands rolling out Fifty Shades tie-ins has now grown to include a new offering from popular Scottish brewery Innis & Gunn. “50 Shades of Green” contains 50 different hop varieties, and the brewers claim it’s “performance enhancing” thanks to the addition of several aphrodisiacs like ginseng (to boost the sex drive), ginkgo biloba (to “get blood pumping”), and damiana, which is a nerve stimulant.

Supply is limited: Just 200 bottles were made — couples will want to preorder their £30 bottle as soon as they’re available on the company’s website. The brewery was pretty confident beer geeks would appreciate this “cheeky” marketing shtick, but so far, everybody seems to be various shades of unimpressed:

FFS, Innis & Gunn, a 50 Shades of Grey beer claiming 2b performance booster? Contrary to ad guidelines & derivative of BD Royal whatsit beer— MelissaCole (@MelissaCole) February 4, 2015

Fucking hell @innisandgunnUK that press release you just sent reads like one of those ‘little blue pill’ spam emails. (I’ll take the lot)— Matthew Curtis (@totalcurtis) February 4, 2015

[Drinks Business]

This Brewery Launched a Fifty Shades of Grey–Themed