THE ANONYMOUS PINT

Take a look at the picture below. Can you identify which beer brands are represented by the cans?

Yes, of course you can. Now look at the picture below. Can you identify those same beers when they’re poured into the same glassware?

BRANDING IS STRONG

We live in a world where everything is branded. We recognize objects, logos, and even iconic shapes and colors within seconds of seeing them because we have developed such a strong relationship with the brand. Brands, especially well-designed brands, represent the cultural benchmarks to which we anchor our perspectives, purchasing decisions, and trust. It’s the reason why Coca-Cola has such an identifiable bottle shape and the same reason why, if you were to remove the logo from a car, you could still identify its make and model from the body design alone.

Breweries are certainly not impervious to the power of a brand. Anytime you walk into your local bottle shop or grocery store, you’re bombarded with designs meant to call your attention to the brewery’s portfolio, powerfully influencing your purchasing behavior. Brooklyn Brewery has their iconic Milton Glaser-designed “B” logo, Burial has cornered the market on death nostalgia imagery, and Montauk has its nautical flag theme. Some of the most creative branding in the U.S is coming out of the beer industry. I mean, where else are you going to find Ninja vs. Unicorn art?

But here’s the problem - when that same beer is taken out of its carefully designed packaging and poured into a standard pint glass, it’s rendered unrecognizable. The branding, and the impact, is lost.

Why, in an industry so obsessed with branding, are we leaving the opportunity to brand beer when it’s poured to patrons? Why aren’t signature glasses more of a thing in America?

Mature beer markets, and those of historical significance, treat beer with a reverence and pageantry that is seemingly lost on American consumers. Belgium, a country famous for its beer culture, considers beer poured into correctly branded beer glasses a standard. You will never see a Leffe Blonde being poured into an Orval or Delerium branded glass. Here in America, it’s entirely possible, bordering on the norm, that your Other Half may be poured into a Dogfish Head or Bud Light branded shaker pint. This is commonplace, but it’s also a missed opportunity to make sure that beer completes its branded journey from the brewery to the bar, and through to the final consumer.

FUNCTION VS. BRANDING

There are exceptions to this argument. Most casual beer drinkers would be able to identify a pint of Guinness, the Stella Artois chalice, or the Sam Adams Boston Lager pint glass. Not only do these breweries have a signature look and feel, but each glass has been designed specifically to bring out the optimal qualities of the beer itself. The Guinness “Gravity” Glass, as it’s called, is designed to maximize the strength of the iconic collar of foam on top of the stout, in addition to the ritual and theater of pouring a proper pint. Jim Koch, in an effort to make sure that Boston Lager fans were consuming the beer optimally, went through an extensive R&D process where he tested more than 100 glasses to find the right design of drinking functionality and brand identity.

Any trained bartender, Cicerone®, or beer industry vet will tell you that the unbranded, generic shaker pint is a terrible way to present a great beer. But...it’s a functional layup - stackable, washed easily, cheap, mass produced…a no-brainer for most bars trying to keep their costs down and save some space behind the bar. It’s understandable, ubiquitous, and…a missed opportunity.

Most breweries obviously don’t have the R&D capital to create their own signature glass to optimize taste. But why not, strictly from a branding perspective, utilize a different glass shape to allow your brand to stand out? Or, if the experience you’re going for IS the generic shaker pint, why not at least set up your customers with correctly branded glassware?

CONSISTENCY LEADS TO REVENUE

A recent brand study by Lucidpress found that 90% of consumers felt that it was important for brands to be presented consistently. That same study also found that, if brands were consistently presented to consumers, it would increase their bottom line by 23%.

According to the most recent numbers from The Brewers Association, we are about to crack 8000 breweries in the United States, and while the overall beer market is relatively flat, sales data for craft beer were up a few percentage points. In an extremely competitive beer market rife with newcomers, razor-tight margins and finicky consumers, this should be a wake-up call. If data shows that people are drinking more craft beer, and you can increase sales by consistently presenting your brand, correct glassware seems like low-hanging fruit, right? Brewers need to seize any opportunity they can find to gain a competitive edge.

