Fair-trade coffee gives British beer new buzz

Fair-trade coffee gives British beer new buzz

Fri Nov 19, 2004

LONDON (AFP) - Watch out Starbucks. British beermakers are wooing the caffeine-crazed with a new beer made from fair-trade coffee beans.


Coffee beans from the central African country of Rwanda are mixed with barley grown in Britain, creating a beer with the same amount of caffeine in one bottle as in a cup of coffee.


Drinkers can get an added buzz from the political correctness of their coffee, labelled fair trade -- meaning it has been grown in conditions which ensure the fair treatment of and living wages for workers in developing countries.


British supermarket chain Sainsbury's is exclusively selling "Coffee Beer", which comes on the heels of strawberry and chocolate-flavored brews turned out by the same Meantime Brewery in Greenwich, southeast London.


After the success of strawberry in summer, "it seemed natural to have a more warming, mellow taste for winter," the supermarket told AFP

A British hooligan in the streets of Belgium. The typical Briton is polite, witty and phlegmatic, but lacks a certain style and has a dental hygiene issue while having an occasional drinking problem(AFP/EPA/File)