The Tiresome Tap Takeover Trend

Bars host them. Beer geeks freak out over them. We hate them.

Yes, you read correctly. We hate tap takeovers, and we’re not alone. There’s a growing number of people who believe that these takeovers—often pitched with the vacuous fervor of a “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!” mega monster truck madness rally—are doing more harm than good. (We’re talking about substantial takeovers here, not the occupation of two or three taps.)

So, what’s the problem with this growing trend?

• Some brewers we’ve talked to actually hate doing them, but overzealous reps and bars do them anyway.
• In many cases, the bar hosting the takeover doesn’t regularly serve the invading breweries’ beers on tap during the rest of the year.
• Takeovers temporarily knock other craft beers off the taps.
• If the beers don’t kick during the event, “temporary” can mean days, even weeks, especially with larger takeovers, like the infamous “total tap takeover.”
• Regular patrons might not be into the takeover itself, let alone its leftovers.
• Questions of quality come into play, with both the invaders on tap and those that are waiting to get re-tapped, as kegs sit around gathering dust.
• Bars that weren’t picked for the takeover can get mighty jealous, splintering the community.

Basically, it’s all a marketing gimmick that disrupts a bar’s natural rotation of beer, its subsequent business as customers tire of the same leftover beers, and the business of fellow craft brewers; overall, tap takeovers leave bad tastes in mouths.

Solution? Glad you asked. Brewers should focus on meeting demands within their current markets, pulling out of what they can’t handle, increasing the quality of their beers and telling their accounts that they’re totally tired of the tap takeover trend.

Respect Beer. ■