THE FULL EXPERIENCE MAY BE AS IMPORTANT AS TASTE

It’s easy, even for beer geeks, to have a great pint and forget who made it or what it was called. In fact, that happens most of the time. In 2019, breweries thrive on strong word of mouth…building reputation and brand loyalty slowly and effectively. If consumers can’t remember what they drank, let alone who made it, how will you stay in top of mind?

The best advice about brand experience I’ve ever received was “control what you can control.” Breweries should seriously consider what they can control in respect to the consumer experience around their product. Outside of their own taprooms, breweries can’t control the vibe of the bar where it’s served, or the mood of the patron. They have very little control over how clean the draught lines are, or what price the bar charges for their product. But they can control some aspects around the quality of the experience, including training the bar staff to pour correctly, into the correct glassware, leaving the customer with a positive and lasting impression about their beer. The complete experience of having a beer, including the taste, appearance, and ambiance of the moment it touches your lips, is vital in today’s beer market. Beer poured into the right glass that properly calls out the brewery’s design and logo contributes to a well-executed brand identity and puts you ahead of the proverbial pack. It also makes the experience of drinking the beer much more pleasurable, and make the occasion worth seeking out again for your average beer drinker.

It’s why you never forget a perfect pint of Guinness.

SO CAN THIS IDEA WORK? HERE’S THE MATH.

In theory, yes. I recently spoke with Jay Brown, a craft beer distributor and producer of the Cheers Charlotte podcast; and Pat O’Brien, former owner of the Casual Pint in Farragut, Tennessee on why the branding funnel doesn’t end more with branded glassware. Cost, theft and abundance of choice seem to be the biggest culprits.

Brown estimates that in order for a brewery to keep one of its busier accounts stocked with enough basic glassware to withstand random breakage, theft and peak times at the bar, that brewery would need to send the bar four cases of branded shaker pints a week. Each case costs $25, so that’s $100 a week or $5,200 annualized PER bar that it serves your beer. This isn’t including the glassware that it uses at its own facility. Specialty or functional glassware would start to run, at minimum, $40 a case, $160 per week or a whopping $8,320 a year per bar. Suddenly, branded glassware becomes a major line item on the budget. Additionally, theft cannot be underestimated. Everybody loves a great beer glass, and if you dig deep into your own experience as a beer drinker, you’ve probably stolen at least one glass from a brewery or bar in your lifetime. Brown estimates that breweries lose, on average, $1,000 a month in stolen glassware at the brewery, including the more expensive functional glassware like tulips for high gravity beers and Teku glasses for sours. There are also very relevant legal concerns to consider, namely the fact that a lot of states don’t allow suppliers (breweries) to give accounts anything of value, including glassware, as that is equivalent to incentivizing purchase.

So the question remains…are all of these costs, and legal constraints, as outrageous as they sound or is this a viable marketing investment?

Choice is the not-so-obvious issue. It seems the days are long gone when a bar would have four to six taps, with the same brands of glassware, making it easy to stay stocked. O’Brien mentioned bars are staying competitive by upping the amount of taps. More taps means more variety, and while that variety is great for the consumer, it makes the branding harder to control.

Brown feels that while breweries can control the branding funnel with branded and functional glassware on-site, the costs for some brewers may be too much to put stock into thinking about it in the near future. This gives the edge to brewery taprooms in many ways, which is another problem for traditional on-premise drinking establishments.

However, both Brown and O’Brien agree, should a brand see the full potential of owning the branding experience from fermenter to tap, the investment in those basic, branded shaker pint glasses would ensure that your customer would see you at happy hour, and past the line item on the menu that caused them to order your beer in the first place.

Regardless of function, cost, or need, this is an open opportunity in the beer business. In any other industry in America, innovative and creative products fight for identity. It’s a shame that some of the most innovative and creative products coming out of the American beer scene are being presented to consumers anonymously, minimizing the brand, the experience, and the potential revenue.