We
caught ourselves the other day. We caught ourselves
trying to find the Next Big Thing; the next great beer; the hot new
beer style.
What
a joke...
We
were asked the other day what sort of market research we
did. What sort of surveys we sampled to come up with
new styles that the customer base is clamoring for.
We thought for a second, is that what other people are doing?
Should we maybe tell a little fib and make something
up about consumer sampling or studying Nielsen
trends. We thought that would really make us look
like we know what we're doing.
Then
it struck us; that would show that we really DIDN'T know what we
were doing.
You
see, there's a mini arms race going on in the craft brewing world
these days. Basically it comes down to who can out do
whom. Whose is bigger, whose is stronger, and whose
marketing is the cleverest? And, admittedly, we got
caught up in it. We were thinking of a style for this
year's Winter Wobbler, our winter seasonal that is a different beer
every year. We asked ourselves, what is white-hot in
the brewing world right now? We looked around and
decided that the new thing, the next craze, is going to be Black
IPA's. IPA's are definitely big right now and Black
IPA's are a small and buzzworthy sub-style that is really making
some waves. Cool, we thought, we'll do
that.
Then
the Minutiae Minutemen got involved; the beer-hipsters that have to
be the first, and by being the first then, of course, you get to
name it, categorize it, set up rock-solid guidelines from which you
cannot deviate, and, generally, beat it to death. You
see, Black India Pale Ale just wouldn't work; how can something be
both black and pale? 
And,
dammit, this beer was (supposedly) born in the Pacific Northwest,
it should be named for that region (like, if it were brewed
anywhere else it would be something else, entirely).
So the cool crowd came up with, wait for it...
Cascadian Dark Ale.
That
pretty much settled it for us; no Black IPA, sorry, no
CDA...
It
just seemed a bit like watching Frank Sinatra sing Lady Ga Ga at a
Greek wedding; just not us. Not that we couldn't make one (we
still might), it would probably kick-ass. We just
don't feel like mashing ourselves up in what's hip and
trendy.
So,
we hunkered down and did the sort of in-depth market research that
has made us the biggest and best craft brewery in the state; we
asked ourselves, "What do WE want to drink?"
You
know, we've always loved a nice Baltic Porter...
(How's
that for a "teaser"?)
