Beer tasting as a hobby has grown up with the craft beer industry and it has become ubiquitous with a visit to a brewery. You can now also get taster trays at certain beer oriented restaurants. This concept has been taken a step further with people hosting beer tasting parties at their homes.
Breweries want to encourage these tasting parties – the whole idea here (from a brewery perspective) is to have consumers share the beer with their friends and family. This leads to a unique opportunity for breweries: Build beer tasting guides right into the packaging.
Breweries should include a step-by-step guide to tasting beer somewhere in the packaging. This could be as simple as including a small takeaway tasting guide in each pack. Additionally, include MULTIPLE notes/ratings pages with the usual categories (body, aroma, etc.)
This builds communication right into the product and encourages the consumer to share. Putting this aspect into the packaging makes sharing extremely easy for the consumer. Ideally this would be integrated into sampler packs such as New Belgium’s Folly Pack to allow the consumer to taste and share different types of beer.
If the brewery makes it easy for the customer to share, they will.
Two questions: How many (if any) breweries already include tasting guides? Also, what’s the risk (if any) that breweries will create cheesy self-promoting tasting guides that offer little in the way of useful tips?
Jeff – I don’t know of any breweries that actually provide tasting guides built into the product. If you see one, please let me know! However, I do know that several breweries offer tasting guides and notes pages if you go into their tasting rooms. To answer your second question, there is always a wrong way to do something, and turning these tasting guides into further self promotion won’t encourage sharing. The focus should be on the quality content in the guide and not on flash or cheesy self promotion.