Every so often, I feel obligated to turn ‘curmudgeon’ on you guys. More often than not, it is usually brought on by the Brewers’ Association. While I love what these guys do for the most part, some of their marketing/press releases throw me for a loop: that press release, the declaration of beer independence, and this video. Yes, I hold them to a high standard.
The 7-minute video above, currently on the home page of the new CraftBeer.com, features folks from the Brewer’s Association and a handful of brewers talking about the elements that make up a do-it-yourself beer tasting. There is some merit to what the BA conveys but there is also some contradiction evident here.
At the beginning of the video, Cambridge Brewing‘s Will Meyers says, “Beer is approachable. It’s a lot of fun. It’s something that people relate to without having to worry about status, sophistication, snob appeal.” Nothing against Meyers but that is exactly the vibe that the rest of the video is throwing out there.
Sorry but at my beer tasting, we’re not going to be quiet. We are not going to do any “beer whispering” (listening to our beer or having a conversation with it- go to the 5:25 min. mark in the video on the Vimeo site). If I want to convert some non-craft drinking friends, and want them to try Vinnie’s Blind Pig IPA or maybe some brewery’s Nut Brown Ale, I’m probably not about to bust out the wine glasses either. Fancy glassware serves a purpose over pint glasses but we’re going for approachability, right?
As a 25 year-old, I can’t help but feel a bit alienated by this video. This looks like a play at the mature 40’s and 50’s crowd, one that I can see especially appealing to wine connoisseurs and congressmen. However, I am pretty confident that average folks like my friends would watch this and turn away in the other direction. Maybe the BA sees the 20’s and 30’s market as a lost cause or maybe they feel the need to do this after years of low-brow Bud Light ads.
The Brewer’s Association does have a tough job on its hands in trying to balance raising the image of beer while making it approachable and not about “status, sophistication, and snob appeal.” If they are trying to achieve that balance in this video though, they have missed the mark.
Craft beer is getting expensive, so it needs to be targeted with folks who have money. Folks who have money want to enjoy the finer things in life, or at least feel they are in a higher class.
What if the video featured some Affliction T-Shirt wearing, tatted up guy shotgunning and Double Bastard?
Who SHOULD craft beer appeal to?
Sorry Adam, but I have an issue with your comments above. I personally see no discrepency between beer being approachable and being served in non-pint glass stemware in order to heighten enjoyment. Visual appeal is important in my view, shape of glass does affect palate perception, and I fail to see how a wine stem creates beer snobbery. You may be a beer drinker who insists on all of his beers being served by-the-pint (tho I doubt it), but beer culture around the world will largely disagree with you. Beer can be fun AND look good in a proper glass. As for “beer whispering,” well, it’s supposed to be a bit of a light-hearted bit of fun. Class and fun are not mutually exclusive!
Cheers,
Will
I understand where you are coming from, Will. I definitely go with the snifter once in a while, usually if I am pulling something from the cellar, but the pint glass is the classic drinking vessel and it is evident from its prominence in good beer bars across America. The BA has a goal of making craft beer 10% or 20% of the beer market at some point, yes? We have to be realistic about where that other 5-15% is coming from which is mostly going to be from the macro drinkers group. I think you and I both know we’re not going to convince Bud drinkers with this kind of marketing. I’m not saying we need to stoop for lowbrow humor but we need to meet in the middle somewhere, no?
Craft beer doesn’t need an image. It doesn’t need appeal. It already does that on it’s own. If viewing someone’s video or being concerned about what said video does for the “image”, then you are doing it wrong.
Whatever happened to drinking good beer with friends and enjoying it? There’s no age, race, class or socio-economical standards to uphold. You drink a beer and enjoy it.
Apparently that shark was jumped a long time ago.
Ralphus, craft beer IS getting expensive. I can’t help but wonder if this type of video helps push those prices up. Maybe a stretch. Maybe my site is just as much at fault for spurring hype and demand. But if you ever go to beer events (other than Savor & expensive beer dinners), you will see jean, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. Not a lot of button-down shirts and that kind of thing. At least that has been my experience. I think there is a very small segment of the market that this appeals to but the large part of the market isn’t. They just want to have a beer like regular folks.
I don’t think we need any in-your-face extreme marketing either but rather marketing that the majority can relate to…
I could be completely wrong but think it is worth a discussion.
Re: Bartzilla
Well put. You and I agree for the most part from what I can tell. “Whatever happened to drinking good beer with friends and enjoying it?” Exactly! Where we differ is that you don’t think it is worth the time to look at how the largest and important organization in our niche is putting our image out there. In some ways, you could be right. Similar to the Beer Wars movie, I’m not sure how many people outside of our niche get exposed to these messages. But the image they’re putting out there is anything but enjoying craft beer in a laid back kind of way.
Whether this gets people talking or not, probably not, but I’d like to be pleasantly surprised.
I almost didn’t watch this, because I assumed it was going to be as bad as that “I am a craft brewer” video. Maybe my expectations were just so low that this didn’t embarrass me as much.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it per se–the wine glass business and even the silly “beer whispering” is forgivable. Rather, there’s a quality from the production values, the terrible music, the rah rah promotionalism, that makes you wince a bit. To me this isn’t so much an age thing as a production values thing. All promotional material is suspect, because it’s all trying to be persuasive through slightly disingenuous means. But even if this were cheesy in a way that 20-somethings didn’t mind, it would still be cheesy.
In general, I agree that there should be a focus on the 25-35 year-old demo. I’m just not so sure I think the faults with this are that it failed on that score.
I guess my issue with this video, aside from the production value, is that it’s telling people that there is a standard for beer tastings. To be honest, being 22, my friends and I take a much less formal approach and still manage to enjoy, learn and appreciate. I hope people don’t see this and think there are some set of rules to having beer tastings. Enjoy beer the way you like to enjoy beer.
I see no problem with this video, it’s just that it’s targeting a different group than you’re used to. This isn’t looking at the BMC drinkers, this is looking at wine and spirits people, no doubt. And that’s legitimate. If you’re going to view the battle for market share as, well, a battle (and you should) you have to realize it’s not a one front battle, craft vs. industrial, it’s a three or four front battle for all alcohol consumption. Craft, Industrial, Wine, Spirits, everything. And I didn’t get any real snobbery out of that video. The clothing the people were wearing is what people wear when they go out to bars, even in my ho-dunk town. Everyone has at leas some wine glasses. I liked the video.
I could not agree with you more Adam!!!! One of the main reason that I started Hoptopia was because I felt there was way too much pretense and snobbery in the craft beer world – too many beards not enough pint glasses.
I’m not exactly sure what part about the video is alienating to the 25-35 age group. Granted all of the brewers featured are older, but otherwise I don’t see anything that screams ‘active adult community’ out of this vid. Everyone owns wine glasses, so it’s not like they’re asking you to splurge on a custom set of specialty beer glasses. I think they did a good job about highlighting the fact that craft beer should be treated with more respect when you taste it and they threw in a few ideas on how to make a party out of a beer tasting.
I am a huge craft beer geek and love seeing Charlie, Vinnie, and Will talking about beer, so I’m definitely biased about the whole video. It’s a tad cheesy, but I still thought it was well done.
Rick, Treated with more respect than what?
The same sort of respect someone gives wine. While I don’t want to make craft beer as alienating and snobbish as wine is typically viewed; I also don’t people to chug Black Tuesday straight out of the bottle. I think this video had a tough job to walk the tightrope between wine-like snobbery and elevating craft beer and I thought they did an admirable job given the challenge. You also have to realize that this website is geared towards the beer beginner, so anything they produce will probably be wrought with cheese.