Most people have heard the East Coast vs. West Coast IPA "debates." And in Germany, there are some pretty well-known regional beer "rivalries" in places like Cologne/Duesseldorf -- or even Munich and Franconia -- where the loyalists of the one city/region reject/avoid the beers of the other. I was recently talking to a distributor here who pointed out that a certain coastal city here in SC hasn't been very welcoming (in terms of sales/shelf space/opening up tap handles) of beers from the rest of the state, preferring instead to stay true to their local offerings. This got me thinking: are other people in the U.S. seeing these sorts of attitudes developing? If so, do you see this as a good or a bad thing? I think it could be a good thing in that it encourages local brand loyalty. But it might be difficult to foster such loyalty if the overall quality of local beer is noticeably lower that that of the nationally distributed "craft" beers. Thoughts?
Bells vs founders Harpoon vs Sam Adams Stone vs ballast point. Maybe it's just a battle between reps though
OP... this may be hard to pull apart because of the distributors involvement. They have business interests that may cause what is seemingly a regional competition, but is in fact a distribution turf war. To have this true answer, I think you have to strip this out somehow, or give it the proper weight in the argument.
I can see that. Then again, the city in question is notoriously pretty insular (some might say snobby), so that almost certainly plays some role. Thought there may be similar situations out there....
Maybe this will make some sense... Take my market for example, Tampa area. With CCB leading the way in terms of brand recognition, other breweries have started to make a name for themselves (Cycle, Rapp, etc). The same can be said of Miami in a number of ways. Though there may not be a CCB-like brewery in Miami yet (I think Funky Budha is on their way), there is a definite sense of within each area. And each area is in a sense competing to be the "best in Florida". This be a way to start pulling this apart.
In CT I don't see a lot of NEBCO on the shelves. At least in Fairfield Co. I see a lot of Back East, T. Hooker, Black Hog and Two Roads. There is only one place that carries several NEBCO beers so I go out of my way for it. I am wondering now if this has something to do with the OP? I know nothing about how beer gets from the brewery to the store.
I think most of the time, at least between breweries, the rivalry is friendly. I've volunteered at a bunch of fests, and seeing the brewery folks greeting each other is fun - they're almost all friends with each other and always supportive of what each other is doing. Of course there are a few exceptions here and there, but there always are in businesses. I can't say the same between distributors (don't have enough experiences with them) or retail stores (ditto) though.
Colorado beers vs. midwestern transplants. (Yes, I'm joking. This relates to a couple long threads in the Mountain Forum)
I don't think it is difficult to foster local brand loyalty, especially with social media and some of the commonly held values of newer drinkers (Millennials). If anything I wish the opposite trend to be the case, that more places went with the best regional beers available in a given state instead of giving a sort of default bias towards local because it is local. Obviously I think local for local sake is a bad thing, especially when you live adjacent to some of the best beer states in the country. For those who live in those great beer states, then most of the above may not apply.
I would say Portland vs Seattle, but I don't think it's really a rivalry. We see just as many Washington beers in Portland as they see Oregon beers in Seattle. The PNW is pretty united when it comes to beer along with most other things. PNW v SoCal might be more of a rivalry, but it's not like we don't see plenty of SoCal beer here. More a question of who makes the better beer. They're both pretty damn good though so hard to say for sure, but probably the PNW.
If local brand quality output is subpar to other state or regional options, then the best way to win the local population is through cheaper beer offering to their local residents. Not necessary in our current state of union as local residents are sheepishly keeping the subpar/overpriced local brewers pumping out at full capacity through localism buying rationale.
Nothing around here... Norfolk has Smartmouth + O'Connor, but I detect no rivalry between them. They even did a collab a while ago: Treaty of Ghent. Same in VA Beach, you have Reaver Beach, Young Vets, and Back Bay. No real competition among them either. The only beer rivalry I remember is when BrewDog and (name escapes me) were trying to brew the highest ABV beer, and that wasn't even a local rivalry.
RVA is 757's rival, they're always looking down their noses at us! It's always been the same though, music scene, art scene, beer scene, we're just dumb squidtown to them. They do have a point, though...
