traditional brews versus "craft"

I agree with the fact that traditional beers tend to be overlooked in comparison to new craft beers. Imo, there are few reasons for that.
First, I tend to share the same point as @Georgefox meaning that most of the people tend to choose beers according to the breweries they know or that they have heard of rather than looking for a particular style.It is not my personal choice as I would rather try a style by tasting the "flagship(s)" to get an overall idea.
Additionally, I am also convinced that availability plays a major role in creating this "phenomena". Traditional beers are usually easier to get because brewed at higher scale, available at predictable period of the year and every year while craft breweries usually focus on diversity/variety and keeping on creating new brews at a lower scale.

I guess the demand/supply for traditional beers is more steady than for hyped craft beers which lead people to overlook them thinking that they ll be able to get it whenever they want. It kind of sounds like procrastinating the opportunity to drink a great traditional beer in order to not miss on what s being brewed currently.

 

Um... ISO!

 

The fundamental nature of marketing is to find out what consumers want or think may be missing from their lives and let them know you can offer or provide it. It doesn't guarantee brand loyalty or drive sales by compelling people to like or continue to use your product no matter what the business says or does.

If it were otherwise there couldn't be so many examples of failures of marketing campaigns, e.g., in the US, several Bud Light drinkers quite vocally rejected the "removes no from your vocabulary for the night" campaign, forcing them to change it, e.g., Walmart would still have a major presence in Germany to name only two.

 

American beer culture is abysmal.
IPA, IPA, IPA.
Standing in line for beer.
Blindly supporting new Nanos.

Is it predominantly an age bracket that defines the new standard of beer and the dismissal of classics? From BA and Untappd to Facebook and the local movement, seems to be large contingency of Millennials involved. Appears US has approximately 83M or more than quarter of total population in that definition.

 

Seems like trying to get their products into stores nationwide could be a wise marketing strategy, IMO.
I don't think Crew Republic are going to win over the folks who only drink at say...Uerige or Augustiner. However, if they can get into stores all over the country, they really don't have to. At least not exclusively.
If I were opening a brewery of any sort in Germany (traditional or otherwise), I'd likely go the path of least resistance. If I'm only competing with locals, large pils, and imports at the store - that's probably the route I'd go. Especially if I can't compete strictly on price. I'd shoot for different flavors and aesthetic.

 

I definitely agree that my argument is not valid for german traditional beer scene, I had in mind Belgian and Dutch beers as I do not have any opinion and few knowledge on german beers ( apart from hefeweizen and rauch).

If you look at Trappist and traditional belgian beers, they are available in pretty much any store in Western Europe like Weihenstephaner or Schneider would be.

If you look at the Netherlands for instance , it is more difficult to get a single time imperial stout release from De Molen/Emelisse for instance than getting a La Trappe Quadrupel. This is what I meant by the availability factors

Concerning seasonality, new craft breweries tend to have less consistency in seasonality than traditional breweries imo.
For instance, if you take De Dolle/La Chouffe, you can expect when they ll release their seasonals while for new breweries, I think it is more difficult as they are always bringing up new brews

Obviously, some breweries will have single time seasonal only available at the brewery but that reaches a really tiny "market" per say. Cantillon on-site beers is another example

This is what I observed in Belgian/The Netherlands. I totally agree with the marketing part, new breweries are definitely "better" (not to say bigger) at creating needs than traditional ones. As a counterpart, I ld say that it benefits to the one that are interested in the traditionals

 

I think the traditional places probably just stick to what they do best - serving their local market. I'm not sure how the German beer distribution system works (it's likely not 3-tier like the US one), but it seems like only the larger players send significant quantities outside of their general region. For instance, I don't think I saw many Franconian beers in Munich or Dusseldorf. Ditto with non-Diebels Alt down south.

De Dolle and De Struise were around in Brussels, but only at beer-centric places. 3F is located 15 minutes from central Brussels but is barely around unless you look pretty hard. La Chouffe was more common than any of those three.
On the other hand, Westy 8 and 12 are literally everywhere, but are 12-18 Euros a bottle.