Right this very second one of the greatest advertising pay-off lines in marketing history is being quietly dismantled in Copenhagen.

When Orson Welles’ unmistakably gruff voice first announced ‘Carlsberg – Probably the best lager in the world’* back in the early 1980 it marked the start of one of the most catchy catchphrases ever dreamt up and has been famously used to sign off the Danish brewery giant’s iconic brand around the globe ever since.

Until today that is, with word coming through from Copenhagen right now that Carlsberg is largely dropping the famous tagline as part of a global repositioning of its leading brand, replacing it with the new line ”That calls for a Carlsberg!”

A series of new TV/Internet ads featuring the new tagline are going live shortly and a new social app for Sweden will be launched later this week.

The changes will be implemented in around 140 markets today, except that is in Sweden, the only country in the world which gets to keep the old line.

Just exactly why we’re not Calling for a Carlsberg in Sweden is unclear as of writing, but personally I’m more than happy to stick to the classic line.

Here’s what Henric Byström, Head of PR for Carlsberg Sweden had to say in a press release issued earlier today:

”Carlsberg as a premium beer has a good position in Sweden. Now we’re undertaking a big investment internationality and here in Sweden to strengthen our position on the market”.

More to come. Probably.

*In some countries the line was changed from lager to beer.

If Halmstad Sommar Lager was a film character it would be Forest Gump. A little simple but full of a naive enthusiasm you simply can’t help but like.

On the surface it’s very plain to look at. The bottle label is all shiny and cheap looking, as though it was designed as a last-minute homework assignment by a fifth form art student.

In the glass a watery gold body sits under a standard bleached white head. It looks like, well, the way most industrial lagers look.

But like a box of chocolates sometime with beer you never know what’s in it until you take the first sip.

Halmstad Sommar Lager (Systembolaget Article No. 11410. 4.7ABV. 11.90SEK for a 330ml bottle) is brewed with Dutch elderflower and its subtle lemony green flavour is the soft centre of this beer, wrapped in a layer of young malt and cereal grain.

There’s a gentle level of carbonation and the metallic fizz of many industrial lagers is thankfully absent, as is any suggestion of hoppy bitterness.

On the label it says serve ice cold and I’m seconding that.  A beer this simple benefits from being chilled down and it boosts its drinkability credentials through the roof.

Halmstad Sommar Lager is my ‘surprise beer’ of the summer so far from a brewery I have not had many positive things to write about until now.  I’m giving it 3 out of 5, with minus points for the label design (just because a beer is cheap it doesn’t have to look cheap) and lots of plus points for the price tag (come on….11.90 SEK? What’s not to like?).

Could I have just drunk the best budget summer beer of 2010?

Swedish brewing giant Spendrups has been given a slap on the wrist by the country’s consumer watchdog after it ran an advert in a national newspaper showing a bottle of ice cold beer with the headline ‘Have a really Cold Summer’.

The advert, which appeared in Aftonbladet back in June last year, was deemed a breach of Sweden’s ultra strict laws on the promotion of alcohol and the brewery was earlier this month officially warned never to run it again or else they would be fined 400,000 SEK ($55,400).

The Swedish Konsumentombudsmannen ruled that the bottle of Norrlands Guld featured in the ad was in breach of alcohol law as the headline was designed by Spendrups ‘to associate the consumption of a cold beer with warm summer days’. It pointed out the use of ice in the ad only strengthened this message.

They concluded that the advert did not convey any relevant product information (required by law) and played on ”emotions and moods” to encourage consumption.

Legal bit over. Now time for a bit of reasoned analysis from the real world.

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This is the second time a beer brand has landed in hot water over the past couple of days here in Sweden. Only yesterday I broke the news that the government alcohol monopoly, the Systembolaget, had banned further sales of the US beer Founders Breakfast Stout as the front label features a picture of a young child eating breakfast – a contravention of Swedish alcohol law that forbids the marketing of beer to anyone under the age of 25.

Although I personally wonder why it took a whole two weeks for the Systembolaget to realise its mistake (by which time nearly all the 1680 bottles of Founders in the country were already sold) I do agree with those that think this specific label could be mistaken by a child as a being something he/she could drink.

To test this theory I showed the bottle to my 8-year-old daughter who thought it looked ”cute” and instantly picked out the word chocolate. So in this particular case I’m backing the Systembolaget’s decision 100%.

However the ruling against Spendrups is in my opinion an example of Sweden’s alcohol politics gone bonkers. As part of their manifesto to remove all emotion from the promotion of beer (which after all is an incredibly emotive product) they have assumed Swedish beer drinkers have all the powers of reasoning and control of a child with a sweet tooth in a candy shop.

After all, are they not effectively saying that by showing us a picture of a chilled bottle of beer with the headline ”Enjoy a Really Cold Summer” Spendrups is going to send us all into a frenzied summer binge drinking spree? Are we really that impressionable and susceptible to abusing alcohol as a result of reading this headline that we need to be protected from it by the Government?

Now the alcohol law is the alcohol law and Spendrups have clearly broken it in this case. However as a beer enthusiast, a consumer living in Sweden and as a free-thinking grown adult I have to ask the question…..was this the right decision?