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Originally Posted by Zymurgrafi
I appreciate your sentiment and I believe we are on the same page mostly. Allow me to clarify my sentiment. I think it is completely fine and I highly hope craft breweries become very successful. I mentioned my respect for Sam Adams. I don't love everything they do but I respect that they are committed to quality beer and the promotion of such. Sierra Nevada is everywhere and very successful, and you know what? They make AWESOME beers, there is only one I have not cared for. Stone is growing rapidly and they make excellent beers. There are many more too. I have no problem with success and widespread distribution.
I do have a problem when the image and "message" the brewery gives off is that yeah, we make beer, maybe even experiment from time to time, but clever marketing is our highest goal. Magic Crap does not give me any sense that they care about quality beer as their top priority. If they did they would offer some of their decent beers alone as six packs more often. If they did, they would offer some of those "experimental" beers like the braggot and the mild on their own in a 6 pack and not hidden in a mediocre mix pack where there may be half crappy beers (#9 and circus boy) or possible 3/4 crappy beers depending on the seasonal. I did not try either of those beers though I would have liked to, simply because I will not pay good money for a mix pack where I know I will not enjoy half of it. Also, they would not try and purposely deceive the consumer about what the beer may or may not actually be. If they had confidence in their brewers and in the intelligence of the consumer they would state clearly what style of beer they were intending not try to obfuscate with witty and nonsensical mumbo jumbo.
My point is that Magic Crap is like the big macro brewers in that they seem to pay more attention to marketing, image, and mass appeal and less to creating the best quality product they can. They are different in that they do make "craft" beer and are not making one style of bland cheap lager. They just seem to spend a lot more time and money on clever marketing. They have disappointed many folks by eliminating some good beers and holding steadfast to mediocre ones.
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I agree with you Zy and I am supporting the other side of the debate just to play devil's advocate since I have the interesting vantage point of being able to see things from the point of view of the consumer and also from the industry side of things. I'm subscribed to a newsletter called "Beer Business Daily" that had an interesting take on branding that I believe has some credence with this discussion:
"THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING
AdAge ran an interesting piece by marketing guru Al Ries yesterday about the marked inability of the Big Three American carmakers to creating anything resembling a lasting brand despite the largest ad budgets of any category, spending $4.6 billion last year. From it: "It seems to me that the fundamental nature of Detroit's Japanese competition is its ability to build brands. Toyota stands for reliability, Scion for youth, Prius for hybrid, Lexus for luxury. But what does Saturn stand for? Or Chevrolet? Or Pontiac? Or Buick? Or Cadillac?....For all that money, you might think the U.S. automobile industry would have done a lot of brand building. I wonder."
I wonder too, Al. I started thinking about our major beer brands, and wondering what kind of job we're doing at building lasting brands that mean something. Because lets face it: the beer industry, unlike the wine industry and some esoteric craft styles, is all about branding. With that in mind, I began to think of what our beer brands stand for, and this is what I came up with, in no particular order:
Coors Light - Rocky Mountain cold refreshment
Bud Light - Ubiquitous, funny ads, everywhere, and okay, drinkability
Budweiser - All American lager
Mich Ultra - healthy lifestyle
Sparks - party rock-star fun
Blue Moon - cool craft you can drink more than one of
Sam Adams - father of craft beers, everywhere.
Sierra Nevada and Fat Tire - hippy chick and enviro-friendly
Yuengling - All American craft beer at premium prices.
Corona - beach vacation in a bottle
Heineken - European sophistication
Peroni - European style
Dos Equis - Spanish debonair
Tecate - lime and salt, in a can
Pabst - retro-hip and cheap
Lone Star, Old Style, Schlitz etc. - old school retro hip
You get the picture. But what is interesting is that the brands that don't have crystal clear identities that pop into your mind immediately, or their identities have been muddled over time either by the brand's size or murky marketing, are the ones that aren't growing. If you have to scratch your head to think of what a brand stands for, then it doesn't stand for anything. What does Miller Lite stand for? More taste or fewer carbs or.... we're getting into some muddy water. Heineken is European sophistication, yet you can find it in every backwoods c-store in the country. Corona is beach vacation in a bottle, but its pricing got out of whack. It seems that most brands get into trouble when they sail a little too far out from their origional core identity. Example: GM is rolling out a four-cylinder Cadillac, which is probably why it is on the brink of bankruptcy. As John Teahen, senior editor of Automotive News, wrote recently, "A four-cylinder Cadillac is not a Cadillac. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it certainly isn't a Cadillac."
You saw this when Miller Lite and Coors Light tried to make themselves into Bud Light by running funny frat-boy ads, with catfight girls and twins. Both brands suffered, until they corralled their ad agencies back to making ads about Miller Light and Coors Light, not Bud Light ads in disguise."
Now I would say that in that respect, Magic Hat has been spending an inordinate amount of time on brand development. That psychadelic laid back hippy beer branding has (IMHO) been drilled into our heads. Case in point is if you have ever been to their brewery in Burlington (read: sensory overload). I think maybe the issue is that they have been too focused on branding and less focused on what we, the beer nerds
are passionate about, whats in the bottle and not what's on it.
That being said, I have gotten some info on both the Catamount Porter and Pale Ale recipes from our brewmaster. He doesn't want me to post them outright (again legal copyright mumbo jumbo) but if you want, PM me and I'll be more than happy to do my best to help you while not getting fired
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