Is half full, too full, or not full enough?

Years ago when I was working in a London Ad Agency we had a real fire alarm. It was mid-morning and everyone left the building in an orderly fashion to be counted and checked. The creative teams slipped away to their favorite bars and were never seen again that day. At the time it didn’t really seem unusual. It was normal for many jobs to lunch in a Pub and highly unusual not to down several large ones at Friday lunch times.

Times and attitudes change and the English pub lunch has become rare (with average lunch times down to 19 minutes, it has be!) but presently back in the UK for a few days, I see that the leading Lager brand has launched a “mid-strength” variant at 2% ABV (Alcohol by Volume) rather than 4% and is promoting it as “the lunch time pint”. German Brewer, Becks, is trying something similar and even Guinness is testing a mid strength Stout in Ireland.

I worked on low alcohol beer npd in the past and always personally felt the route made sense in that it tasted like a real drink instead of no alcohol beers which tasted awful and which nobody would even consider drinking in a session.

Half alcohol didn’t work in the past because no alcohol beers were a clearer proposition versus drink drive laws.

But now, is there a route which avoids all thought of driving and merely suggests a lunch time drink for a public transport commuter, or a pint after training, or at the 19th hole, or because of a big meeting tomorrow?

Or a beer instead of a soft drink.

Or two beers instead of one?

Or an evening drink that lets you join in the fun but still, how shall I put it, perform?

I wonder would Americans see “medium strength” as a half full or a half empty glass?