It’s beer’s big season and Canada’s brewers are easing into summer with the launch of new campaigns conveniently timed for hockey playoff games and the Stanley Cup championship series.

The season is punctuated by the re-launch of an old friend, the re-positioning of some mainstream brands, and campaigns from brewers who have kept a low profile for the past couple of years.

One brewer that is expecting to have a bigger presence in the market this year is the Stroh Brewery Company.

For its Old Milwaukee brand, Stroh is building on last year’s naming of the beer as the best tasting in the u.s. by Consumer Report magazine with a radio campaign asking beer drinkers to ‘Judge America’s Best Tasting Beer.’

Two other Stroh brands ­ Two Dogs and Bull Max, previously known as Bull Ice ­ are getting a national push in entertainment weeklies Eye and Now, along with selected community papers.

Stroh handles media placement in-house with Toronto firms The Hughes Group and MJM Media Productions providing creative.

Kevin Meens, vice-president of marketing and sales for Stroh and formerly with Sleeman Breweries, says Bull Ice was launched originally as Bull Max in Quebec and has been extremely successful.

The product is being renamed across Canada because the word ‘ice’ is too restrictive.

Another big change for Stroh is the introduction of new packaging for Old Milwaukee and Bull Max, a new large, trademarked Mega Mouth bottle with a re-sealable top. Meens says Stroh is planning four or five more new brand introductions this year.

Of the major Canadian brewers, what’s perhaps most notable is Molson Breweries’ attempt to differentiate its brands more than it has in the past. This strategy is evident in the re-launch of Molson Golden in Ontario.

Repackaged and reformulated to again stake its claim as the ‘Smooth One’, Golden is positioned to appeal to beer drinkers 25-plus, who have moved on from the Canadian and Export party scene.

Golden, which enjoyed great success in the ’60s and ’70s, enjoys a loyal following but has been overshadowed by new product introductions over the past 10 years.

Television, radio, print and outdoor advertising for Golden uses the new theme line, ‘The True Colour of Beer.’ Each spot also features the line, ‘We’ve got two words for you. Molson Golden.’

The re-launch campaign was created by Brandworks International of Toronto with Barkinhot Studio also working on the outdoor and print.

New packaging was designed by Encore of Toronto.

The refurbishing of Golden was a collaborative effort of Molson, Cloudburst Holdings and Brandworks.

The collaboration reunites some of the people behind the success of the brand in the ’70s: Bob Rubenstein, Golden brand manager; Dave Barbour, formerly head of marketing at Molson and now a consultant with his own company Cloudburst Holdings; and Bill MacDonald of Brandworks, who worked on the brand at MacLaren at the time.

New advertising for Molson Canadian, meanwhile, will continue to focus primarily on the young adult market, aged 19-24, with the fourth year of its ‘I Am’ campaign.

The new work from MacLaren McCann will be more upbeat and celebratory and not as introspective as last year’s campaign.

Molson’s Export, which was previously positioned very closely to Canadian, sets itself apart by not making any excuses for being a very male beer. The mood of the beer is defined by Molson as guts, heart and determination. The old theme ‘Ex says it all’ has been replaced by ‘That’s the stuff.’ Three tv spots from MacLaren launch this month.

Dry is targeting both genders. BBDO Canada, which took over the Dry account last fall, has released two versions of its first television commercial for the brand, one with a male voiceover, the other female.

Three more spots are expected as well as print and radio.

The campaign focuses on the product itself rather than its image, and while the target market is still young, it is going after a more broadminded group that is looking for more in life.

The new tagline ‘It’s not just beer. It’s Dry.’ replaces last year’s ‘This could be good.’

At Labatt Breweries, Molson’s main competitor, adventurers Jacques and William have been replaced in advertising for the former’s flagship brand Blue. The campaign gives Blue a contemporary new look and a new tagline, ‘It’s your call.’

Bob Chant, Labatt director of public relations, says the new campaign from Ammirati Puris Lintas captures the same positive and optimistic outlook of the previous work but in a contemporary setting. Two spots, ‘I Will’ and ‘Dream’ are currently on air.

Labatt is also running advertising for its big summer promotion, the Labatt Ice Nocturnal Tour.

The promotion attempts to one-up Molson’s successful Blind Date promo of last summer by offering beer drinkers a chance to win a tour of the hottest nightclubs in cities around the world.

Molson, however, retaliates this summer with an extension to its Blind Date concept ­ The Molson Canadian Rocks Universal Ticket, which, among other things, gives music lovers the opportunity to pick a concert of their choice anywhere in the world.

Another highlight of the season is a new campaign from Moosehead Breweries Limited of Saint John, nb, the first from TBWA Chiat/Day of Toronto, the agency it hired this past January.

The advertising builds on the heritage of the 130-year-old brewery using an unusual icon, its founder Susannah Oland.

The outdoor executions picture an austere-looking Susannah beside the distinctive green Moosehead bottle with headlines such as, ‘Her beer was great. Her brownies sucked.’ and ‘She couldn’t vote. But boy, could she make great beer.’

Moosehead did not run a brand-building campaign last year but, in 1995, spent about $2 million with previous agency Harrod & Mirlin.

Patrick Oland, marketing manager and Susannah’s great-great-great-grandson, says Moosehead is broadening its net a little bit with the new campaign, appealing primarily to the 25-35 age group. In 1995 Moosehead was targeting a younger group, a territory claimed by both Molson and Labatt, and he says the brand needed to stake out its own ground.