TRULY BIZARRE: HELLO KITTY BEER

Yes, you read that right. Hello Kitty beer.  The ever-famous feline seems to appear on everything from toys to T-shirts and now she is adorning beer cans.  However, the beers are only available right now in China.  But that makes it by default a collector’s item here.  Licensed by the Shanghai KT trading company and brewed by Taiwanese beer maker Long Chuan, the Hello Kitty brews are fruit-flavored low alcohol (2.3% ABV) beers that come in lemon-lime, peach, passion fruit, and banana flavors.  According to at least one reviewer, the fruit isn’t so much a note but is instead the overpowering star of it all.  These beers, apart from the Hello Kitty marketing, also have something that Mainland Chinese are crazy for: Taiwan.  On the cans, the fact that the beers are “Taiwan fruit flavored” is prominently displayed, which makes sense since fruit flavored beers are huge in Taiwan.  But given that Hello Kitty mania exists here in the States, it’s likely only a matter of time before we see the pretty kitty on beer cans here.