Hello from Stone Brewing Berlin

Just drank some New Glarus strawberry-rhubarb beer this past weekend...

 

Isn't Fass Brause an N/A menu option? I thought it was like a lemonade or something.

 

It is. It used to be a Berlin or east german thing, und was unhead of in western germany.
Sometime around 2009 or so, Gaffel made something called Fassbrause. It was like an alcohol free Radler, but was labeled very modern and stylish, and was a huge success. Many brewers followed with their own products, like Zunft, Veltins and Bitburger.
It has to be said that the west-german modern Fassbrause is always flavored with something. From the eastern version, there are "non flavoured"versions as well, and the flavoured ones are usually always raspberry and woodruff, like with Berliner Weiße

 

So typical for the German brewing world: one guy has success (Gaffel) and suddenly all must follow suit. A former colleague who works now at Veltin's contacted me about 1.5 yrs ago looking for American versions of Faßbrause, which I sent. Crazy.

 

From the other, locked thread:

"I have a ton of respect for Stone and Greg. I realize that in 90's it was a different world and that type of "us vs. them" marketing was exactly what was needed to gain traction. The cool thing is, Stone doesn't need to use it anymore. Their beer speaks for itself."

100% agree with this. Stone's beers are as solid as they come. Sadly, I suspect the reason they keep with the "us vs. them" marketing is for many of the same reasons places like Bud, Miller, and Coors stick with the tried-and-trusted and don't experiment/"innovate": because the good thing they have going still works.

 

I'm no marketing savant, but it seems to me you could make the case that, with US craft at only a 10% share of the market give or take, there's still ample room to go on the attack, as it were, against BMC. Whether you or I prefer this particular strategy is a different issue (or, more relevant to this discussion, whether you think that strategy is particularly well suited for employment in a country like Germany). Natural cynic that I am, I tend to roll my eyes at most marketing, adversarial (Stone) or not, so their stuff never really bugged me, nor does it now. I just can't help but feel this is yet another one of those moments when we beer nerds -- anyone who's bothered to join BA I think rightly qualifies -- forget that we represent a tiny sliver of the beer-drinking population in the US. BMC still rules the land, and it ain't even close. As long as that's true, I don't see why Stone would go away from the brand/ethos they've carved out for themselves. Again, whether that's an apropos strategy in Germany is a different thing altogether.

 

I see their advertising strategy as being more like "love it or hate it" vs. "okay". At this point, Stone has the option of brewing beers that would be easily accessible for anyone, even the most tender-paletted. The result would be a mediocre beer that lots of people would drink, but few people would get excited for. Instead, Stone opts to brew beer that 95% of the population might hate because the remaining 5% love it. I think this mentality is not subject to becoming obsolete.

 

I look at Stone as still fighting a battle vs. the macro lager brewers of the world. If you read a lot of interviews with Jim Koch, he's fighting that same battle. It relates to what was going on when they got started, but also a part of the market they can battle and take marketshare away from. It's tough to really "attack" hundreds of craft breweries when they probably have similar motivations and tastes to your own. At the same time, the big boys still own something like 80% of the market and they're doing it with their light swill in most instances.
People are starting to wise up about better beer options and that's a prime time for Stone to gain their loyal business instead of dozens of smaller operations. I still think their message (intentionally arrogant as it might be) holds weight against the big brewers here in the states.
Germany seems like a very different animal and I have no idea what will happen there. I'm actually really interested in following what happens. While I'm a firm believer in the Bavarian brewery traditions (even the bigger places), I'm all for Stone taking marketshare from the larger "TV pils" factory brewers, too. It'll be interesting to see if they can.

 

No worries...it's positive press for sure!

Most of these pieces (at least the ones I have seen) do make a point of calling out the conglomerates for dumbing down their beer -- and I think it's very important for Germans to know that has happened. That said, as the one person in the piece mentions, the era of big acquisitions seems to have ended around 2000 or so.

With that era over, and with the increased attention on the big boys to stop with the short-cuts, they might even start to make moves in the direction of giants like Subway and even McDonald's and vow to drop all of the cheap stuff in an effort to win back public trust.

And for as much as there is talk about it, I just don't see the Reinheitsgebot being repealed (the piece mentions the RHG as well, of course). If it were repealed or even loosened, I think that would inevitably lead to an even further drop in quality among the main producers at this critical juncture.

