Monday beer links: Geeks, marketing and walls

MONDAY BEER & WINE LINKS, MUSING 09.18.17

Changing things up (again), simply a list of good reading, or at least what I’ve been reading. Well, a few thoughts.

The Seven Ages of Beer Geek? and Jeff Alworth’s take on it at Beervana.

– How Ale Sharpton and Dennis Malcolm Byron fit inside the same hat.

Friend or foe? Breweries’ perspectives on legal marijuana.

– More about the Commons in Portland closing and the power of IPA, this time from brewery owners and publicans.

– How to smuggle opaque sorghum beer into South Africa.

– A pub/tasting room is more likely to work as a “third place” than an Apple store does.

– The next four are related (comments below): Big beer cannot emulate craft (the Sierra Nevada view).

– In case you weren’t sure where CAMRA stands on the matter.

Big beer brands still matter. Even for millennials. [Exhibit A]

Off the Wall — Is a Structural Shift in Beer Marketing on the Horizon? [Exhibit B]

SO MY QUESTION IS

It seems to me that it is altogether possible that by the time marketers figure out millennials that the next generation will be more important to the success of small brewers. But meanwhile a couple of intriguing statements:

From Exhibit A, younger legal-age drinking consumers tend to be “nomadic; not brand, category or format loyal. They like experimenting and are value- and price-driven.”

And from Exhibit B, “They want a cool interaction with a brand, and some value in their experiences that’s personal, but not necessarily with the person making it.”

I understand these things are important to Sierra Nevada, MillerCoors, and Wicked Weed. But how important are they for the small, yes local, brewery than likely produces less than 1,000 barrels of beer a year (true for more than 90 percent of the breweries in the country)? Are we talking about a different set of relationships?

CROSSING OVER

Does Craft Beer Have Any Room Left for Innovation?

What the future holds for wine (possibly).

Parker and the Pope – the Infallibility Fallacy.

FROM TWITTER