tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post95591914343295928..comments2023-09-20T12:50:40.208+01:00Comments on Pete Brown: How Big Lager Lost The Plot And Developed Narcissistic Personality DisorderAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03011702209832734676noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-83221189085459035612015-07-01T07:17:06.780+01:002015-07-01T07:17:06.780+01:00I get confused by all of the conflict that is stir...I get confused by all of the conflict that is stirred up. The constant attempt to take the moral ground that the beer that I choose to drink is a better quality than the one that he chooses to drink. I like to drink Heineken, yet I visit a Majestic wine warehouse to be told We don't sell those type of beers....so they can be that arrogant.It is an extremely well tested marketing technique for smaller and emerging entrants to portray existing larger people as the enemy. It is clever to hear about this all being a movement, but I can't help but feel this is the Achilles Heel. The consumer could get tired of it all....to say that larger brewers don't care about quality is frankly absurd. The best bars are the ones that allow cask,craft,big beer brands to co-exist and let the consumer decide.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-34881177413551207262015-06-24T10:11:31.836+01:002015-06-24T10:11:31.836+01:00People are visual beings. And Big Lager is relying...People are visual beings. And Big Lager is relying on this visual impact to get more sales. Once established, Big Lager does not need to think about quality that much any longer because people buy rubbish beer based on the image they have on their heads. BowlerCathttp://www.bowlercat.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-67956090192543397402015-06-18T17:35:31.532+01:002015-06-18T17:35:31.532+01:00It's all about trying to persuade people to bu...It's all about trying to persuade people to buy rubbish, so why don't they just spend their enormous marketing budgets on producing better beer? Fat chance: pigs will fly sooner.Neville Grundyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10923209266005338452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-53952348700999161782015-06-10T09:35:20.714+01:002015-06-10T09:35:20.714+01:00Big lager is about cheap alcohol just like rtd'...Big lager is about cheap alcohol just like rtd's. There are no rtd's blogs or craft rtd's. Big lager is just a lads rtd.... Dinosaurs ready to fall to more nimble little rodents.....<br /><br />IT Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10199691055458966963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-19148801633221834102015-06-09T08:02:07.649+01:002015-06-09T08:02:07.649+01:00On the subject of fonts, it has astonished me for ...On the subject of fonts, it has astonished me for years that no Big Lager marketeer seems to have noticed that while their own font might look terrific in isolation (an arguable assumption, but let's run with it), two, three or more different big, brash fonts on a bar together looks amazingly ugly and cheap, with an effect like three different bands playing three different songs on the same stage at the same time.Martyn Cornellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16843357962176591317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-71462378438578668782015-06-04T16:13:31.047+01:002015-06-04T16:13:31.047+01:00It's always interesting to hear you talk with ...It's always interesting to hear you talk with your marketing hat on. <br /><br />In the glory years you mentioned, lager was relatively new. Certainly it was in the 70's, the years when new drinking habits that would hold for a generation were formed. <br /><br />Anything new can exercise a hold often simply because it is new. Think of American-style pale ale/IPA, or Buffalo chicken wings, or pulled pork (actually it was British before it was American but never mind, the Brits didn't), or Starbucks. Partly because people were "noticing" lager more from travelling and the influence of foreign brands in films, on tv and in internationally circulated press, it sold well from its own momentum. I don't think the ads really had much to do with lager's rise although certainly they could contribute to varying market shares amongst the brewers.<br /><br />That was then.<br /><br />Today, ale including real ale has built on the groundswell set in motion by CAMRA, Boston, Jackson, Protz, Brown. Its own distant progeny, American craft beer, has swaggered back to the land of its ancestors offering lots of hops, malt and yeast, all the good stuff the British ales always had but in new and ballsy interpretations. The market starts to notice. It also starts to notice the full taste and variety cider offers today. And even blokes drink a lot more wine than they used to. <br /><br />And mass market lager? It has gotten ever thinner in taste, the contrast with these other drinks couldn't be more stark. Except for a few bright spots. Peroni (all-malt IIRC and very good when fresh), Budvar and of course Urquell are good examples. No one has tried as far as I know to launch a mass market lager or relaunch an old name with an assertive flavour. Price is the only way to differentiate which is kind of a race to the bottom. Big brewing still, from what I can see, sticks to the formula of no or little aroma (vs. considerable use of aroma hopping up to the early 70's), very restrained bitterness, and a high adjunct content. The type of strategies you described seem indeed oddly out of step with very mild-tasting drinks, some would say not very good-tasting drinks. <br /><br />Beer including lager did not start that way. It started as a full-flavoured drink. I remain convinced it has, in its mass market manifestations, become something quite different essentially for cost reasons, not market ones. This opened an opportunity for the specialty segments now taking share from the mass market brewers.<br /><br />In my view, the way to go is to upgrade considerably the quality (from a taste standpoint) of the mass brands. The commodity end the range will always be there, some people will always buy based on price and that's fine, but I believe the bulk of the market doesn't really want bland beer. This is starting to show in sales figures after a generation of different outcomes which however derived from very specific factors.<br /><br />Gary Gillman.Gary Gillmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-73951180159698829012015-06-03T18:55:08.551+01:002015-06-03T18:55:08.551+01:00I have fond memories of the Rainier Beer (regiona...I have fond memories of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL41985F3CB80ECD45" rel="nofollow">Rainier Beer </a> (regional brewery from Seattle, Washington) advertisements. The brewery has been closed for years. The a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Brewing_Company" is now owned by an out of state investor who has it contract brewed by a low bidder. My parents drank Rainier and I must have had a few sips as a boy but I'm fortunate to have come of age with the local craft brewing industry.Rnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-23562973970958925152015-06-03T16:32:28.695+01:002015-06-03T16:32:28.695+01:00Haha!Haha!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30743480.post-17265559751809437042015-06-03T13:50:28.899+01:002015-06-03T13:50:28.899+01:00"You start telling your drinkers they're ..."You start telling your drinkers they're drinking the product wrong, or using the wrong terminology. You demand they start showing some respect."<br /><br />Remove the word 'your' from that sentence and you have many a craft beer fan to a tee.Alistair Reecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15929927359428659775noreply@blogger.com