A pint of Ultra and a packet of protein please

Americans visiting Britain and Ireland this summer will likely notice that the countries are in the midst of a frenzy about the Atkins diet, with a time lag relative to the frenzy in the US confirming that lifestyle trends still travel east, not west. Journalists always need a pleasing hook for lifestyle stories, given they are not, like, news, and one can only go so far with pictures of stars allegedly on the diet as an excuse to run another Atkins story. So a nice hook was provided when the Atkins book knocked Harry Potter off the best seller lists in Britain.

But any popularisation of the Atkins diet in Britain and Ireland is going to have to confront the islands' considerable appetite for beer, and lots of it. Step forward Michelob Ultra, which in its two years on the shelves in the US is considered a huge success by its brewer, Anheuser-Busch, and has just been launched in the UK. Surprisingly, given the slick marketing of Bud, Bud Light was a flop in Britain, but Ultra, another low-carb beer, is well timed to catch the Atkins surge there. The Ultra name manages to avoid the handicap of containing the word Light -- we suspect there are quite a few people who think the Light suffix in a beer name refers to alcohol content and not carbs. As this website explains, there is essentially no difference in calories and carbs between Michelob Ultra and Miller Lite. But what self-respecting, but perhaps confused, Irish beer drinker is going to order Lite beer?