Yesterday was International Beer Day. As a youth issue, drinking beer might seem irrelevant because the legal drinking age is 21 in the United States. Even so, I thought I’d take a look at some of the ways beer has been marketed to youth.

In Japan, beer for kids is not that unusual. At least two companies have specifically marketed beverages to children that look like beer. The company called Sangaria created a line of fake alcoholic drinks for kids in 2005. A website called Japan Trends explains, “Japan is well known for its group drinking culture, and this is actually a great way to include the kids during family celebrations. These are even sold at restaurants, which is ideal since most parties in Japan are done outside of the home. Of course, if you find your four-year-old passed out in front of the TV with a pile of empty fake beer cans around him, it might be time for an... intervention.”
Sangaria even created children’s versions of wine, champagne and cocktails. “The beer, flavored like apple juice, even foams at the top when poured into a glass!”

Another company, Tomomasu Co., created a drink called Kidsbeer, with the shocking slogan “Even kids cannot enjoy life without a drink.”
It is a sweet, carbonated drink aimed at children. The Japan Times reports, “The drink started out as Guarana, a cola beverage that used to be sold at the Shitamachi-ya restaurant in Fukuoka, run by 39-year-old Yuichi Asaba.  Asaba renamed the sweet carbonated drink Kidsbeer, a move that made it an instant hit.”

The idea is that kids can be included in celebrations where drinking is involved.

(download mp3)

I’m considered an Irish-American girl but for one night each month, I get to try on a new culture. I get to be Bosnian.

My Bosnian-born friend Emina introduced me to Bosnian parties. Once a month we pack up from school and head to her house to dress up.

We arrive at the party around 8 and wait for the guys, who always arrive fashionably late at 9. As soon as I walk in, I can officially no longer hear anything. Techno music blares through the near empty warehouse.

We run to the bathroom every ten minutes to check our faces. We eat our Bosnian junk food: two pieces of white bread with greasy meat inside.

The concert includes a well-loved Bosnian singer, countless drunk men, women dressed in sexy clothes, drama, cigarettes, and lots of dancing. You have to dance a certain way or else it’s obvious you’re not Bosnian. And don’t look at the Bosnian boys too long because than they think you’re too easy and they lose interest.

So now that I know the rules, I fit in perfectly and the Bosnians never suspect a thing...

As someone who has been a target of racial profiling several times, and was even arrested in front of my home and held in jail over the weekend for fitting the description of a burglar, I'm paying close attention to the White House hops invitational.