What is constant with brewing? Is it sticking with four or five core brands and only occasionally dipping your toe into something new, or is change the constant and the more brews the better? And, if you’re going with ‘more is better’, is it because this is what paying customers want or a small, loud minority on social media? Velo Mitrovich reports.

It’s a funny old business we’re in as craft brewers. While Hollywood might sing that there is no business like show business, the realty is there are few business like that of craft beer.

You look at the other beverage companies out there – soft drink, big breweries, distilleries, etc – and one thing that they all have in common is a lack of change.

Over the last 168-years, beer giant Anheuser-Bush has introduced new beers at a speed that makes a three-toed-sloth appear to move at the speed of light. Indeed, it seems easier for Anheuser-Bush to just buy up another brewery than to create something on their own.

Jack Daniels distillery waited 150-years before trying a new recipe. We’re reckoning things just ain’t done fast in the hills of Tennessee.

But craft brewers and their fans are most definitely a different breed. If a winemaker retires at a normal age, they have had 25 attempts to make wine and make it well – that’s 25 vintages for a lifetime of work. Some craft brewers and their customers want 25 different beers a month. 

The Veil Brewing Company of Virginia – which has been mention before in TBJ for its zero IBU beer – has brewed over 450 different beers since opening its doors in 2016. A lot closer to home is Cloudwater which has brewed hundreds of different types of beers since February 2015. 

It starts to boggle the brain, especially for those of us who remember our fathers drinking one type of beer from one brand because that was pretty much all what was on offer.

And, tying into this mental confusion are the terms themselves, for core brands sounds like you’re talking about a brewery’s core values. But, if your core values stress innovation, change, and daring, what most of see as core brands won’t apply to your brewery since they’ll be in constant change.

For sake of argument and clarity then, in this article core beers will be defined as those beers which make up the majority of what you brew year around and what pays the bills.

Creating confidence

Mark Tranter of Burning Sky said recently to the audience at the recent Brewers Congress: “For me, core brands create confidence in the consumer. If you just do something new all the time, you’re playing to a very small marketplace.

“Breweries like New Belgium Brewing got to be big through their core beer, such as their Fat Tire. You get people in their college years drinking Fat Tire and those people are fans for life because that’s what they grew up drinking. That’s how New Belgium has got so big, not by doing like 100 beers a year.”

Like a band or an author, if you’ve liked what they’ve done before, chances are you’re going to try their latest venture. By building trust and recognition in your core beers, customers are going to feel comfortable in choosing your others.

While some brewers balk at the idea of brewing over and over again, the same beer, Tranter would say that they are missing out in the opportunity to excel in all of what they do.

“By bringing out the same thing over and over again, you increase your learning. If you can create some cool brands that stay relative in a changing marketplace, you’re keeping your core beers relevant.”

And in an age of countless beer releases, Tranter believes that it’s imperative that breweries forge their own path rather than chase trends.

“New is not a style. One-off beers are not a true reflection of a brewery’s capabilities. As much as we like doing new recipes, because we do them ourselves, they should only be a starting point for something bigger.

“These always evolve over time, otherwise what’s the point? I don’t see the value, or enjoyment, in having a beer only once. It’s a disposable culture and reminiscent of the infamous beer festival tickers that want every beer, even if it’s the slops. That said, it will exist as long as it’s pandered to.

“Personally, I prefer to see development and achievement in the ways you can introduce variation and nuance in beer. Especially your annual releases. People get excited about vintages in wine, so why can’t we have that in beer?”

Ignoring pressure

Yvan De Baets is a social worker, a beer historian and a brewer, one of the founding members of Brasserie De La Senne brewery in Brussels, which specializes in cask-aged Belgium sours and other traditional beers.

De Baets explains how he believes that the liquid in the glass is a representation of the values of the brewer who produced it.

“Beer should represent your values in the liquid form. It’s very, very important. And first, you have to know yourself. So it’s all a journey you have you have to take to know who, who you are and what, what are your values.”

If you know De Baets, you realise that he has an opinion – usually strong – about most things regarding beer. As the audience at the Brewers Congress found out, ‘beer geeks’ are in his bulls eye for the pressure they put on craft brewers to release too many new beers.

“The geeks are never satisfied. They want something new all the time. They also like extreme things – the crazier the better for them – and the things they like the most are those that will create the most buzz. 

‘I think ‘forgetting to bring a purse’ is the worst thing that they do; they have zero loyalty. If you organise your brewery around these kinds of guys, you will sooner or later be totally disappointed. 

“The problem with things that are trendy is that by definition, they are trendy for a short period of time, and then they come out of fashion. So it’s very dangerous to only focus about new trends and then trying to find newer, trendier things. It’s a never ending run-around.

“The problem is that they have a very strong presence because they spend their day on social media. So we brewers tend to believe that they are everywhere and that they dominate the market and that if we don’t please them, we will go bankrupt.” 

This isn’t the case, says De Baets, it’s the regulars who are a brewery’s most important customers.

“The most important thing is pleasing these guys and gals have a glass of your beer, they socialize and they smile. We need to spend our entire days trying to make a product that will put a smile on our customer’s face.

Where you fit in

To rely on core or new brands is a question that can only be answered by yourself. Most breweries do a combination of both, with the hope always being that something new might turn into something permanent and then enter into their core range or a returning annual.  

The questions you need to be asking yourself are: Is innovation what sets your beer apart from others or is it your core brews?

What is your customers’ desired experience? Do they want something familiar or are they searching for a constant new palette challenge?

Can you afford to have experimental ‘misses’ with only occasional ‘hits’?

Do you have a loyal following that will accept your new offerings or are you in stiff competition from other breweries?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers, but the best one has to be: Remain flexible and keep your eye on the market. While Cloudwater is still doing the one-offs which made it famous, it now has a core range as well.

Hard for most of you to believe but when Starbucks first hit the scene in Seattle with about 10 shops, it was famous for its sale of whole bean coffee, not its drinks. On any given day there would be two types of Ethiopian coffee, something from Yemen, Honduras, Guatemala, Sumatra, Java, Papua New Guinea, aged coffee from Kenya, and five different blends.

Today, its core is coffee drinks, not whole bean. Starbucks changed its flagship products to fit into its new business plan.

As a brewer once told TBJ: “Always brew with your heart, but always know where your wallet fits into this dream.”