HEINEKEN has become the second beer manufacturer to enter the metaverse.
The virtual beer – Heineken Silver – is available exclusively in Decentraland and was unveiled at a digital press conference held on March 17.
Attendees were invited to create their own avatar prior to entering Heineken’s virtual brewery.
Heineken’s campaign is a dig at brands’ entering the metaverse and was supposed to remind people nothing can replace the experience of drinking a real beer.
However, the publicity the virtual beer has amassed proves the amount of interest in the metaverse with even the BBC reporting on the launch.
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Heineken joked Silver was “brewed with Binary Coded Hops grown by NPC (non-player character) farmers.
“Our special A-yeast, usually brewed in horizontal tanks, has been replaced with A-Pixels.”
On stage at the virtual press conference, a voiceover introduced the new beer: “With no calories, no hidden ingredients and no beer. Try… to try it now.”
The global head of the Heineken Bram Westenbrink’s avatar – wearing a glowing silver suit then appeared.
He said: “Bringing the brewing innovation to a whole new dimension—the digital dimension,” he said, adding that the creation was “a combination of a large quantity of pixels, a dash of coding and many tireless nights of programming.”
The beverage is “brewed with millions of pixels, filtered with super-fast megabytes and through the very best firewalls. It doesn’t get more innovative than brewing a beer in the metaverse,” Waesberghe said. “It would taste great if you could drink it.”
Tom Ffiske, editor of Immersive Wire, who attended the Heineken launch, said the experience as “surreal”.
“I first spoke to the bouncer where I gave my age. Then I went into the hall,” he added.
“There were an array of interactable items, including a tasting card.
“In the group chat there were a lot of people who were confused about the experience and were unsure what to do,” he added.
“I felt a bit perplexed by the end because I was unsure if it was intentionally bizarre or not – though by the speech’s end I felt it was the case.”
Miller Lite were the first beer manufacturer to launch in the metaverse.
The Meta Lite Bar opened in Decentraland ahead of the Super Bowl earlier this year.
