Saving the Bread For the Sandwich

Three years ago, Bernard Relin, 53, president of New York's Rheingold Corp., the nation's eleventh largest brewer, heard that a Swiss chemist named Hersch Gablinger had found a way to make carbohydrate-free beer. Now, having bought out his secret, Rheingold's Forrest Brewing division has just introduced a no-carbohydrate beer named after Gablinger. On the bottle is an inscription, "Doesn't fill you up," a pitch that Rheingold hopes will make Gablinger's a bestseller among weight-weary beer lovers.

Sold in parts of New York State, New Jersey and New England, the new beer is being pushed by a saturation advertising campaign that Rheingold estimates will expose most of the area's beer drinkers to Gablinger's advertising 60 times over a four-week period. The ads are the work of the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency, which has previously turned out copy ("We must be doing something right") for the company's Rheingold brand. For Gablinger's, Doyle Dane makes the point that a bottle of ordinary beer has a carbohydrate content equivalent to that of a slice of bread, but Gablinger's drinkers can "save the bread for a sandwich . . . where it belongs."

Mysterious Enzyme. Thanks to Relin's management, Rheingold has the resources to back up the new product. Founder of a successful Manhattan public relations firm still bearing his name, Relin took the reins of Blair Holdings Corp. ten years ago. While the company went through several name changes, Relin quietly built it into the world's largest independent Pepsi-Cola bottler and bought out two New York breweries, Liebmann (maker of Rheingold beer) and Jacob Ruppert. The company has used its acquisitions to increase sales from $26 million in 1962 to $187 million last year.

Rheingold figures that it will be able to keep that level rising with what it proudly calls the world's first no-carbohydrate beer. The company insists that Gablinger's is a genuine beer with no ingredients--neither hops, malt nor alcohol--removed. Instead, it says, a mysterious carbohydrate-destroying enzyme has been added.

Gablinger's is the kind of brew that a hearty beer fancier might find rather thin, but Rheingold officials feel that the broader taste trend is toward lighter lager. Moreover, says President Relin, no-carbohydrate Gablinger's is "a definite response to a weight watcher's need." He should know. Though careful not to give his new product credit for the feat, Relin has pared his own weight from 280 Ibs. two years ago to 185 Ibs. today.

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