One might think that if the wildly successful Lululemon yoga pant company wanted to tap into the beverage market, it would sell green tea, or perhaps the latest fad drink, vitamin water. Beer may be a bit of a stretch, so to speak.
But Vancouver-based Lululemon launched Curiosity Lager beer this summer, aiming the brew at, not its female pant patrons, but the untapped, so to speak, male market. Lululemon partnered last year with a local suds maker, Stanley Park Brewery, to produce a specialty wheat beer for refreshers at the Sunset Festival. That is the socializing aftermath of Lululemon's Seawheeze Half Marathon.
"Our focus," said a Lululemon statement, "has always been to bring our event mantra - yoga.run.party - to life." So now the company is selling beer for beer's sake, but it has used the exclusivity factor to market it, just like its pants: in limited quantities with no repeat runs.
Curiosity lager was limited to a batch of 88,000 cans. It was sold throughout BC, and in a few private liquor stores in Alberta.
"Beer," announced the new Lululemon Men Twitter account, "it's the new yoga pant." Well, maybe, but it seems Lululemon feels more men are interested in getting into beer than getting into yoga pants.
Maybe Lululemon has, or should have, learned its lesson about "fat shaming" from the pushback which led to founder and off the cuff spokesman Chip Wilson's resignation. (Having said that the bodies of some women aren't suitable for Lululemon pants, and blaming the lack of durability of some of its pants made from inferior cloth on larger women, Wilson decided to spend more time with his family yadayadablahblah.)
If ever Lululemon ever does make a yoga pant for men, the company will likely soft-pedal the ability of its stretchy fabric to accommodate beer guts.
Photo: Ambro, freedigitalphotos.net