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Rotating your beer styles is one thing, but a changing beer ecosystem is another. The idea of new, new, new that people in the beer industry saw as driving consumer fickleness was simply a monster of our own creation, and one that’s continued during the pandemic. But as discussed in last week’s newsletter, off-premise customers aren’t flocking to beer as their choice for “new” at chain retail—that’s increasingly gone toward FMBs and hard seltzer.
While newness is still a critical factor in direct-to-consumer purchasing amongst craft breweries right now, mass retail channels don’t provide such platforms, largely because consumers interpret “newness” in those channels at a category or line extension level, not within the nuanced and often subtle shifts of a craft brewer’s portfolio.
A super-fresh NE IPA with Amarillo hops? Not “new.” But a Mango CBD-infused hard seltzer? That’s “new.” The bar for “newness” is just different in mass retail. Sign up to read more.
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