New Coke introduced / Bavarian beer purity law issued - April 23

On this day in 1985, Coca-Cola launched New Coke, the reformulated version of its flagship drink. Coke drinkers did not respond well to the new taste, to say the least. / On this day in 1516, the Reinheitsgebot, a Bavarian beer purity law, was adopted.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today. With that said, on with the show, Hey,
I'm Eves, and welcome to this Day in History Class,
a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

(00:23):
The day was April. The Coca Cola Company introduced New Coke,
a reformulated version of its world famous soft drink Coke.
It was the first time in the company's nearly century
long history that the drink was reformulated. People did not
like the taste, and the change became a whole debacle.

(00:46):
In the early nineteen eighties, Coca Cola needed to do
something to boost their sales. Coke's market share was declining.
Pepsi was becoming the cola of choice in supermarkets and
other types of sodas like diet in Citrus one, We're
gaining popularity. Pepsi began an ad campaign called the Pepsi Challenge,
where participants would choose pepsi over coke and blind taste tests.

(01:10):
When Coca Cola did their own internal taste tests, they
also picked pepsi over coke. So executives decided that the
key to increasing coke sales was to change the SODA's taste.
The coke formula have been through changes before. Notably, the
drink wants had cocaine in it, and it changed sweeteners
from cane sugar to beat sugar to corn syrup, but

(01:32):
the taste of the drink had always been the same.
Fearful they were about to lose their hold on the market,
Coke decided to introduce a new sweeter formula for their
flagship drink, Diet Coke, which Coca Cola introduced in nineteen
eighty two, have become one of the most popular drinks
in the United States. The company made the Diet Coke
formula sweeter with high fruit toast corn syrup, and after

(01:55):
a lot of testing, it launched that reformulated version of
coke on a The new drink's official name was just Coke,
but the word knew was added to the bottles and
cans and it became known as New Coke. The original
formula was discontinued. Even though New Coke tasted better than

(02:17):
the original formula to consumers and more than two hundred
thousand taste tests, New Coke failed. People hoarded original coke
and sold it at exorbitant prices. In a dramatic show
new coke was dumped into the sewers in Seattle. People
formed protest groups like the Society for the Preservation of
the Real Thing and Old Cola Drinkers of America. Gay Mullins,

(02:41):
founder of Old Cola Drinkers of America, called Coke un American.
By June, Coca Cola was getting fifteen hundred calls each
day on the consumer hotline, compared to four hundred a
day before the change. After all the complaints, Coca Cola
realized it needed to bring back the old formula. UH.

(03:01):
At a July eleventh press conference, Coca Cola executives announced
the return of the original recipe. The Coca Cola President
and Chief Operating officer said, the simple fact is that
all the time and money and skill poured into consumer
research on the new Coca Cola could not measure or
reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca

(03:23):
Cola felt by so many people. Cans and bottles with
the new formula were labeled Coca Cola Classic. New coke
went with an ad campaign slogan of catch the Wave,
and Coca Cola Classic had the slogan Red White and
You New Coke stayed on the market for years and
in nine two was renamed Coke two. It wasn't discontinued

(03:47):
until two thousand two. The word classic was dropped from
Coke's name in two thousand nine, after Coke went back
to the original formula. There were rumors that the whole
fiasco had been a clever marketing employ all along. I'm
Eve Steph Coote and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn

(04:09):
more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram at t d i h C Podcast. Thanks for
joining me on this trip through history. See you here
same place tomorrow. Hi everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to

(04:38):
this Day in History Class, a podcast that tears a
page from the book of History every single day. The
day was at sixteen the Ryan heightsk a boat, a

(04:58):
Bavarian beer purity law was adopted. There were previous regulations
to control the quality and pricing of German beer, but
the fifteen sixteen law is the most prominent version. Beer
and brewing are integral parts of Bavarian history and culture.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. Beer
was a mainstay in the Bavarian diet. By the sixteenth century,

(05:21):
Bavaria was home to many well known beer cities, but
hygiene was not great and the beer was often contaminated.
Brewers sometimes increased prices and added unnecessary ingredients like wood
shavings and hallucinogenic plants to beer. There had been efforts
to place more regulations on beer in Bavaria. For instance,

(05:42):
in twelfth century Augsburg, a decree was passed saying that
bad beer had to be destroyed or given to impoverished
people at no cost. In thirteen sixty three, the Munich
City Council began to regulate brewing in the city to
make sure it could be taxed and to monitor its quality,
and in fourteen forty seven, the Munich Purity Law ordered

(06:03):
that brewers could only use barley, hops and water in
their beers. Though the reasoning behind the law is debatable,
it's been suggested that if brewers were limited to barley,
then bakers would have more access to wheat and rye.
According to this theory, this would reduce competition for wheat
and rye and keep bread cheap. In fourteen eighty seven,

(06:25):
Duke Albrights, the fourth the ruler of Bavaria Munich, made
brewers in his duchy take a public oath to follow
the fourteen forty seven Purity Law, and on April fifteen
sixteen the Dukes will him the fourth in the Ludwig
the tenth issued the Rheine Heights ka Boat, though it
wasn't dubbed the Rhine Heights Boat until the twentieth century.

(06:45):
Versions of the decree were often called substitution prohibition or
surrogate prohibition and stayd The dukes issued the proclamation at
a meeting of the Assembly of Estates in Inglestad. Translated
into English, the decree set the following in part, In
all cities, markets and in the country, the only ingredients

(07:06):
used for the brewing of beer must be barley, hops
and water. It went on to say that anyone who
knowingly violated the decree would have the offending beer barrels confiscated.
The decree also set for stipulations around the price beer
could be sold for. It did not put any restrictions
on yeast because used was not identified yet under the regulation,

(07:29):
beer brewed in the winter improved, but beer brewed in
the summer was still low quality thanks to warm temperatures
and lack of artificial refrigeration. In three do all Bright
the fifth outlawed brewing in Bavaria from April to September nine.
The band and the Purity Law inspired the transformation of

(07:50):
brewing techniques in Bavaria. The Bryan Heiskobot was updated over
time to allow for other ingredients. The German Empire came
into existence in eighteen seventy one. Over the years, more
places across Germany adopted the decree. By nineteen o six,
it was effective throughout all of Germany, but in nine
seven the European Court of Justice ruled that banning the

(08:13):
import of beers that don't adhere to the Rhine height
school boat was a barrier to the free movement of goods,
so important beer could be sold in Germany without following
the regulation. German beer producers are still subject to legal
production standards, but regulations have changed a lot since the
fifteen sixteen Purity Law. Now many German brewers use their

(08:34):
adherence to the Rheine height skol boat as a marketing tool.
I'm Eve Steff Coote, and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. And if
you have any comments or suggestions, you can hit us
up on social media where at t d i h
C Podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also

(08:54):
send us a note via email at this day at
i heeart media dot com. Thanks again for listening to
the show and we'll see you tomorrow. For more podcasts
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