By Joe Sixpack
Posted on February 29, 2008 on Joe Sixpack

BEER EITHER just jumped the shark, or the universe has a strange sense of humor.

I refer to Miller Lite's new Brewers Collection: "Craft-style light beer."

It took me 20 minutes to get my head around the idea before I could crack open the first bottle. There is so much wrong - and so much unsurprising - about a product whose slogan brazenly promises, "Craft Beer. Done Lite."

The collection includes three basic, easy-sipping styles: amber, wheat and blond ale. Each contains 110 calories per 12-ounce bottle, about two-thirds of the amount in similar non-light styles.

Don't look for it on shelves in the Philadelphia area, yet; it's being test-marketed in just four markets (the closest is Baltimore, if you care to take a ride down I-95).

The three styles are, as you'd expect, thin, fizzy and light-tasting. The wheat is reminiscent of Sprite, the blond is tinny and the amber is Miller Lite with a tan. Nothing terribly offensive or remarkable.

But, honestly, you don't have to taste it to get the point.

Essentially, Miller is attempting to sell a product that wants it both ways. It's a product that purports to offer all the complexity, depth and quality of a small-batch brew along with the bland, inoffensive, one-dimensional flavor of a factory-made light beer.

The crazy thing is, Miller just might pull it off!

This is, after all, the same brewery that 30 years ago managed to convince "real men" that it was OK to drink diet beer.

We all know, of course, it's not really diet beer. Most of the guys you see guzzling light beer are about as fit as a bag of potato chips. People drink it not because they're counting calories, but because its watered-down, ordinary flavor allows them to mindlessly pound one after the other without the inconvenience of actually tasting the stuff.

Light beer is lowest common denominator beer, brewed for and enjoyed by the masses.

Craft beer is specialty beer, brewed for and enjoyed by discriminating palates. It was born precisely as an alternative to light beer. With its fuller body, peculiar character and, yes, higher caloric content, it offers distinctive flavor that beer lovers can't find in light.

Even if Miller Lite's Brewers Collection were identical clones of classic craft beer styles, there are some who argue that it could never be a true "craft" beer. The Brewers Association, which represents the nation's small brewers, says that, to call its product craft beer, a brewery must be small, independent and traditional, and its main product must be all malt.

Miller can claim none of those assets.

Now, it would be easy to condemn Miller's appropriation of the term "craft beer" as just the kind of crass marketing sleaze you'd expect from a megabrewery.

But I think that misses the point.

If you ask Miller how its beer can be both light and craft, the company deftly explains: "It's important to note that these are not intended to be craft beers and are not targeted at craft drinkers. These are craft-style light beers."

It continues: "Craft drinkers are happy with the choices they have, and they should be. But mainstream light-beer drinkers who want something with a different taste and drinkability are not happy with their options. Traditional craft beers don't work for these consumers. Miller Lite Brewers Collection will."

Craft Beer. Done Light.

The concept brings to mind the first time I heard Kenny G on the radio. At the time, I was devoted to jazz - Monk, Coltrane, Brubeck, Miles. Somewhere in the background, probably in an elevator, I began to hear the Prozac melody of a soprano sax. Trite, shallow, manipulative, utterly without depth.

What the . . . ?

"Smooth Jazz," the announcer said.

My first reaction was that "A Love Supreme," "'Round Midnight," "Take Five" - a full heritage of genius - had been hijacked by poseurs inspired not by the genre's art but by its commercial potential. The improvisation, harmonic abstraction, innovation and soul - even the term "jazz" itself - had been rendered meaningless.

My second reaction was, well, it's better than disco.

"Craft-style light beer" is Smooth Jazz.

And it will probably sell every bit as well as Kenny G.

"Joe Sixpack" by Don Russell appears weekly in Big Fat Friday. For more on the beer scene in Philly and beyond, visit www.joesixpack.net. Send e-mail to joesixpack@phillynews.com.