The attachment that beer drinkers have to their favourite brand is one of the mysteries of marketing but it certainly has little to do with the taste. At masked tasting after masked tasting I have watched devoted loyalists fail to identify the beverage they swear by and praise amber fluid they would never dream of ordering.

With beer, as with wine, people drink the label rather than the contents with their attachment some strange combination of a desire to be at one with the herd and the power of advertising.

Not too much advertising or the wrong kind of advertising, mind you. The decline of the once mighty Foster’s Lager coincided with the name change from Carlton and United Breweries to Foster’s Group and an increased expenditure on promoting the famous blue can. Victoria Bitter sales rose at home inexorably as John Elliott tried to Fosterise the world.

I remember too how, when my brother and I started selling beer at Farmer Bros in Canberra 30 years ago, the biggest selling beer was KB in its pretty frosted gold can. Today, with the old Kent Brewery from which it took its initials falling victim to the wrecking balls of the property developers, KB is no more — gone the way of DA and Tooheys Pilsener and Flag Ale and other great names of my youth.

The fate of that best seller was determined when the old Tooth and Co got a bug in the yeast and started shipping beer from Melbourne while the problem was rectified. The drinkers decided this was not the real thing and turned elsewhere for a brand although it was impossible to tell the difference between KB from down south and from Sydney before the troubles.

It was a clear warning to brewers that you tinker with your product at your peril.

The assertion by Foster’s management that reducing the alcohol strength of VB from 4.9% alcohol by volume to 4.8% will not affect the taste might not have the impact hoped for. Not many, if any, will actually be able to taste a difference (While alcohol content acts as a taste enhancer – that’s the reason why so many low strength beers taste quite insipid – the minor change announced yesterday is too small to be noticed.) The danger for Foster’s is the perception rather than the reality that something is different.

The circumstances are perfect for an underground marketing campaign suggesting that real men with a real hard earned thirst drink a real beer with an alcohol content of 5% plus.