Barrel-aged stout and selling out

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phildo79

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Working my way through this book and it is an interesting read. Haven't been reading it long but I am at the section that refers to Anheuser-Busch's attempt to gain a foothold in the 'craft' beer market. The similarities between what they did in the 90s compared to what Guinness (Diageo) are doing in Ireland now is incredible.

Marketing - It's all about marketing. Social media, TV, billboards, beer mats etc.
Shelf space - We want more, not what we had and certainly not less.
Dubious claims - Here is a 100 year old recipe that we stumbled across (presumably down the back of the sofa).
Buzzwords - Hops (more, more, more), history, tradition, character, Citra.
Unquestioned loyalty - This is our new beer, you will be selling this in your offy / pub as of next week.
Sh1t on the little guys - Emphasis how long you've been around, how successful you are. Do that and people will think you must really know your stuff when it comes to beer.
Embed yourself with another (diverse) brewery - Because what sane person wouldn't want to mix Guinness with a cherry lambic beer?

And last and most certainly least.

The 'liquid' - Don't make bad beer but we don't need to overthink things. People will drink what we tell them to drink.

Me thinks Guinness picked up a thing or two from Budweiser.
 
Working my way through this book and it is an interesting read. Haven't been reading it long but I am at the section that refers to Anheuser-Busch's attempt to gain a foothold in the 'craft' beer market. The similarities between what they did in the 90s compared to what Guinness (Diageo) are doing in Ireland now is incredible.

Marketing - It's all about marketing. Social media, TV, billboards, beer mats etc.
Shelf space - We want more, not what we had and certainly not less.
Dubious claims - Here is a 100 year old recipe that we stumbled across (presumably down the back of the sofa).
Buzzwords - Hops (more, more, more), history, tradition, character, Citra.
Unquestioned loyalty - This is our new beer, you will be selling this in your offy / pub as of next week.
Sh1t on the little guys - Emphasis how long you've been around, how successful you are. Do that and people will think you must really know your stuff when it comes to beer.
Embed yourself with another (diverse) brewery - Because what sane person wouldn't want to mix Guinness with a cherry lambic beer?

And last and most certainly least.

The 'liquid' - Don't make bad beer but we don't need to overthink things. People will drink what we tell them to drink.

Me thinks Guinness picked up a thing or two from Budweiser.
Looks interesting. Just finished James Morton's offering (which I didn't enjoy- review to follow), reread Stan Hieronymus on hops (which I did enjoy) and now completely out of improving literature so might well order a copy and report back later. Thanks for the tip.
 
Bud is rubbish. Guinness has diminished into near on rubbish....they seem to be following this very well.
People in work rave on about Hop House 13....it's a hoppy lager you know ..they didn't like it at first but could get used to it. I says if you like hops try the other stuff not on the lager section...Shock and horror....too expensive and don't taste like lager...
 
The big boys will always do well when it comes to profit margins.
Bud, Guinness, Coors, McDonald’s, Nike, Adidas, Apple, Microsoft – none of these companies are going bust any time soon. And the reason is because they have truly great marketing and the wealth to afford to get things wrong.
 
Bud is rubbish. Guinness has diminished into near on rubbish....they seem to be following this very well.
People in work rave on about Hop House 13....it's a hoppy lager you know ..they didn't like it at first but could get used to it. I says if you like hops try the other stuff not on the lager section...Shock and horror....too expensive and don't taste like lager...

Aside from the mega corp ****, personally I dont think bud is rubbish. It is what it it is, a light drinking lawnmower beer. Certaintainly not "The king of beers". It's price point should reflect that and be lower than other beers because of what it is ('spoons do this, irc, it's only £2 a pint which is very low when you see other keg beers on average in London are £5). To me it's like saying water is **** because it doesnt taste of anything. If youbuy a bottle of water from the supermarket and its 45p then you see another brand of water for £1.50 because its made from the 'tears of mermaids'. It's the consumers fault for falling for the marketing BS. You get what you pay for (or should)
 
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That's the problem though, isn't it. These days you aren't getting what you've paid for. You feel like you've been ripped off. People assign the expense of something to the quality of it. Because that seems logical. But more and more these days, it appears the price of a beer has little to do with the quality of it.

This doesn't make me want to buy Bud but at least you know what you're getting, I suppose.
 
and don't imagine you're safe just because you're a home brewer.....
I was in Vannes (France) yesterday and popped into a branch of a well-known chain of eco charlatans to while away 20 minutes. I see they've started doing home-brew kits and selling home-brew books. Look at the kit in the box. It purports to make up 2.5 litres of lager for £49.99 euros. That's 20 euros a litre for something I am sure will be barely drinkable. BUT it's organic! The second photo shows what I take to be the contents of the box. The demi-john kit next to it makes a similar amount, but it's their all-grain offering at 59.99 euros!!!!
 

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I was in Vannes (France) yesterday and popped into a branch of a well-known chain of eco charlatans to while away 20 minutes. I see they've started doing home-brew kits and selling home-brew books. Look at the kit in the box. It purports to make up 2.5 litres of lager for £49.99 euros. That's 20 euros a litre for something I am sure will be barely drinkable. BUT it's organic! The second photo shows what I take to be the contents of the box. The demi-john kit next to it makes a similar amount, but it's their all-grain offering at 59.99 euros!!!!

