Remember that bar, Overtime? The beer which served this overpriced, German-branded, beer called ‘Starker’?
I recently discovered that it wasn’t so German after all.
According to someone who told me, earlier this week – Starker was the brainchild of a Malaysian company. The beer, which was actually brewed in Klang, had less in common with Germany I did (I had a relative who grew up there, and a handful of friends from there – close enough, right?).
The name Starker, was fabricated by a local company who registered the name in a small German town known for its microbreweries. The company partnered with Overtime to sell the beer around the country, and that was the beginning. However, it all came to a conclusion not long after when Overtime went broke due to its owner being to ambitious in expanding. Also, they stole so much money from Starker that the beer company went broke.
Which explains why those bars and beers went missing.
Now I’m not saying that it’s all true – it’s just something I heard and I didn’t bother verifying the facts. I’m no investigator. But if anybody wants to shed light on the situation, feel free to drop a comment below!
However, I do think that faking the origin of a beer just to sell it (successfully, I might add) is a pretty clever sales/marketing tactic. The story reminded me of Häagen-Dazs – an American ice cream company which used a Danish-sounding name to fool the world.
Anyway, there’s not much to learn here except that names can be deceiving. I mean, I remember when I discovered that Tiger beer was from Singapore while reading an FHM magazine – that still didn’t stop me from drinking the shit out of that beer. Hell, my name is George, and I’m no farmer nor am I from Greece. Or am I?
Ya, it’s an increasingly popular tactic. I didn’t know that LEBENSSTIL KOLLEKTION was Malaysian too. Owned by Pensonic. Just register a company overseas and with a virtual office you can claim that you’re a “German brand” or something like that, and have a Malaysian distributor. Smart.