Has an interesting alliance been formed between craft and cheap ass?
The last recession helped reverse that trend as Americans became cost conscious, pushing demand back toward more affordable canned beer. Also supporting the resurgence is an increase in the number of craft beers available in cans. As of the end of 2010, there were 1,693 breweries in the U.S., an increase of more than 2,000 percent from the mid-1980s. “The image of beer in cans has changed,” said Charlie Papazian, president of the Boulder, Colorado-based Brewers Association. Since the recession, “two segments have done well, the below-premium budget beers and the high-end craft beers,” he added. “Historically, budget beers have been packaged in cans, and have been priced ridiculously low.” Hipsters, a subculture of urban, young adults whose tastes run toward independent music and films and non-traditional fashion, may have given the trend another push when Pabst Blue Ribbon, the flagship brew of Pabst Brewing Co., became one of their signature drinks.
I never knew that "hipsters" needed being defined like that. Nor did I think that the pricing of basic popular beer deserved ridicule. For me, I like low price. Never seems ridiculous to pay less for what you want but that is just me, I guess. Anyway, what seems to really behind cans is that they are far more successfully made and marketed these days. We have the technology, so sayeth the Six Million Dollar Man. You may not want to store something in them for years but when you can get Rodenbach in a can, what consumer doesn't look long and hard at the $1.50 added to the cost of a 750 ml just to have the fancy cork top in the recycling the next day. Or a one bottle box. That is always a treat.
Ridiculous? What is ridiculous is any added unnecessary cost that wastes the beer fan's money. Far from worrying about something being ridiculously low in price, shouldn't we look around to see what is ridiculously over priced?
Comments
Alan - June 21, 2012 8:33 AM
Hadn't twigged to Jeff writing about the same article.
Seth R. Feldman - June 26, 2012 12:12 PM
Alan,
I'm a nascent/amateur beer blogger that's been trying to tackle the idea of style v. substance for some time now. This is the kind of topic we get into rather often at my bar (incidentally, known for its cocktails, but with a nice beer program at times). I absolutely love this quote of yours
"Beer may be from somewhere, may be made in some long standing or innovative technique, may be called this or that, may come in a red can or in bottle with a blue sticker on it. It may be all that underlying natural order stuff but what it "is" is its flavour, its effect through the act of consumption, even what it smells like when you stick your nose deep into a wide glass and breath in deeply. All that and that alone "is" what it is. Everything else are interesting or irritating tangents which may while away the hours - but even only does so best when one is, you know, actually having a beer."
I'm going to steal that with proper attribution. In my own quest to categorize the world (I was a philosophy student before becoming a lawyer, before becoming a brewer and beer geek), I've often toiled with this...what the fuck is an american pale wheat, and how can that category have the newer hoppy wheat beers in it while having clean, boring wheats that aren't trying to be hefeweizens? Why does the overlap between APA and IPA exist not only in the minds of brewers, but heavily in the BJCP guidelines? Etc, etc.
Alan - June 26, 2012 5:49 PM
Go ahead, Seth. Send me a link to your post. Happy to hear I got you thinking.