All too often, lovers of craft beer are looked at in a negative way. The opinions vary; however, most commonly we are looked at as geeks, snobs, or neanderthals depending on who you ask. If we are going to go forward as a community, we need to do our best to dispel these myths and showcase our passion appropriately. I know many of you may take the approach that image doesn’t matter and that passion is all that counts; although there is some merit to that, one can never discount the effect of presentation.
Take for example, a recent business meeting I attended. One of the presenters is an utter genius and had a fantastic product, yet due to his unpolished presentation he came off as confused and rambling. Until he gets this end of his business dealt with, I feel he is going to have a lot more difficulty getting people to buy into him than he should get based on his merits.
I would say the state of the beer industry is not much unlike this presenter. Yes we have our share of people who present themselves well, but as a whole the industry needs a lot of work. One end of the spectrum we have the hardcore craft heads who geek out on the details, often forgetting the average person can’t tell the difference between lager and ale. Then, on the flip side, I hear about breweries employing marketing and sales people who don’t have a deep passion for beer and go about the business like any other 9-5. The combined result is both a push and pull where both the average person and passionate craft beer fan are turned off by one end of the spectrum or another.
So what’s the solution? Honestly, I would love to give one universal answer, but I don’t think there is a single cure-all out there. We could start by getting the right communicators involved in the business end of the process to teach both sides of the coin how to talk to one another. I find it offensive when someone working for a craft brewery hasn’t at least read Tasting Beer. At the same time appalling when your every day marco drinker is given barley wine as their first taste of craft and then looked at like an asshole because their pallet can’t handle it. If you’re a brewery and find you’re having trouble with this, I suggest you reach out to your local communicators and ask for some advice. I’m sure the likes of Sudsy Maggie, The Beer Wench, Andy The Beer Man, Thank Heaven for Beer, as well as many others would be glad to help. Heck, you could even go out on a limb and offer to employ one of them as your personal communicator; I promise you won’t be disappointed with the results.
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This is always a tough question, and one that wine deals with on an even greater level, often, unfortunately, with beer geeks participating in the take down.
One thing is to look at associations – wine with the elite. And beer tasting that approximates the types of tasting notes associated with wine is bound to carry along some of that baggage.
I see it something like this. I believe you are right about ‘communicators’ – but the question is also what message should they be communicating. For some reason people are less willing to think about the source of their food and their drink than, say, a new car or some piece of electronics, where people do care about quality and even research it. How can we convince people that appreciating craft beer (or craft wine) versus the corporate stuff is just like appreciating the source of your food, ensuring that the chicken you eat wasn’t raised in a cage with 2000 other chickens, etc. Dispelling the associations with a good communications strategy, broadly conceived, may be the best hope!
Posted by Shea on November 10th, 2009.
Thanks for mentioning us. We are here to help. I just hope we can continue to grow for ourselves as well. I’ve been reading about this very thing for a while and you have to have your shit together to be successful. Planning at every stage seems to be the idea that one must accept.
Posted by Michael Reinhardt on November 10th, 2009.
[...] 10, 2009 by sudsymaggie Chris Bjerrisgaard, author of the True Cask blog, wrote a nice bit on the craft beer industry and communication today (and gave me a plug <– shameless [...]
Posted by @mention in True Cask! « SudsyMaggie on November 10th, 2009.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Martin Bowling, bruisinales and Maggie Sudduth, Beer Men. Beer Men said: RT @martinbowling: A great read by @cbjerrisgaard "The Craft Beer Communication Failure" — http://bit.ly/2Xhz2K #craftbeer via [...]
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I agree with you about having people who represent a beer, whether it be reps or marketing, who don’t have a passion for the brand only hurt it.
I get the “craft head” geeking out on details. I’m sure I do it in some of my beer reviews. I also see it across many different industries, just look at consumer reports. For me, that “geeking out” is coming from a passion, love of what I’m doing, not a way to make a living.
Perspective, what is to much or not enough detail? As President Bill once said, “That depends on what your definition of “is” is”.
Posted by Simply Beer on November 11th, 2009.
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Posted by uberVU - social comments on November 11th, 2009.
True, true, true.
When it comes to marketing good beer to friends and family, I keep it short and simple. “What do you usually order when at a bar, at dinner, etc? Well here, try this!”
Once they’ve had a beer with TASTE – they know there is better beer to be had. And you’ve got to start small… no double IPAs or imperial stouts, baby steps! Stay within their taste bud boundaries.
It really revolves around good beer having good a good taste. Keeping it simple like that and you’ll be winning over non-beer geeks in no time with good beer.
Posted by Brad on November 18th, 2009.
Baby steps are very key Brad. For example, despite the fact I am not the biggest Innis & Gunn fan, if someone I know enjoys whiskey and has yet to get into craft beer I find it’s an awesome transition brew.
Mirror Pond Pale Ale is another great “entry level” brew.
Posted by cbjerrisgaard on November 18th, 2009.
I heartily agree with the comments above and would like to add one other facet. Approachability. Sorry that it sounds like “drinkability”. A good beer communicator should draw people in, not scare them away. You do this by taking the baby steps, by allowing people to share their opinions and most importantly (to me) having an equal combination of passion and knowledge.
Posted by Sean Inman on November 19th, 2009.
Oh yeah, great first pic. A firkin of Loose Cannon from Clipper City!
Posted by Brad on November 19th, 2009.
I agree that although image isn’t everything – it does account for something at least. I, for one, don’t particularly care what people think of me personally, but if I am promoting a product, or even an entire industry, it is important to get across the “actual idea” that you are trying to portray. Spokespeople of the industry owe it to us all to do this in a respectful and responsible manner.
I have recently been named Beer Cellar Steward at a new, beer centred restaurant in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (which I am very excited about). This is a topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately, in fact. In addition to my own passion for and knowledge of beer, I am actually a Jr. High History teacher – so I hope to use my knowledge and experience from my teaching background when I am “educating” people about real beer. I’ll do my best – wish me luck!
Posted by Kirk Bodnar on December 2nd, 2009.
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