Like to mix beer and wine when you're drinking? Fancy some wine on ice cubes when the weather's hot? Perhaps a ''green'' beer made with sensitivity to the environment will quench your thirst? New and odd beverages that satisfy these requirements are out there. A ''fusion'' drink of beer and shiraz - yes, in the same bottle. Effervescent wine that is designed to be poured over ice in a tall glass. And beer linked to carbon emission offsets. Dreamt up by global beverages firm Foster's Group. Foster's marketing director Anthony Heraghty says the new drinks are driven by current issues or by consumers adapting drinks to suit their tastes. Just over a week ago, Foster's launched Cascade Green, its ''green beer'' made in the cradle of the environmental movement, Tasmania. ''There's an enormous amount of activity and interest in products that are either green, carbon neutral, better for the environment,'' Mr Heraghty said. ''What you have is a consumer that is really starting to look for another feature in the products.'' Foster's sustainability manager Scott Delzoppo said the aim of ''green'' beer was to reduce to zero the impact of carbon emissions generated during the ''lifecycle'' of beer, from the picking of the hops to putting the empty bottle in a recycling bin. This involved reducing the impact of the brewery on the environment and then offsetting the carbon emissions through the purchase of certified carbon offsets in projects of environmental benefit. Mr Delzoppo said assessment of the carbon impact took into account factors such as energy use in the production process and the mining of materials used to make glass bottles. The bottles for Cascade Green also had a high content of recycled glass and the recycled cartons were printed with biodegradable vegetable ink. All elements are added to produce a figure for the carbon impact, which Foster's estimated at 15.8kg of CO2 equivalent for each carton of Cascade Green. Mr Delzoppo said a carbon impact assessment had not been done for other beer brands made by Foster's, so there was no comparison available for Cascade Green with other beers. Water usage was not a factor in assessing the impact of carbon emissions, but the brewery producing Cascade Green had reduced water usage by 30% in the past six years. Carbon emission offsets for the initial production run of Cascade Green were being purchased at $45 per tonne for the Hobart Landfill Flare Facility, where methane gas generated from the landfill is reduced by flaring (burning off). Other options for offsets included programs that reduce energy consumption, such as lightbulb switching and renewable energy, treeplanting, and avoidance of deforestation. Mr Heraghty said ''green'' wine was also of interest to Foster's. But green products could not be ''smoke and mirrors'' and had to possess ''an underlying authenticity''. Analysing the carbon footprint of a product was difficult, not cheap and took a long time. Other new products have had a less complicated path to market, aimed at satisfying evolving consumer tastes. The idea of a wine designed to be poured over ice - the Rosemount 'O' label was launched about two weeks ago - was generated by consumers in warmer climates. ''White wine warms up very quickly, and that creates a taste issue,'' Mr Heraghty said. ''Female consumers, especially, were putting ice in their white wine to keep it cool and dilute some of the taste in that warmer environment.'' Foster's consequently developed a wine specifically for putting ice into, which would retain its flavour and fizz. ''It's not that we thought ice and wine sounds great. It's something that we've observed from the consumer,'' Mr Heraghty said. ''This (wine) has specifically been designed to handle the ice.'' Foster's has also developed a ''cloudy'' white wine under the T'Gallant label, which it is currently testing with consumers on a small scale. ''This is an out-there idea that may not work,'' Mr Heraghty said. ''If you don't do a final filtration of the wine and keep it in this cloudy state, technically it's better for the wine and should therefore taste better, but it's not a convention that we're used to, seeing cloudy wine.'' The future of the cloudy white would be a classic case of ''let the consumer decide''. Mr Heraghty said ''radical'' beers sold in small volumes but had a following among 18 to 24-year-olds.