I used to have this fantasy.
It was born of seeing the beer guy at D’s, Hootie, always sporting this
Ommegang sweatshirt. I imagined beer
drinkers forming gangs – like, actually street gangs – based on their affinity
for breweries, or some other facet of beer culture. Like, the Dogfish Head crew running into the
Stone posse & waging an old-school streetfight, like the mods & the
rockers. I’m not talking about the
actual brewers (though I know who I’d put my money on in a Sam vs. Greg match),
but the fans, akin to the kind of hooliganism that follows soccer or heavy
metal. Maybe the hopheads, the
Belgophiles, & the lager lovers would form separate gangs across the city,
& beer fests would turn into riots with heavy security. What if…
Not that I want to see thug violence besiege the community,
but I’m always curious about beer drinkers as a subculture, & kind of
thrill at imagining that parallel played out to a surreal extent. Of course it would never happen, & not
just because we’re generally pretty chill, self-regulating, self-policing
people (in my experience). You just don’t
see that kind of diehard loyalty to a brand in craft beer. Craft beer as a hobby is practically defined
by playing the field – the more deeply into it you are, the more variety you’ve
tried & WANT to try. Craft beer is
the vast continent beyond the mainstream, & once the door’s open, it takes
a lot for it swing shut again. Sure, you
might hear that some prefer hoppy beers (or stouts, Belgians, sours, etc.), but
that preference is almost never in exclusion to other styles, & doesn’t
focus exclusively on one brewer. You
never hear “I’m a Great Lakes man. Drank
it all my life, just like my dad. Don’t
care to try anything else.” Beer fans
are like sharks – they gotta keep moving or they die.
I imagine there’s a part, however small, of every brewery
owner that finds that frustrating. I remember
Mark Thompson of Starr Hill speaking at SAVOR (via Craft Beer Radio) a few
years ago. Amid the beer-bro camaraderie
vibe that always flows at these things, there was a little bit of angst in his
tone. At one point he remarked on what a
“fickle” lot we craft drinkers are, how challenging it is to keep the public
engaged, etc. And he’s right. That same angst was behind the hissy-fit Jim Koch threw in that now-famous Boston
magazine piece. As much as craft beer is
all about the community as a whole, the little business devils sitting on
everyone’s shoulders want to see brand loyalty, to keep them coming back. There will always be a finite number of go-to
beers in everyone’s pocket that we keep returning to, but I don’t ever see a
craft brewery commanding “100% share of mind” from its consumers.
That’s the double-edged sword behind “crafty” beers, the “boutique”
brands rolled out by the big companies. The
corporations want to swipe a portion of the craft-curious market, & they’ve
been successful. But diversity breeds
diversity, & once those drinkers
have tried Blue Moon or Shock Top, they’re open to many, many other brands
that, before, were invisible to them. Those
companies have manufactured their own gate for people to walk right
through. But in the meantime, they’ve
still shored up a sizable share in the action.
That’s why the “Brewed the Hard Way” commercial was just
what the big boys needed, right now. It
was to shut that gate & keep the flock right where they are: safe, sound,
happy. It wasn’t an “us too” message,
but a “not us, thank you”. Budweiser is
what it is, & if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – that’s the idea,
anyway. Keep it simple, know what you
like. Ford, NFL, Doritos, Bud. There IS such a thing as a “Bud man” or a “Coors
man”, & they are loyal breeds. They
are the univores who go straight for their brand, & if their brand’s out,
leave, no matter that there’s an extremely similar product sitting right next
to that empty space on the shelf.*
One of the more memorable scenes from Anat Baron’s movie Beer Wars places her in a bar with
brand-loyal Bud/Miller/Coors fans. On a
table are three cups of beer, one each of the afore-mentioned. She asks participants in an experiment to
state which of the big three they drink, has them taste all three beers, &
try to identify which one is “their” brand.
Unsurprisingly, everyone fails, demonstrating the fallacy of brand
loyalty with such a homogenous product.
But it doesn’t really matter if they can pick it out – the tie has
already been established. There’s
something about that beer that makes it theirs, & no doubt those blind
taste testers have already downed hundreds of that brand, & will likely continue.
I, personally, don’t see myself becoming brand-loyal any time
soon. Sure, there are breweries I get
excited about (I get psyched any time Lagunitas unveils something new). But I always go back to the comfort of
playing the field. There’s too much out
there, & I’m not ready to settle down yet.
And I bet a lot of you are out there with me. Here’s to choice, & hoping the supply
side keeps it coming.
*Part of me hates
using this “us/them” tone. It’s presumptuous
of me to speak like I know who you, the reader, are, but I’ve done it before
& will probably keep doing it.
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