Tag: Peel the Label

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Peel the Label – Festival Selections

Festival season is upon us. Here in Los Angeles, it stretches from April through October.

Which means that there are one or more craft beer festivals per weekend. And quite frankly, most are very cookie-cutter. Very few are outright bad. But some just sit there wearing a “m’eh” t-shirt. And it is because the choice of breweries and beers is mediocre either because it isn’t the focus or because of limited supply.  But both problems can be surmounted.

It is not easy to put on a festival.  Sourcing the beer almost becomes part of a list of to-do’s.  Another item to check off the list.  When it should be the main driver behind why a festival is being done in the first place.  Not because you need to drum up business for your beer emporium or draw attention to your town as a tourist destination for beer geeks.  Those benefits arrive stronger and in a more lasting way when people are excited about what beer they will be able to drink or breweries that they will see.

Setting aside those marketing driven events, as craft beer festivals proliferate, the great beer and great ideas get spread thin. The same breweries and same beer are on tap on the Eastside and the West. Like a mirror reflection. Or you run across beer choices more in line with inventory reduction.  I have seen a brewery rep pouring bottles of last years fall and winter ale seasonals. In April. Even though said brewery has multiple fresher beers.  And no, it was not an aged beer festival.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. A festival may be new, middle aged or classic and also be exciting. What it requires is that the limitations on beer be creatively surmounted.

That starts with the beer selections. A new festival may have less access to “wow” beers but can be a “wow festival”.  For those new to the scene or with limited options I can, right off the top of my head, see where a festival salutes the best selling / flagship beers of their local breweries. 24th Street from Strand Brewing next to Solidarity from a Eagle Rock Brewery. And have information explaining the back story of those beers. Or you could add a slide show of the brewery.

You could go style specific and feature Belgian and Belgian style beers, or lagers and pilsners. Take the list of possible beers and find a theme.  Portland has a Fruit Beer Festival that takes advantage of their access to fruit in the region.  The same could be done here.  Or do a single hop festival.  Sierra Nevada has added something similar to great success.  And it ties back into their hop growing program.  True synergy not the made up kind.

If you have been around the beer scene in your community and made some friends, then you can and should kick it up a notch. What style of beer is under represented? Maybe do a blind tasting or a competition type of event. L.A. IPA’s versus their San Diego counterparts. Then crown a people’s champion and a brewery rep champion.  I could literally spout off ten or more ideas as a jumping off point for people.

And the creativity doesn’t need to stop at the craft beer border. Instead of loud DJ music, how about local unsigned bands? Books and beer? Ice cream and beer or grilled cheese and beer? The options are endless. Make a selection. Don’t just paint by the numbers.

But I will probably read about festivals with the usual suspects. And no water stations.  And, I say read, because you will probably not find me at as many this year.

Peel the label is an occasional post behind the beer scenes with no links or photos. Just opinion.

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Peel the Label

To explain, this post was brought on after watching The Lego Movie.  I know that sounds like an odd point of departure but a movie based on a toy that has been product extended in ever larger amounts was charming and brought up points about creativity versus control and the sheer joy of randomly building something out of multi-colored bricks or simply following the instructions to re-create a Millennium Falcon.  Which (Obviously) lead me to….

…branding.  As craft beer careens to ever larger heights (now at a 126 year high over 2,500), standing out becomes very difficult.  And that standing out includes more than one aspect.  It is not only the styles of beer that you brew, it is the style and vibe of your tasting room,  it is your tap handles, your Twitter account, the merch you sell and your logo, but it is also way deeper as well in two ways that I think are overlooked and more important than a snazzy label.

Do you have a house yeast or a hop (or hop blend) that you lean on heavily?  That, to me, is branding.  Does your brewer or owner pour at festivals, or is it a rep or non-brewing employee? Not that either is bad, but it is part of the brand.

To drill down further.  Are your beers of a recognizable whole and are you involved on a physical level with the customer.

A writer has a style.  You can easily tell Stephen King from Neil Gaiman even though both traffic in overlapping realms.  Is the brand of your brewery recognizable from the beer and the beer alone?  Now I am not saying that a random person plucked from the street will recognize the specific beer each and every time.  Hell, I am horrible at blind tastings.  What is more important is that beer geeks should be able to identify your beer after a few tasters.  Much like one could pick out a Radiohead song after a few bars or more.  Give me (5) beers from Eagle Rock Brewery and I should be pretty sure after two or three.  Do I admire the craftsmanship and artistry of their labels.  Sure do.  You will often catch me rotating the bottle to get a better look at it.  But the beers inside the bottle should be as identifiable as the art work on the outside.  Because in the short term, someone may pluck your beer from a cooler due to an angry unicorn on the label but they will get it repeatedly if the beer is good and they will become fans and brand ambassadors if they find they like the brewery in-toto.

Which does not, by the way, mean you can’t roam far afield in your recipes.  It means your range of beers should be what the warm and fuzzy crowd call, a part of who you are.  A German style tilted brewery can brew an IPA but from the mindset of what they have done previously.  A customer that can say that a certain outlier of a beer tastes nothing like what else you brew, knows what else you brew.  It only reinforces the brand.

And that leads me to the other prong of my argument.  The other part that I think reinforces the brand more than having a rock’n’roll artist design your labels or changing the name of a beer.  That other prong is the “actual” interaction with people.

Now, I am an introvert.  I much prefer the e-mail to talking.  But it is integral for a brewer and brewery to be “there” with people.  They have to be extroverts even with introverts like me.  And as much as people hail the social media, it isn’t always a conversation.  More often it is talking only.  Like a jukebox that is always on that people will occasionally notice when a particular song comes on.  Nothing against it but I would not be surprised if Facebook or Twitter or Instagram is considered “Old” in the near future.  With some “New” taking it’s spot as what you “Have” to do to be relevant.  You need only see Questlove faux angry at Jimmy Fallon over incessant #hashtagging to glimpse what is coming.

Again, short term interacting via interweb is important but where the rubber meets the road is when the brewer talks to a person consuming the beer.  That will stick with people.  To again use Eagle Rock as an example.  A newsletter in my inbox is cool but opening the orange door to their taproom and talking to them in the brewery is so much cooler.  You see the whole person and their enthusiasm for the beer that just cannot be embedded as a link or commented on.

Why else would some festivals place such a high importance on the brewer manning the booth?  Some go as far as to require it for a specified amount a time. Why?  Because people at said festivals wanted to see the people who made the beer or conceived of the beer or who are the guiding spirit behind the beer and not a gamely trying volunteer or sales manager.  Just to re-iterate, nothing against either but those people are there for the outside of the bottle stuff.

To drive the point into the ground, the person is akin to the beer in the bottle and the social media is the kin of the label  on the outside.

(Peel the Label is a new series of posts that talk about craft beer from a different angle without photos, links or graphics just the bare bottle, as it were)