Craft confusion on the beer shelves

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Will the real craft beer please step forward

Confusion reigns in the beer market with drinkers unsure what a craft beer looks like on retailers’ shelves, which is leading to some of the more clear-cut craft beers being perceived as more mainstream and therefore not potentially warranting a premium tag or possibly losing sales.

A survey by Instantly of 3,000 consumers, who were shown the packaging of 10 quality beers likely to be found on the shelves of the more reputable beer retailers, found that only 57.1% of people recognised the beers as craft products.

They were shown the packaging of Thornbridge Jaipur IPA, Beavertown Gamma Ray, St Peter’s organic ale, Duvel, Sierra Nevada pale ale, Brooklyn lager, Harviestoun Schiehallion, Innis & Gunn original, BrewDog Punk IPA, Camden Town Hells lager.

Strangely 57% did not believe Beavertown Gamma Ray to be craft and as many as 49% thought this was also the case with Camden Hells lager, when both are undoubtedly at the craft end of the spectrum and rightly seek to position themselves as such.

In contrast, St Peter’s organic ale was deemed a craft product by a much higher 67% of consumers and Harviestoun Schiehallion by 66%, which is surprising as they are arguably two of the more mainstream beer brands in the 10 surveyed.

The perception issue for Beavertown and Camden also extends to their packaging. When picking a top two of various criteria only 32% believed Gamma Ray looked premium versus an average of 43.3% across the 10 beers.

And only 29% believed the packaging reflects a high quality brand, compared with the average of 40.3%. This is surprising as Beavertown has won industry plaudits for the artwork on its beers – especially for its cans, including Gamma Ray.

Likewise with Camden Town, only 35% believed it to look premium and only 32% reckoned its packaging reflects a high quality brand.

Part of the problem for Beavertown could be related to the fact Gamma Ray is in cans. While they have been embraced by early adopters this appears not yet to be the case with mainstream drinkers who still view cans as downmarket.

This is shown by the fact 81.4% of people would prefer to drink the 10 beers from a bottle rather than a can (9.6%) or from a tap (9.1%). This is neither good for cans or pubs for that matter.

Another surprise from the survey is that only 28.4% of people regard it as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important to drink beer from a local brewery. This somewhat goes against the belief that there is a strong desire for localised products.

Although in the context of the international nature of the beers surveyed this is a good thing as there would be little appetite for the likes of Duvel and Brooklyn lager if consumers stuck rigidly to drinking only locally produced beer.

Without a definition of craft the confusion among drinkers will persist. But then, if what is in the vessel (can or bottle), tastes good then does it really matter what we label it as.

Glynn Davis, editor, Beer Insider

 

10 Comments

  1. Glynn Davis on 31st October 2015 at 10:14 pm

    The Beavertown was in cans and the Camden Town in bottles.



  2. Barm on 31st October 2015 at 6:15 pm

    Sometimes the only thing going for these beers is that they are (somehow) “craft”. Well…



  3. Mike Marcus on 31st October 2015 at 12:54 pm

    Speaking as owner of a brewery who is about to switch from bottling to canning, I’d like to chip in if I may?

    We’re using 330ml cans for two reasons. Firstly because our beer is currently sold in 330ml bottles so it makes the transition smoother and means that none of the people who buy our beer have to adjust to a new pricing structure. Secondly and more importantly we love beer but detest piss-up culture. We’d prefer to see people drinking small quantities of tasty beer (of the type that might be too intensely flavoured to consume in pints), rather than large quantities of bland beer designed primarily to get you drunk.

    As for the “C” word. I think most of us lament a useful shorthand phrase which broadly described what we did, but now has been reduced to meaninglessness by overuse and appropriation by the likes of Greene King and the like.

    Oh and Barm: I’d personally rather buy a decent beer regardless of how the wrapping appeared. But we’re all different.



  4. Tom N on 31st October 2015 at 11:31 am

    Could it be the case that the Camden and Beavertown were shown in can rather bottle. If so it could be more of a case of people not seeing cans as a craft product rather than not seeing those particular products as such. Until about
    2 years ago all canned beer in the UK was the complete opposite to craft beer.



  5. Glynn Davis on 30th October 2015 at 3:57 pm

    Sometimes the only thing going for these beers is that they are local. Well, the locals can have them.



  6. Jon on 30th October 2015 at 3:09 pm

    In Devon they are obsessed with selling local ale to the point where they would rather sell poor ale than something that would sell quickly.
    For me I don’t care where it comes from as long as it’s nice and preferably on cask.



  7. Curmudgeon on 28th October 2015 at 12:41 pm

    Perhaps brewers should be taking account of what customers perceive as “craft” rather than thinking they need to be educated.



  8. Glynn Davis on 28th October 2015 at 11:00 am

    Interesting point on small can sizes. It is the case that most craft brewers prefer the smaller option. Unlike yourself – and maybe many other people – I prefer small cans and 330ml bottles. But then I’m maybe trying to moderate my intake, or I want to drink lots of different things. One or the other!



  9. Klunk on 28th October 2015 at 10:48 am

    An interesting survey that would suggest craft beer is still a niche product.
    It begs the question whether the need to promote the term ‘craft’ is now redundant or whether the craft brewers have designed packaging to only appeal to a certain demographic, the oft used ‘hipster’ comes to mind.
    I am still trying to determine why the recent interest in canning craft beers has resulted in such small cans (330ml rather than the norm of 440ml or even 500ml). I’m assuming this is so the brewer can sell a product at a premium price for a smaller volume thereby increasing profitability but I am aware that such small cans are far less appealing to the majority of beer drinkers (volume is still the order of the day for many drinkers).
    Interestingly I expressed an opinion on a craft beer forum that I still preferred beer from a bottle compared to a can and I preferred a 500ml bottle to a 330ml bottle and received a few abusive comments to suggest I was out of touch and also cans were far more portable to take on a picnic or the tube which kind of suggests the kind of person who the small cans have been promoted at and why they haven’t been adopted as yet by the mainstream.
    I guess the debate will rage on. Whether the brewers learn anything from this or still keep marketing their products at the perceived target audience will remain to be seen.



  10. Barm on 27th October 2015 at 4:21 pm

    Perhaps these “mainstream” drinkers surveyed just have more common sense than “craft beer” fanatics. I too would rather buy an elegant bottle than a gaudy, juvenile can.