For our 70th Session, our host is David J. Bascombe, who writes Good Morning …, a blog about beer, mostly. His topic is all about the hype surrounding certain beers, and whether it’s warranted or not, whether it changes peoples’ perceptions of the beer, and what effect this all has in the modern beer landscape. Here’s David story cautioning everyone to be careful so they Don’t Believe The Hype:
Back in the summer, I shared a bottle of Westvleteren 12 with my brother and my father. Whilst I was aware of it’s reputation as “best beer in the world”, they were not. Whilst we all enjoyed it, we all agreed that we much preferred the other beer we had that night. The question that came into my head was this…
If I had told them it was the best beer in the world, would their perceptions have changed?
How much does hype have an effect? Are we much better off knowing nothing about a beer, or is it better to have the knowledge as to what the best beers are?
Which beers do you think have been overhyped? How do you feel when a beer doesn’t live up to it’s hype.
Is hype a good or bad thing for beer? Tell me what you think.
So I thought I’d at least hype the next session. Be here with your thoughts next month.
So weigh in with your own hype on Friday, December 7.
Hype-schmype – the less, the better, as far as I’m concerned. We beer geex have our personal likes & dislikes after tasting however many commercial brews we could afford/were given gifts/free samples of, plus all the homebrews. The diff btwn us & the wannabes is that we’re far less influenced by hype than they are – for us, it’s more about curiosity to try something we’ve not ever had than hopping on the latest “fadwagon”.
The breweries (be they independent or part of a conglomerate) have the right to promote themselves to up their sales; the consumers have the choice to buy or not to buy, which is as it should be. The problem for the craft world is that, unless they have a “sugar daddy” (a la Sam Adams) or got a deal from a conglomerate that lets them do their thing & kicks in some ad $$ (yet to be seen – is there a Goose Island ad coming for the Super Bowl now that InBev owns them?), they’re SOL & rely on word-of-mouth & small ads in pubs like the Celebrator.