State of Beer Crunchers
Thanks for subscribing to my “Beercrunchers” substack this past year. This has been a lot of work, but very rewarding for me. I barely wrote anything in 2022, but finished strong with a 2023 Craft Beer Preview, followed by a piece called The 12-Pack Variety Playbook which took 2nd place at the NAGBW Awards for “Best Technical Writing”. These two posts led to podcast invites, speaking engagements, and even the honor of delivering the Keynote at the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild’s annual conference last April. So make no mistake, while I strive to deliver value to you the reader, I get a lot of value out of writing myself.
Those opportunities in 2023 motivated me to move my blog to Substack where I’d gain better functionality including the ability to share each post as an e-mail. The transition was also motivated by a desire for a change of scenery to accompany my goal of writing shorter and more frequent posts. I was able to hit 36 posts in 2023, where as I believe my previous high was only eight! If you’ve ever found value in my perspective and wondered what motivates me to write like I do, I thought I’d take moment to lay out some factors.
I remember when Facebook was first made available to my alma mater back in 2004. Being young and inexperienced, I asked my smart, tech-savvy roommate how they made any money with the site being ad free? He educated me on the value of building an audience of users first and foremost, then figuring out monetization later. That longterm thinking has been tattooed in my brain ever since and you probably hear this advice come through in a lot of my writing.
Every brewery’s overall brand and approach to hospitality could use a look under the hood right now, present company included. We all need a plan that bridges what excites our existing, loyal consumers and what will resonate with future consumers discovering the brewery for the first time. Both strategies are incredibly important, but can find themselves at odds with each other, making this a difficult needle to thread.
I believe that the days of throwing new beers into the market and hoping one of them turns into the brewery’s workhorse are over. Now, breweries need to decide what they want to be successful and over invest in the early days, perhaps even spending more than they make in margin. If they don’t, they’ll be stuck with another minor beer in scope of their portfolio. If you are nodding through any of this, here’s three of my favorite posts from the year that focused around investing, timing, and mindset as it relates to craft beer:
Craft Beer Investor Psychology
Most of us entered the craft beer zeitgeist at a fortunate time, filled with optimism, excitement, and the thrill of the hunt. As we became invested, we forgot that we’re participating in a market subject to the economic forces and psychology faced by all industries. I use the term “investor” to stretch well beyond having financial ownership in a craft…
Marketing With a Longer Time Horizon 📈
I am a regular user of the phrase “what you put in is what you get out”. Newton’s third law of motion uses a related principal that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” While both are true when investing in the marketing of a craft brewery, many stumble over the delayed reaction that can take place. The beer industry generally does
Recognizing Hype Cycles
Why are so many craft breweries are closing all of a sudden? Jaded fans are blaming style trends that go against tradition, or their own preferences. Hyperbole around “bad beer” is often cited as well, but neither are the crux of what’s actually happening. When the new wave of breweries began coming online around 2010, a hype cycle began that caused the…
That patient investor mentality has played out for me personally with my beer content for ten years now on Instagram, TikTok, and through this blog. With my family and full-time role at Revolution always taking precedence, writing or recording these posts is often in lieu of the little free time remaining when others might read, go to the gym, go out, or watch the latest TV show. As a kid, I dreamed of being an entrepreneur whether it was through lemonade stands, my paper route, flipping Nintendo games, having a table at baseball card shows, or caddying at the local country club from age 13-20. Somewhere between all the accounting & economics classes that followed and over ten years working as an auditor, I became too risk adverse. If I’m being honest, I think social media and now Substack serve as a sort of simulation for running my own company. Minus the whole revenue thing of course…
On that topic, I wanted to be upfront that I regularly consider turning on Substack’s monetization feature someday and begin asking for a subscription fee to view a certain portion of my posts. I’ll always make some of them free because well, that’s just good marketing. This would reward me for the hundreds of hours I pour into the content, keep me motivated to crank out more, hold me accountable, to a schedule, and even compensate some guest crunchers. There’s a reason I have an “s” at the end of Beercrunchers, as I never strived to be the only voice. I haven’t decided to add this complexity yet, in part because then it’s very real, and the pressure is on. I am always welcoming of feedback on this topic, in addition to gathering interest from guest writers or even potential sponsors for posts, as an alternative model.
In the meantime, this blog has also served as a chance to indirectly share and document my thoughts on topics that I’m passionate about or working on in my professional life. Three big projects that I spent a lot of time on in 2023 included fine tuning our IPA Variety Pack (coming soon), developing a Hop Water brand (launched in September), and preparing a “Premium Lager” for our biggest brand launch since Fist City (this January). So it’s no coincidence that these pieces showed up throughout the year:
Having spent 8 pivotal years of my career at Reyes Holdings, the largest beer distribution company in the country, I have an appreciation for the 3 Tier System that many craft brewers unfortunately lack. In my opinion, this holds some businesses back. It’s not my favorite topic to write about because of state-by-state nuances and the feeling that I need to walk on egg shells, but I make sure I touch on it from time to time. I enjoyed writing the following piece on what I believe many craft breweries don’t consider or choose to ignore when it comes to their relationship or feelings toward wholesalers.
The Beer Industry's Franchise Tag
In the NFL, the Franchise Tag protects teams from losing their star player in free agency and arguably helps maintain a competitive balance in the league. In the beer industry, Franchise Laws similarly protect distributors from losing their suppliers to a competitor. What the franchise tag and franchise laws have in common includes controversy over thei…
Lastly, like many I’m exhausted by the extreme, all or nothing views that exist in society, both politically and ABV % 😜 . I pride myself on being able to find the middle of debates, understand what motivates both sides, and build empathy toward each. While our country could benefit from more of this thinking, so could our beer industry. That’s what motivates to write posts like these, sometimes partnering with my buddy Chris McClellan (@brewenthusiast) to have a debate:
Lastly, I just want to say thank you one last time for all the words of encouragement as this blog has taken shape over the last year. Since I started making beer content, my passion has shifted from trying to get into the industry to now playing as big of a role as I can carve out that helps it continue to thrive. 2024 should be another challenging year, but if we stay focused and open-minded, we can FLIP the script on the negativity that’s out there.
Happy New Year and have a great start to 2024. You’ll be hearing from me again soon.
-Doug