Terminology and the Average Beer Drinker
Nestled in the middle of a recent dispatch at Good Beer Hunting on low-alcohol IPA, Kate Bernot quoted Cigar City’s Justin Clark.
[W]hile Jai Low was conceived as a lower-ABV version of Jai Alai (which is 7.5% ABV and contains 225 calories per 12oz. can), calling it a Session IPA wasn’t in the cards. The term “session” didn’t connect with drinkers long-term, he says, but he thinks the concept of a lower-ABV IPA is still relevant. “We’re talking about arguably the same thing in different ways,” he says. “This has a different opportunity to connect with the consumer. […] If this wellness category is here to stay, I think it’ll be a success.”
It was a perfect example of a trend I’ve been following, and gives me a chance to link to Kate’s work. (Her reporting at GBH has been the best work in beer this year. Have a look at her piece on Stone for more.) For years, craft breweries were well aware of the need to use language that would attract rather than alienate or confuse domestic lager drinkers. Not everyone, they understood, knew what “Citra DDH imperial hazy IPAs” were. In recent years, as craft beer has achieved ubiquity in America’s restaurants, pubs, and entertainment venues, many have forgotten that lesson. In the explosion of new breweries over the past five years, many breweries lost sight of regular drinkers. Social media doesn’t help; it creates closed feedback loops inhabited by beer geeks clamoring for ever more complicated beers. Breweries aren’t hearing from casual drinkers perplexed by their beers on Instagram.
In fact, speaking in universal language is probably more important now than ever, because craft beer is mainstream. In order to compete with the seltzers, light beers, and Mexican lagers that appear next to them on shelves and menus, beers need to have clear names and simple descriptions. When they don’t, casual drinkers will reach for beverages they understand.
No One Knows What Session Means
Humans love jargon. It is a way of signaling to others that you are part of their tribe. Cops love rigid, technical language that signals order and control. Corporate speakers prefer language they think of as dynamic and action-oriented—or, if they’re attempting to conceal, passive and obfuscatory. Academia is the worst, where scholars prefer vocabulary they think showcases their learning (but which is often deployed to hide their confusion). It happens within industries as well, where speakers use technical language specific to their field. Slipping into jargon is universal human behavior.
All of that is fine when talking to the in-group. When talking to anyone else, speakers need to use universal language if they want to be understood. Seems easy enough, but the longer anyone spends talking only to an in-group, the more tenuous their grasp becomes on what counts as “universal.” The word “session” is a great example. People inside the bubble understand it to mean a lower-alcohol beer of moderate flavor meant to be drunk in multiple servings. But as recently as a decade ago, it was (to Americans) an obscure English term that meant the period of time spent drinking these beers. To people inside the bubble, “session IPA” had an obvious meaning. To those outside, it was inscrutable. Breweries forgot where the line was.
I spoke to Oliver Gray, the marketing manager at Guinness Baltimore about this. (Full and happy disclosure: Guinness still sponsors this site.) He gave an example of how even very basic language may confuse.
“We released a beer called Hoppy Pale Ale right when we opened. It did not sell well. It was really nice, too—just a straightforward Galaxy-hopped pale. Then we renamed it to Galaxy Pale Ale and it was one of our top sellers. The word ‘hoppy’ is scary to some people.”
When Oliver relayed this story, I was confused. Isn’t “Galaxy” a more technical term than “hoppy?” It is, he agreed, but “Galaxy sounds cool.” If “hoppy” is so technical it’s preventing people from ordering a beer, we can assume most of the language they use to describe beer is, too.
Very simple terms like “ale” and “lager” exist at the outer edges of most drinkers’ knowledge. Hop and malt varieties, unusual style names, foreign beer terms—most of these fly over the average drinker’s head. Ingredients and process, used routinely on labels, are murky even among avid drinkers. Beer is incredibly complex. Hops offer bitterness—but so does roast malt. They are fruity, sweet, and aromatic, but so are fermentation compounds, and sometimes malt, too. Put “hoppy” on a label and you invite confusion. The result, of course, is that the beer doesn’t sell. Some adventurers seek the unknown, but most drinkers will opt for something familiar.
“If we name things wacky names and people don’t know what it is, they don’t sell. People won’t even try them.”
