So here's your topic for the day. I just returned from my west coast beer adventure and I continually came across the same confusing question. I spoke to many west coast beer lovers. All of these guys appeared to be well beer-educated and all were lovers of many different breweries. Now on the east coast we're all aware of Stone, Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Alesmith, Firestone, Karl Strauss, Green Flash, Russian River and many other fine west coast beers...BUT...you'd be amazed at how many west coast beer lovers had never heard of Troegs, Weyerbacher, Victory, Stoudts, even Bells. I tried to talk Nugget Nectar, Caged 2x-Simcoe and Hopslam and almost everyone I spoke to had never heard of any of them. How is it that Pliny is a legend on the east coast but the west coast has never heard of Nugget Nectar, HopSlam or Double-Simcoe? This is certainly not a comparison of one beer being better than the other, but a comparison of beer markets and beer awareness. Any thoughts out there as to why this may be? Please comment...
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So here's your topic for the day. I just returned from my west coast beer adventure and I continually came across the same confusing question. I spoke to many west coast beer lovers. All of these guys appeared to be well beer-educated and all were lovers of many different breweries. Now on the east coast we're all aware of Stone, Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Alesmith, Firestone, Karl Strauss, Green Flash, Russian River and many other fine west coast beers...BUT...you'd be amazed at how many west coast beer lovers had never heard of Troegs, Weyerbacher, Victory, Stoudts, even Bells. I tried to talk Nugget Nectar, Caged 2x-Simcoe and Hopslam and almost everyone I spoke to had never heard of any of them. How is it that Pliny is a legend on the east coast but the west coast has never heard of Nugget Nectar, HopSlam or Double-Simcoe? This is certainly not a comparison of one beer being better than the other, but a comparison of beer markets and beer awareness. Any thoughts out there as to why this may be? Please comment...
Hopefully they are living by the adage of "drink local" and our guys are not sending their beer all the way across the country (and burning fossil fuels in the process).
ReplyDeleteBut it's probably that they are just snobs and think what they have over there is the best, and there is no need to look east. I get a bit of that tude when I am out there.
Thanks Lee...I certainly agree with the drink local concept, but we can;t really get Russian River out here, but we're all aware of it. I was amazed how many people had no clue who Troegs, Weyerbacher and Bells were. While I did meet a few guys with theat west-coast-bravado (why would we want your beers) attitude..it was not common. Most of these guys were very interested when I spoke of Nugget Nectar, Hopslam and 2xSimcoe....they just had never heard of them. Is the west coast doing a better job of marketing their beers to the east coast than we are?
ReplyDeleteJust my guess but a couple of things are probably going on here, first our breweries have huge markets nearby, troegs (still a small brewery) just went into NYC because they were stretched taking care of HBG, then philly, etc. Weyerbacher is close to philly and NYC. There are just more people and more markets here and our breweries tend to be smaller and more concerned with taking care of our markets and all the density/population. I really dont think Troegs or Stoudts or yards is going to bother marketing in areas that they are not selling.
ReplyDeleteAs far as why they haven't *heard* of our beers, well I guess they are just not into the whole beer experience. There's a lot more to do out in the west coast and people tend to be a little less zealous or more laid back. Maybe they just dont spend as much time immersed in the beer "world."
anyway, those are just some thoughts... it's an interesting topic to speculate on though.
P.S. No doubt they are aware of the imminent re-release of Liebotschaner Cream ale and are probably secretly chomping at the bit to get some!
Good points Lee....Some had heard of Yuengling, but not many. They all appeared to be big-time beer-heads, which I think was why I was surprised so much. I've never seen a Lost Abbey advertisement here, but I know about their beers. Not sure they;re on the Lieb bandwagon yet.
ReplyDeleteActually a very good question, MBB, but I have no idea why this might be, other than the potential center of the beer universe (as far as they're concerned) is the west coast, and nobody else better give them s#!t about it!
ReplyDeletePerhaps they actually have no idea, and it could really be holding them back!
Perhaps we should be planning the First Annual mybberbuzz.com West Coast tastes East Coast Beer Festival.
ReplyDeleteAll East Coast beeers served on the west coast. I guarantee they woun't forget us after that.
LOL @ Right Coast beers on the Left Coast Festival
ReplyDelete