It's unbelievable how these corps try to rip you off. I was in M&S yesterday and bought a 1L bottle of their no sugar fiery ginger beer for 88p. As I was walking to the checkout to pay I notice a 500ml bottle of the same stuff for £1.25!
It was next to the sandwich section so I'm guessing whoever thinks these things up thought that people buying their lunch would grab a sandwich and bottle of the more expensive GB and not bother to walk a couple of meters further into the shop and see the cheaper stuff
 
Huge research has gone into this sort of thing. Retailers use many tricks in order for you to part with more money.

Don't price something at £10. Price it at £9.99
Place items you are looking rid of at the ends of the isles, where you're more likely to see it.
Pay more for the convenience of getting your sandwich and drink from the same shelf.
Adorn the check-out area with small items you may have forgotten about during your shop.

And my personal favourite - Beware the decoy price.
Medium sized popcorn = £1. Large sized popcorn = £1.20 (now wouldn't you be just crazy to buy the medium popcorn?)
 
The supermarkets are great at ripping us off. Have you noticed fruit and veg is priced by the kilo and also each to confuse you plus the scales as disappearing so you can’t tell if the 500grm bag is cheaper than the buying three of something individually priced.

When Tesco had their value range I noticed the stuff was often more expensive than non value.

Went to buy a bottle of Bombay Saphire in Tescos a while back and the litre bottle was more expensive per litre than the 750ml presumably as people just grab the larger bottle assuming it is cheaper but I bought two 500ml which were cheaper still. Bonkers.
 
I listened to this book on Audible whilst working. It was a cracking book, and fairly clearly lays out the power of money and it's influence.

Regarding pricing and supermarkets etc.... it's a repeating truth across the ages that you should take care and put a little effort into checking what you are paying for and how much you are paying. My Father was quite good at that, and despite my protestations as a child that he was wasting good money on cigarettes when he could be buying and funding my passage through Karting into Formula 1 instead.... he was quite good at spotting these marketing cons. We tend to ignore our parents as kids as clearly they are stupid but I learnt quite early on that shops weren't doing you any favours if you didn't pay attention.
 
Huge research has gone into this sort of thing. Retailers use many tricks in order for you to part with more money.

Don't price something at £10. Price it at £9.99
Place items you are looking rid of at the ends of the isles, where you're more likely to see it.
Pay more for the convenience of getting your sandwich and drink from the same shelf.
Adorn the check-out area with small items you may have forgotten about during your shop.

And my personal favourite - Beware the decoy price.
Medium sized popcorn = £1. Large sized popcorn = £1.20 (now wouldn't you be just crazy to buy the medium popcorn?)

I was running through my phone's old photos the other day. I found a picture I'd taken in Tescos a few years back of a ready meal side dish that was priced at £1. It was in the mark downs for close to sell by date, and was marked down twice from £1.89, to £1.29 to £1.09! Now it was a marking mistake, as the £1 price(which it was still marked as for) was a temporary price reduction, the full normal price being £1.89. The staff memebr had probably just scanned it and been recommended to mark down and had applied x and y discounts to the full price instead of £1. The point is though, that people were buying these items! I saw one in someone's basket and alerted them! Tesco wins both ways because it's made more money that it declares.
 
I was running through my phone's old photos the other day. I found a picture I'd taken in Tescos a few years back of a ready meal side dish that was priced at £1. It was in the mark downs for close to sell by date, and was marked down twice from £1.89, to £1.29 to £1.09! Now it was a marking mistake, as the £1 price(which it was still marked as for) was a temporary price reduction, the full normal price being £1.89. The staff memebr had probably just scanned it and been recommended to mark down and had applied x and y discounts to the full price instead of £1. The point is though, that people were buying these items! I saw one in someone's basket and alerted them! Tesco wins both ways because it's made more money that it declares.

I'm not sure what that would have gone through the till as - it might have applied the 80p discount to the £1 price.

My mum was in tesco a few years back and they were doing 2-for-1 on hot cross buns. But having made a few too many they reduced them down to a silly price - like 20p a pack or something. My mum bought a couple of packs which rang through the till - first as 20p, second as 20p, then the till calculated the BOGOF reduction of 80p (based on original price) - so the checkout dolly was left scratching her head as to whether she actually had to give my mum 60p.
 
That's the problem though, isn't it. These days you aren't getting what you've paid for. You feel like you've been ripped off. People assign the expense of something to the quality of it. Because that seems logical. But more and more these days, it appears the price of a beer has little to do with the quality of it.

This doesn't make me want to buy Bud but at least you know what you're getting, I suppose.

apart from wanting to make big bucks marketing adds to the cost of the product. I read somewhere, cant remember where sorry (too much hb) that each car sold £300 was advertising, so in effect you could be paying to be persuaded to drink bland **** :eek:

I'm immune to such merde these days. The monday film on 4 proudly sponsored by mazda... wtf!!! I already have a mazda, I bought it because it looked good drove well and has a great spec. NOT because it's on before some great films.

hey, I bet suzuki weren't impressed sponsoring ant & dec's saturday night after the erm, drink driving thing... oops!
 
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