I, for one, would see that as a very bad thing -- for as much as those beers have suffered over the past few decades, they remain IMO of a far higher quality than their non-RHG counterparts. In fact, many lauded "craft" lagers over here are on the level of Oettinger over there. So I really hope the "craft" vs. macro model doesn't get played up -- or played out -- over there the way it is here.

Just my (again unsolicited) $0.02.

 

I'm heard good things from come contacts in Berlin:

http://www.kaschk.de/

 

Hello Greg!

I'm a graduate student at Georgetown University. I'm doing a presentation in class about Stone Brewing's content strategy in a couple weeks. I'll be analyzing how you guys are communicating to your audience and who you guys are speaking to. I had a few questions about where stone has come from, since you've launched in 1996 and where you see the brewery going. It's very communication/audience specific. Would love to know what you think if you wouldn't ind answering a quick 2-3 questions. I'll buy you a beer if you're ever passing through Washington D.C.

You can reach me at [email protected] Thank you SO much in advance!

Brian

 

So I managed to wiggle out of my plans to go to Kiel - more actually because I've been traveling too much over the past few months - I can't remember the last time I was home on a weekend. Unfortunately (or fortunately ) while I was off climbing in the Alps last weekend my wife was in Berlin and couldn't resist the peer pressure to come back this weekend for the Stone event.

So I'll be there - if any other BAers are, feel free to say hi. I'll be wearing... [rummages through his closet to see what's clean] ... a grey Hill Farmstead t-shirt, and have a beard that's halfway between the epicness of Greg's and something that's well kept. Okay, maybe a quarter of the way. My real name is Jim in case anybody else feels strange about walking up to somebody and asking, "Are you pthread1981?".

Looking forward to it!

 

Hello Brian,

Greg apologizes that he is a bit tied up at the moment in Berlin, but I’d be happy to help you out! Just send the questions you have for him to [email protected] and I’ll be able to get answers. And feel free to shoot me a message if you need anything else!

Cheers,

Stephanie

 

Ha, I was impressed you remembered!

It was a great event, I had a lot of fun and am glad we made the trek from Bremen. I really enjoyed the bourbon barrel aged Arrogant Bastard, and Enjoy By never disappoints. It was fun to make friends back in the US jealous that I was drinking Pliny in Berlin too. It was so much fun seeing American micros I know and love mixing with the Berlin scene that I've seen grow so much over the last few years. Was great seeing Shoppe Bräu and Vagabund there, and I hadn't yet had Lenny's and really enjoyed the coffee cream ale from them.

There was even Mahr's from Bamberg, so something to make even herrburgess happy! The home brewing tent was great too. You just had a sense of it being a great mix of all aspects of the beer scene in Berlin as it has been and will be. It was also cool seeing we weren't the only ones traveling from out of town for the event - we met people from Poland and Amsterdam for example.

So yeah, great event and I'm excited to come back when the place is open!

 

Very promising Greg @StoneGreg keep it going....

 

[QUOTE="I'm hearing the word traditionelle Brauerei, or Ur-Brauerei ".[/QUOTE]
"Traditionelle Brauerei" is the proper term. Lechner's Liste, the reference book for old breweries, has it as a subtitle.
Ur-Brauerei is not a common term. You find "Ur-" as a part of a brand name quite often, meaning "old-style".
Like Ur-Weisse (Erdinger), Urquell (Pilsener), Urbock (Schlenkerla), Urtyp (Astra), Urtrunk and 100 others.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pECvucpBL._SX301_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

 

I have the book Lechners Liste. It's quite authoritative and was printed before many of the German Craftbeer start ups had, well, started up. I have mostly heard the Traditionelle Brauer term used, but I've still them referred to by mostly hipsters with still wet beer behind their ears in the craft scene in FFM as Ur-Brauer, but that's probably because they're hipsters.

Another point I'd like to mention to Greg is that both Craftbeer as a term and a beverage is seeping into the mainstream consciousness. The mention of the term Craftbeer doesn't elicit ONLY blank stares any more;rather, up to 30% I come into contact with (I meet A LOT of people monthly from a huge swath of German society as an English teacher) are familiar with the term and/or concept of Craftbeer, but I would say only 3% have ever tried it. Doesn't sound like a lot, but comparison with just a few years ago, that at least a 200% jump in numbers mentioned in this post. So Greg, your place will open just when the tide is beginning to come in. That's why I think StoneBerlin will be successful.