Written by Ken Carman
The topic for this edition of The Brew Biz: Marketing the Majors as Micros
So many homebrewers try to sell others on, “It’s all about the beer.” If only that were true in marketing…
By now you’ve probably seen the packages in the stores. They look like a new Micro is on the market. The first time I saw “Plank Road Brewery” I sensed something amiss. A “new” Micro? No, not really: Miller using a new marketing tool. The past few years I started seeing packaging that seemed a little too, too: an obvious attempt to appear to be a Micro. (As in “a small, independent brewer,” to use an incomplete, but somewhat adequate, definition.) To give the big brewers a little credit first, some have gone where they usually “neglected” to go before: like producing a sorghum-based beer. (AB)
