Sweet gams, dollface. Now deliver the hooch.

We at The Enthusiast always welcome suggestions, particularly if they involve buying beer and observing breasts. But a recent suggestion from Jason for us to investigate the new Skinny Blonde beer was accompanied by the scandalised reader insisting that the marketing was “quite outrageous”.

We’re cynical of jug-hating men and viral marketing, but the prospect of sweet brews and boobs was too much.  We visited the purportedly obscene website. We sadly could not find any more above-the-belt nudity than the Flash intro of the girl on the bottle, Daisy. As the Flash loads, this cheesecake ’50s pastel pin-up eventually pops out of her red bikini. It’s barely NSFW, assuming you’re not employed by the Islamic Association Of Australia. The over-18 disclaimer on the site is more likely to stay in keeping with Alcohol Beverage Advertising Code than to prevent younguns from seeing chesticles.

Jason isn’t the only person who has been outraged by Skinny Blonde’s inventive marketing trick, which uses temperature-sensitive ink that vanishes when the label rises above 14 degrees Celsius. The Herald Sun’s trite opinion columnist Sally Morrell dubbed the gimmick “tacky soft porn” and “stupidly sexist”. Referring to the “heavy breathers on their website” she, like Jason and blog AdRants, insinuates that real bazooms can be found on the site. God forbid, tits on the internet!

Maybe Skinny Blonde has since removed the option to electronically disrobe the real pin-up girls, because we couldn’t do it. Regardless, we can all agree that presenting six bottle blondes as disposable bottles perched in a beer carton is patently sexist. But what of the actual illustration on the label and only breastage viewable in the entire campaign? As erotic stimulation it falls roughly between Miss Piggy singing and a good (but not great) steak sandwich.

Skinny Blonde was in the gunsights of Women’s Forum Australia, who deemed the beer’s advertising “degrading” and “demeaning” and have called for the Advertising Standards Bureau to investigate. VicHealth has joined the call. And a new group called the National Coalition for Action on Alcohol Harm (made up of 21 public health groups) chipped in as well, with National Drug Research Institute director Steve Allsop announcing, “some adverts clearly breach their own guidelines about not associating alcohol with success, sexual success, business success.”

If you look very carefully, you can almost make out the scandal.

The Bondi business is owned by sculptor Jarrod Taylor (who has more tasteful female physiques in his folio), actor Richie Harkham, and drummer for the Vines Hamish Rosser. Rosser told the Herald Sun, “This generation of Aussies have grown up on the beach and topless girls in bikinis are commonplace. The label and website is in no way meant to offend women or anyone else, rather embrace the Australian beach culture.” But he was closer to the mark when he explained the hook as “a bit of cheeky fun.”

All this condemnation-as-promotion seems to be working a treat for the owners of Skinny Blonde. Mel and I had trouble spotting the beer in the fridges at the local bottle-o. Our friendly attendant admitted that it was because customers have been streaming in to buy cases of the stuff in the vain hope that it might get banned (much like Lion Nathan’s short-lived Duff Beer; here’s a $25 can on offer).

The attendant shrugged the controversy off, since they also stock Belgium’s Rubbel Sexy Lager (NSFW-ish). That beer’s label features a scratch-off bikini on photos of completely nekkid (and tragically ’80s) women. Maybe the lesson here is to observe the European attitude to nudity (Freikörperkultur!) so that publicity stunts like Skinny Beer cease to work.

And the taste? Not bad for a blonde. At 5.2% ABV it’s a fairly giddy low-carb tipple as well. We’re just undecided as to whether we should stash the last five in our bellies or in the cellar as a superannuation plan.