Last week news came out about an addition to the Bud Light line: Bud Light Platinum. An (apparently) long-rumored higher-alcohol version, ostensibly to grab on to some of that craft beer cachet. Rumor says it’ll be 6% ABV, where most of your industrial-brewed light lagers are 4½-5%.

Huh?

I…what?

Okay, this just doesn’t make any sense. Every craft beer fan I know will practically run screaming (or laughing) from anything that says “Bud Light” on the label. At least with the faux craft beers (Shock Top!) they’d catch people who didn’t know any better. Then again, the faux craft beers they’ve come up with so far are at least better than their usual offerings. Why not do more of that? I can only think of two rational reasons to do this. One is to keep people who might be considering jumping ship to craft beer for the higher alcohol content from going that way. I mean, to someone used to (ahem) American Light Lagers, barley wines must be especially scary. The other, and more likely I think, is that some people are looking more alcohol content, and are considering wine or spirits. They’d rather stay with beer, but don’t want to associate with malt liquors.

Interestingly, all of the comments on that article basically call it a stupid idea. (Maybe that’s normal for Ad Age; I wouldn’t know.) My favorite quote from the comments: “I’ll stick to a nice 9-10% IPA. Sorry, my desire for good craft beer overrules my marketing expertise. Plain and simple … brew a better product. I do like the Clydesdales though.”

Seriously, what the heck is going on here? I’d love to hear some other analysis.