Crappest Sales Promotion of the year

The FirstFoot Gerald Ratner Award for Crappest Sales Promotion of the year goes to the Caledonian Brewery for their magnificently misguided attempt to direct Irish rugby supporters into their Edinburgh Pubs on the weekend of the Scotland V Ireland game.

What started out as an excellent plan soon lost its way, quite literally.

The idea was simple enough. Street maps of Edinburgh were handed out to the arriving fans in their thousands to help them find their way around the Capital, and upon these maps every single Caledonian Brewery pub was marked. Good ploy.

This handy "Beer Drinkers Guide" to Edinburgh was, however, fatally flawed. Quite simply, many of Edinburgh's most famous pubs were nowhere near the places they were marked on the map.

"All Bar One" in George Street was relocated to St Andrew's Square.

"Scott's Bar" was shifted from the west end of Rose Street to the east end of Rose Street.

"The Jinglin' Geordie" found its way from Fleshmarket Close to its posh new home in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on the Royal Mile.

"Bad Ass" in Rose Street had its ass kicked to Frederick Street.

"The Mitre" and "Clever Dicks" found themselves, not very cleverly, a few hundred metres further up the Royal Mile than usual, in the City Chambers, a place not really renowned for a good night out.

And so on.

The expression "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery" seems somehow appropriate, although in this particular case the chances are nobody would have been able to find the brewery anyway.

Here are some interesting facts about the Caledonian Brewery;

Caledonian Brewery takes its name from Caledonia, which is the ancient Roman name for Scotland, a small country off the west coast of America.

Their Head Office is in Edinburgh, near Leeds.

The hops used to make Caledonian Ales are imported from Kent, a county in Ireland.

A degree in Geography is not a requirement for working with the Caledonia Brewery.