There’s definitely an opportunity for education, but it comes in the small print, once people have already tried and enjoyed a beer. “The consumer wants to know more right? They want to expand their palate,” Oliver continued, warning against patronizing customers. Once they have begun to engage a beer, there’s an opportunity to take them deeper—then they can describe the flavors and where they’re coming from, offer information about style and history, and so on.
The Fat End of the Funnel
Sometimes breweries use detailed information intentionally, to help certain audiences find their product. That’s one of the most salient functions of a style designation. But it’s a delicate balance. Use too much specificity, and you boil down the potential audience. Neal Stewart, VP of Marketing and Sales at Deschutes, described how this happened with a recent beer, Luna Jo, a coffee lager.
“It’s a fantastic beer, and people who tried it loved it. But it didn’t sell well. [Calling it] ‘cold-brewed coffee lager’ segmented consumers down so far. First, you start with ‘lager.’ More people drinking craft beer prefer ales than lagers. Okay, so now we've segmented it down to people who like lagers. We also segmented it down to people who like coffee—in their beer. And now we’re even going a layer deeper to say not only is it a lager with a coffee-flavor, but it’s cold-brewed coffee, so you gotta like all of those. We were so specific with the style call-out that we probably prevented trial.”
(That last sentence, incidentally, is a great example of the jargon marketing folks use. Humans love jargon!)
In the explosion of new breweries over the last decade, customers wanted variety and change. They were in an adventuresome mood and were willing to try beer they didn’t understand in spite of their confusing descriptions. This led to the mistake Neal describes, in which breweries used ever more specific language to stand out from the crowd, thinking that was expanding the beer’s potential. After all, new, unusual beers were hot. The sales numbers implied customers were inside the jargon bubble, but that was a mirage.
Breweries have different goals, and small ones with devoted fans are in a different position than larger, supermarket beer makers. Nevertheless, even small breweries may over-estimate the percentage of their drinkers who understand descriptions like “mixed-fermentation foeder-aged saison.” As breweries themselves become part of the segmentation—some feature farmhouse ales, others specialize in German lagers—they may need to do even more work describing their beer.
Successful Examples
Marketers often turn to Firestone Walker’s 805 as an example of less-is-more communication. Customers digging around will discover that it’s an “ale,” but very little else. And almost no one digs around. It’s a beer that tastes like a beer, and it’s cool and simple.
I don’t think it’s a great example. 805 is something of a unicorn in the beer world, and unlike other simple, successful beverages, no one has been able to replicate it.
Sierra Nevada’s Hazy Little Thing may be a better example. It also features minimal jargon—the only descriptor on the can is “IPA”—but the name works on two levels. To casual fans, the “hazy” in the title is just a simple adjective. The beer has a certain shimmer—it’s a hazy little thing. The name is familiar, evoking a series of similar-sounding phrases. It will even remind some of the Queen song, giving the beer its own soundtrack and reminding them of love. For beer geeks, of course, the “hazy” has a whole different connotation. It’s a sneaky style designation, a wink from the brewery.
When Dogfish Head released SeaQuench, they avoided calling it a gose—a style no one knows nor knows how to pronounce. It is one of the few tart beers to find a mass audience. (Dogfish did describe it as a “session sour,” but customers seemed to understand it anyway because the brewery helpfully described it in simple terms.) New Belgium launched a brand family with Voodoo Ranger, with extremely simple language and a focus, like 805, on optics. The flagship has a simple label with three words: Voodoo Ranger IPA. When other members of the family cane online, they were described just as simply, but traded on the familiarity of the Voodoo Ranger mascot.
All of these beers have been successful and share clear, simple language. To go back to Oliver Gray’s point, though, they don’t talk down to customers and are all excellent beers. They strengthen the image of the breweries. At Guinness, a brewery where people have a longer sense of time, that’s important. They want individual beers to sell, but they’re playing a longer game. I’ll wrap up this lengthy post by giving Oliver the final word.
“It’s a balance of being approachable while also not dumbing it down. Dumbing it down is insulting to your brewing team, insulting to the brand, and insulting to the consumer. You don’t want to alienate them by dropping jargon they don’t understand, but you don’t want to treat them like they’re stupid, either.”