The new Stella Artois Web site is terrific!

A still from “La Bouteille”.

I was in Lawrenceburg this weekend to attend the Fred Thompson event there, and forgot my invitation, so I didn’t have the username and password to get into the preview. Luckily for me, beer bloggers of a feather flock together and a fella over at Brew Brain was kind enough to send me the info so I could check out the site.  Thanks Brew Brain!

So I visit the Web site and log in….and am transfixed as a movie begins to play. Opening to a dark alley and a creepy atmosphere, you are taken back to 1366. I won’t tell you the story of the movie, because I don’t want to ruin it for you, but the movie basically guides you through Web site. As it plays it hits certain points where it pauses, and you can enter the Web site at that particular entry point, or you can resume the film. They call it an interactive drama, and it is titled “La Bouteille”.

If you resume the film and watch it all the way through, you can get to any of the earlier entry points as well. Each tells a bit about the process of making Stella Artois, including the gathering of the hops and the harvesting of the barley.

The cinematic way of guiding you through the site really really works well and really gets you into the Web site. There is so much more there to explore but I’ll leave that to you. I believe it will be some time before I see all there is to see there.

The Web site debuts publicly tomorrow, Tuesday September 18, 2007, so be sure to check it out!

New Stella Artois Web site

I was contacted recently by the folks at Stella Artois asking if I would like an official invitation to the preview of their new Web site, launching Sept. 18. I’ll take anything beer-related I can get my hands on, so I said yes! (Read about the coming site at their blog: http://www.stellaartoisblog.com/ It sounds like their new site is going to be a real experience, with cinematic clips (I don’t mean just video clips of, say, how they brew their beer, I mean mini movie type stuff). They have an amazing trailer on their blog as well.

I am really impressed with this whole marketing thing they’re doing. They are definitely taking things to a new level and generating a lot of buzz and excitement about their new Web site. I’ve never had a Stella Artois but I want one now and will definitely review one here soon.

A couple of days ago, I received my official invitation. I was expecting a small envelope….I was hoping for a beer sample to accompany the invitation. (A guy can wish, can’t he?) What I received was two invitations, each one in a big black mailing tube about as tall as my 3-year-old! There was a large poster inside, the official invitation, and a few of their cardboard coasters, which I was actually very happy to receive. I use a coaster like that at work for my coffee mug and the one I am using now is old and stained. At any give time it probably holds more coffee than my mug!

 So tomorrow is the official preview of the Web site. I’ll do my best to check it out, somewhere between helping my wife set up her yard sale and checking out Fred Thompson’s appearance in Lawrenceburg (Fred 08!) and let you know all about it.