German beer market

Is that with some sort of deposit?

What I saw on their website is:

· Helles: 17.99€

· Kellerbier: 15.99€

· Weisse: 17.99€

· Starkbier: 18.99€

https://starnberger-brauhaus.de/gaumenfreuden

Do you have any insight on why they can price a ‘regular’ beer like Helles at a premium price?

Cheers!

 

Yeah that's with deposit (which is like 1.6 Euro if I'm not mistaken), shipping and handling. I guess we would need to see some retail pricing to see what the price to most consumers is to see what the "premium" of these beers is. I don't know why, but the question intrigues me. Then again I'm not sure that there exists a rational explanation for why certain beer brands become hot while others stagnate or decline. Whim and happenstance seem to play a role oftentimes.

 

I am unfamiliar with the German (European) beer market but in the States what seems to get beer brands to be "hot" is some aspect of 'shiny new thing'. For the case of a pastry stout a flavoring ingredient that has a unique aspect to it. As regards hoppy beers the utilization of a shit ton of hops (has anybody advertised triple dry hopped yet?) and adding other stuff (fruit, lactose) seems to make these beers "hot". Would introducing a Helles to non-Bavarian German markets be perceived as being shiny and new?

There is no doubt that plays a role as well. A number of years ago Pabst Blue Ribbon became quite popular particularly with the hipster (counter-culture) crowd. It seemed that the fact that PBR was not advertised and was therefore the anti-Bud or the anti-Miller High Life was what made this beer alluring to a segment of the beer market. How any business can predict this sort of aspect is beyond my understanding. Simply a case of luck?

Cheers!

 

have you been there looking the last year?It's nationwide I think
Aldi has the reeper.b line where no one knows where its coming from,
Lidl has a full range of Eichbaum stuff with like 3 different IPAs as regular beers.
No one offs, standard stuff,which you see quite often out in the wild...

 

No, i live in the southwest and it's everywhere. Has been also in other parts of germany. Seems like it's all over the map now

 

Concerning Starnberger Brauhaus, I get what Krombacher is doing. It's all about marketing. Krombacher has a national footprint and a wide distribution network, and if you look at the marketing, it's clear they're going for Heimat, or home-country-feeling, as a marketing gimmick. This is for German-wide marketing.





These are all pics directly from their website. See a pattern? Bayern as a brand around Germany is seen as "authentic," as back to the roots. All the brand imaging uses the blue/white of the Bayern flag, the Urlaub or "vacation" feeling, and of course, sex with the Dirndls, familiarity in the old guy in Lederhosen, but rebels also: older hipster/punkers. Their target market is hipsters, young professionals, city folk, all 20 to 40 somethings on this Heimat nostalgia. The small local brewers in Bayern don't sell on this overall marketing strategy. Again, it's marketing over product.
Stahlsturm, may he RIP, would be furious about it.

 

Tony, do you have an opinion on how effective this sort of marketing concept will work? Does Bayern 'sell' to the folks of Northern Germany? Are there any other consumable products that are marketed in this manner?

Cheers!

@Crusader

 

Unfortunately, very well, and nation-wide. It's marketing authenticity and a feeling of place to yuppies and hipsters. 'Nuf said.

 

LOL!

Cheers!

 

This is I guess the most interesting question, why not? Is it for lack of trying, or do their attempts come across as not "polished" enough, or do they fail to make much of an impression at all for whatever reason? It's ironic (and sad quite frankly) if a brand new brewery can beat centuries old breweries at their own game, though I guess a brand new brewery might come with at least some new ideas about how to sell the beer (case in point an investment from and distribution agreement with Krombacher), whereas an established brewery might fear veering off from the beaten path, even when that path is showing diminishing returns, and there possibly being a lack of marketing/salesmanship skills among the current generation of a family owned brewery where the family takes on many of the roles that are filled with professionals in a non-family owned brewery. One can't help but start to speculate.

