Like any other business, craft breweries have to stay ahead of the curve and devise new and innovative ways to market their products. Though nearly every brewery in America employs Facebook, online marketing and brand partnerships, these three breweries have found ways to stand out from the crowd.

Samuel Adams (The Boston Beer Co.)

As one of America’s largest breweries and the producer of Boston Lager, Samuel Adams has ventured into Facebook application territory with its new app, allowing Sam Adams lovers to crowdsource a new beer. Thepage allows users to choose color, density, clarity, hop bitterness and malty sweetness to create their dream beer. The winning levels from each category will go into making this new beer. It will be available in March at select bars in Austin, Texas, during South by Southwest, a large conference with lots of brand integrations and special or new releases. It’s no surprise Sam Adams decided to get in on the fun this year.

Finch’s Beer Co.

Another interesting use of marketing in the technology age is this company’s can design contest, called the Threadless IPA Design Challenge. The contest is part of Threadless, a graphic T-shirt store where users create and vote on one another’s designs, and the most popular are printed and sold. Threadless recently added a brand partnership aspect to allow outside products to be designed, which will certainly give the small brewery a much larger fan base.

Odell Brewing Co.

QR (quick response) code usage is running rampant nowadays, and it is no surprise that breweries are joining in. Odell Brewing (Colo.) featured a QR code in its Draft Magazine ad. The ad didn’t just link to its site, but also to a video about the beer and brewers. Crabtree Brewing’s (Colo.) Digital Age Series features the entire label as a QR code. The code links to a video of brewmaster Jeff Crabtree describing the beer you just scanned in detail.

By staying on top of emerging technologies, microbreweries can creatively and effectively market their beer. With smartphones and computers ruling all, we’re sure to see more interesting developments in alcoholic beverage marketing in the next few years. My Sam Adams dream brew is a brown ale with toffee-like roasted malt flavor and a bit of hop bitterness on the finish. Let me know what yours tastes like at ldsacks@syr.edu. Cheers!

—Compiled by Lucas Sacks, staff writer, ldsacks@syr.edu

Relevant Links:

 

Published on January 31, 2012 at 12:00 pm