Not everybody is trading up

. . . and that’s OK.

The Brew Blog reports that Miller’s “Take Back the High Life” campaign begins tonight. With the ads Miller is positioning Miller High Life as the best beer value.

Miller High Life brand director Tom McLoughlin sees the campaign fitting in with a countertrend to the trading up movement.

“We think we’ve tapped into a cultural insight, which we see could be a fruitful area. You write about it all the time: trading up. Consumers are reaching a breaking point on that, in terms of, are we trading up on everything?”

Of course not.

It’s been nearly two years since I talked with Michael Silverstein, author of Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods, for a trade publication. At the time I wrote:

Reviews of the book are often paired it with “Living It Up: Our Love Affair with Luxury” by James B. Twichell. Twichell writes, “One can make the argument that until all necessities are had by all members of a community, no one should have luxury. More complex still is that, since the 1980s, the bulk consumers of luxury have not been the wealthy but the middle class, your next-door neighbors and their kids.”

That’s good for brewers when beer is viewed a New Luxury. It’s bad when beer is not, because one of the premises of “Trading Up” is that consumer spending is polarizing. In order to trade up in a category she really cares about, an avid cyclists might save money by trading down in some that don’t matter to her — like her brand of toothpaste or beer.

The implication is manufacturers of products that are perceived as commodities have a problem.

Do the new Miller ads address that? Here’s how Brew Blog describes the ads: “Deliverymen repossess cases of Miller High Life from establishments that charge too much — preventing people from living the High Life. In one spot they descend on a bistro that charges an eye-popping amount for a hamburger.”

This means? Apparently that that the hamburger is overpriced so everything there must be. The food and drink aren’t worth more; they just cost more.

Or maybe that if you spend too much on hamburgers who won’t be able to afford your fair share of Miller High Life and will have to drink something cheaper. Quite honestly, it’s not clear to me, but then I don’t know what there is cheaper (and don’t feel the need to tell me).

In any event: Hogwash.

Let’s be realistic. Most beer drinkers consider beer a commodity, not worth paying more for than the brand currently on sale at the grocery store. I’m OK with that, just as the fact that some people don’t want to “trade up” to more complex flavors – or drink beer at all.

However, I am bothered by a commercial that implies that those of us who pay more for beer aren’t getting a better value than, well, Miller High Life.

The next generation of drinkers

Missed this story for about a month: Young adults key to wine growth (and breweries are figuring that out).

The articles reports the surge in wine consumption by the so-called millennial generation – defined generally as teens to late 20s – is one of the key reasons the U.S. wine industry has experienced robust growth in recent years.

But one beverage analyst suggested the increase was not caused by the wine industry. Instead, it is the result of the beer industry’s failure to effectively market its products, said Kaumil Gajrawala, an analyst with UBS Investment Research.

Beer companies lost market share to wine and spirits largely because their advertising campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s were sophomoric and failed to deliver a message about the quality of their products, Gajrawala said.

To support his contention, Gajrawala played a compilation video of beer ads that showed bikini-clad women wrestling, overweight male sports fans in full-body paint, and men driving golf balls in ludicrously inappropriate places.

“A 23-year-old doesn’t want to identify with that,” he said.

Gajrawala then played newer campaigns by major beer companies like Coors and Budweiser, which he said are hipper and more likely to appeal to the millennials. The new ads are an indication brewers have learned the error of their ways, he said.

“Clearly, you can see the beer companies have changed their strategy in terms of how they are going after consumers,” he said.

That’s important for the wine industry because if the beer industry and its massive marketing clout does a better job of keeping young drinkers well into adulthood, wine may have a tougher time growing at the rates it has enjoyed, he said.

“The free ride for wine is probably over,” he said.

As most business stories, when this one refers to the beer industry that means the big breweries – the ones who could afford to broadcast stupid commercials. Those are the one now catching up not only with wineries but craft breweries who’ve been talking about the quality of their products all along.

Beer, wine profs go glass-to-glass

debateThe beer vs. wine debate goes to the university classroom. with Andrew Waterhouse, chair of the department of viticulture and enology at UC Davis, and Charles Bamforth, chair of the department of food science and technology, duking it out.

Waterhouse:

“Putting a bottle of wine in your shopping cart immediately makes you look smarter and healthier. It’s all about image. Who do you want to be seen with?”

Bamforth:

“Most people who drink beer are young men who eat sausages and watch ball games. Think of how healthy they would be if they just drank beer.”

Both the beer and wine schools at the California school have internationally reputations. Bamforth is the first Anheuser-Busch endowed professor of brewing science.

Senior art history major Laura Stotesber told the campus newspaper: “It was enjoyable, intelligent, witty and there was a well-balanced argument on both sides. I thought it was great to see these two industries come together in fun.”

These guys know where to find the good stuff

Jeff Bagby

This is the way it is supposed to work, but when you interrupt your beer culture for about 100 years then some things – like ongoing addition of “new blood” and thus innovation – start to fall through the cracks.

Food and wine magazines are constantly featuring the hot new chefs, new winemakers and even new sommeliers. In an interview in the New York Times wine authority Jancis Robinson was asked what she sees as the most important change in the wine world.

“Oh, the upgrade of quality, and the enthusiasm and ambition of winemakers everywhere,” she said.

That’s also happening in beer, although you’re less likely to see brewers’ mugs in glossy magazines.

Instead San Diego Union-Tribune illustrates the point with a feature on Jeff Bagby (pictured above at the 2003 Great American Beer Festival) of Pizza Port Carlsbad.

The author calls Bagby one of the county’s most intuitive brewers (how do you measure that?), “willing to base a beer on a hunch.”

“A lot of it is a shot in the dark,” Bagby tells him.

Perhaps – and if so his aim is still pretty good – but his beers are no accident. In part because it seems he’s always in “research” mode. The easiest way to find the new and interesting beers at the Great American Beer Festival is to ask Bagby – or another of his generation of New American brewers like Will Meyers of Cambridge (Mass.) Brewing – because he’s out talking to other brewers and tasting beer.

Now go back to Robinson’s quote. Do you think we could say this?

“Oh, the upgrade of quality, and the enthusiasm and ambition of beermakers everywhere.”

OK, not everywhere, but Robinson probably wasn’t including Yellow Tail either.

Where are they now?

Microbrews: A Ten Year Retrospective looks to be an interesting project.

The premise:

The whole premise of this blog is to see how many of the 200+ microbrews and brews featured in MICROBREWS: A GUIDE TO AMERICA’S BEST NEW BEERS AND BREWERIES have survived the craft brew infatuation of the last 20 years or so. I’m using this book because it is ten years old and is the only book I have of its sort.

My choice likely would have been to start with Steve Johnson’s “ON TAP: Guide to North American Brewpubs” because Steve chronicled the comings and goings of breweries with the zeal of a librarian (perhaps because he is a librarian), but it would appear this book is alphabetical and that lends itself well to this undertaking.

Today’s post features the brewery formerly known as Adler Brau and now called Stone Cellar Brewpub. Adler Brau made some excellent German inspired beers – in fact winning four medals at the 1991 Great American Beer Festival.

What we really liked was the cellar pub, which included what we refer to as a “Wisconsin bar.” These exist elsewhere, but we always associate them with Wisconsin. Basically the area behind the bar is recessed and the bartender is pretty much face-to-face with seated customers. Very friendly.