 

It's actually quite easy to answer. The tiny, or small brewers from tiny or smaller towns have their own identity that they've built up over their own brand, either based on their town's name, a traditional name from the past or a founder's name over decades and sometimes centuries. Also, they're small and local and focus their marketing mostly on their area. Often, they're simply in Bayern a family owned Bed & Breakfast/Inn or local restaurant and that's their marketing world. There are also brands that don't get sold more than 50 Kms from the brewery. Also, they're probably not making a huge profit and barely have a marketing budget. Then, they're fighting a price war with much cheaper national brands available in supermarkets, Getränkemarkts, or kiosks which are known nation-wide.

In contrast, this behomoth, Krombacher, is a Fernsehbier, one of the giant conglomerates. There isn't a beer on the market that is a tabula rasa, where it has no connections to any specific place, name and other connections, so they can invent a brand that hits all the marketing buttons of millennials: authenticy, coolness, and nostalgia. There is no brand that markets itself simply as "Bavarian." This new brand is probably a national strategy, for the Krombacher brand is seen as grandfather's beer by millenials, and this is their stab at trying to interest this marketing group in beer. They have the cash to hire marketeers to develop a brand and the money set it up, market and distribute it nation-wide. To me, it looks like they hired a marketing agency to develop a strategy to hit the authenticy, coolness, and nostalgia desires of millennials, then develop the whole brand around this concept. The images they use look to me almost like a caricature of what Bayern is.

 

A similar marketing concept of developing a brand from absolute nothing from another Fernsehbier conglomerate is from Radeberger Gruppe, which invented Berliner Pilsner.


Same exact thing. They hired a marketing agency to develop a strategy to hit the authenticy, coolness, and nostalgia desires of millennials, then develop the whole brand around this concept. I know this because one of my English students worked for Radeberger Gruppe during the brand launch a few years ago and was part of this launch, and she basically said this same thing. Millenials aren't into the established brands, so the conglomerates are copying Bud-Inbev, Coors or Miller by inventing not crafty brands, but traditional German beer with super coolness factors. In this case, most millenials aren't interested in or thinking of experimenting with exotic, expensive craft beers, but want to branch out from the Vodka-Red Bull-like mixes and be little more adult with less alcohol drinks, but are looking for alternatives that don't remind them of uncool grandpa beers. The beer is basically like a Radeberger Pils with an invented brand with different marketing.

 

This sounds more like a rebranding rather than starting from scratch though, with its origins in DDR. Still interesting, but a different concept (there is a similar example in Sweden where a small brand owned by a cooperative, so basically communists , was turned into one of Sweden's largest beer brands with the help of a new owner and marketing).

 

Tony,

Any chance that Berliner Pilsner is exactly the same beer as Radeberger Pils?

I was replied to by @pudgym29 since I made mention of an acronym I just recently saw for the first time of SBDL (Same Beer Different Label) and he pointed out how this has been ‘a thing’ for a long time:

“…the Chicago Beer Society had an event in which the then-current Huber brewmaster Hans Kestler was prompted to talk about the beers being produced in Monroe, WI. Huber had become the repository of a number of brands and recipes from defunct breweries. We wondered how often it brewed brands like Huber, Rhinelander, Wisconsin Club, Bohemian Club, Van Merritt, Old Chicago, etc...

And you know what was the astute response from Hans?
SBDL

Yes, the 1980s.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...have-done-too-much.643827/page-2#post-6980209

Cheers!

 

You are correct. Click here to see the history from their website. The page is in English. It was started in 1963 in East Berlin in the DDR, so I stand corrected. In this case, Radeburger Gruppe bought and revived the brand instead of inventing it; nonetheless, the same logic in marketing to millenials is still valid. My student said also this marketing strategy was also aimed at breaking into the British market, but I never found out how that worked out.

 

Since Berliner Pilsner isn't available in my area, I have no way other than traveling to Berlin to compare them.

 

So, all of that marketing effort and the beer is only sold in Berlin? I suppose that adds cachet to the beer – a locavore sorta thing.

Do you remember when Coors was the sought after beer on the East Coast since it was not distributed east of the Rockies (or was this before your time)?

Cheers!

 

As per Radeberger Berliner Pilsner contains only hop extract (as does Berliner Kindl) while Radeberger and Jever contain only hops (i.e pellets). Some other brands contain both.

 

Or do they just say that it is brewed with different ingredients!?!

Cheers!

P.S. Just kidding, they appear to not be the same beer.