OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Winter 2025 | 53 out hits, not due to the creative genius, but because of a different type of genius: marketing. In the middle of the 1980s and until the early 1990s, we had the UK Hit Factory, spitting out musicians with big hits, many of whom are still around doing what they do, some of whom disappeared. More recently, examples of this model would be X-factor and all the other shows that came out after. The focus is not on the songwriting or the DIY ethic, but on the marketing and economic success of the song. (One song at a time.) Craft beer can be looked at through the same lens. When a brand gains success, there is a sudden knee-jerk reaction, as if suddenly all that came before, which lead to the success was a giant con. But why do we do that? According to research, (The Hippocampal-VTA Loop: Controlling the Entry of Information into Long-Term Memory by Lisman and Grace, 2005) parts of our brain are “wired” to seek out novelty. We experience a dopamine release from finding novelty. When something becomes less novel, we lose some of what made us excited about it to begin with. In Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion , he surmises that when faced with “hard” consumer decisions (such as which beer to pick on a shelf full of various colourful labels) we take social queues. Those queues lead to “social proof” where we look at what is popular with other consumers and then follow suit. When you combine these twovery human and somewhat contradictory concepts and apply them in a real-world setting, it serves for a basis of what is at the heart of craft beer: the perception of what is craft and what isn’t and how success can look like failure and failure like success. NOVELTY VS CONSISTENCY Let’s do a thought experiment: imagine you discover a new brewery’s product in a bottle store. You crack open the bottle the moment you get home and not only is it delicious, but it also makes you feel good about finding something that is new to you. Inyourmind, youhavenever tastedanything like it. Now, in craft beer circles, this often leads to a search through many beer flights and bottle stores to find that same feeling of novelty. But as we are human, we also like consistency and we start to develop a love of one or two brands, those that we know to provide that good experience. Successful craft breweries tap into this by releasing new beers regularly, constantly giving you something new to try and get excited about, never compromising on quality. A few years down the line, through producing consistently great beers (and variety) this brewery suddenly doubles down and goes big. The bigger production means a bigger drive for sales, and certain processes must be changed to ensure that the beer can have a longer shelf-life to travel further – after all there is more of it to go around. Suddenly you see this beer pop up everywhere. At first you are excited; you don’t have to go to that very niche liquor store that requires a long drive just to get your hands on that specific beer because now you can get it anywhere. You notice a slight change in the taste – it’s not bad – it’s just not how it used to be. You discover that they’ve changed the label, which you see so often that you forget about it within a week or two. A few years later you dig up some seemingly old picture with you holding an original bottle and you notice just how much the branding has evolved from that original product that you fell in love with. In fact, by looking at the picture, you recall your excitement and wonder if it’s them or you? Did the brewery change the recipe, or did your palate become desensitized over time? At some point you stopped buying that brand as often, but while you were looking for the novelty fix in finding new beers, a whole band of people that relies more on social proof has developed a love for the beers they found on the shelf, due to the fact that they are literally everywhere! The brand is now successful through its persistence and availability. The craft beer fan in you pouts and says, “It’s no longer craft!” And perhaps you have a point, in the same way the old The National fans point at Coldplay with their whole new market beyond “indie.” But is it such a terrible thing for a craft brewery to become popular? WHAT IS “TOO BIG”? When did your beloved brand lose its craft status? They are still brewing an IPA, but now that every restaurant stocks their lager, it is more obvious that their focus might have shifted towards more mainstream styles. Is a lager not craft? What exactly has changed and why does it feel different? I would argue that what has changed is two-fold. Firstly, because of the availability of a product that was once rare, you no longer get the same kick out of having it in the fridge. Secondly, the success of the market beyond your fridge has created a brand that has a sustainable fanbase that does not drink for novelty alone. Sometimes these brands get bought out by multi-nationals, because in many ways their businesses are now more closely aligned to the goals of the multi-nationals. And yet, when craft breweries make it big, it’s usually because of a novelty beer style that they have successfully marketed to the wider market. It’s like a little growth of the periphery, is it not? For a small “indie” craft brewery, it actually makes it easier for them to find customers who already know about a given style; then all you have to do is convince them to try yours. Through that lens, does it matter that a brand becomes successful and benefits from commercial viability? Let’s return to our music analogy: imagine Coldplay achieved commercial success and then replaced Chris Martin with a new singer that had more of a poppy voice and changed the focus from writing songs to covering songs on the pop charts to drive further sales. It would be obvious that they had lost the core values that made them who they were. Now put that in the brewery environment, craft or otherwise: what if a company dropped their core brands and started to produce only one or two beers, namely to compete with the multi-nationals? Then perhaps something has changed. Some of that DIY spirit has disappeared and through its loss, the “sound” or in this case, the undefinable quality, has left the brand’s beer output. One could now argue that they had gotten “too big.” We should also turn briefly to multi- nationals and what they have in fact managed to do as a consequence of their success: they have created a market that remains interested in beer. South Africa is a beer drinking nation thanks in large part to the success of the independent breweries of the past that are now almost too big to fail. Some of them have become multi- nationals. It’s true that craft breweries find it increasingly difficult to compete with them on their own turf: in the liquor stores and bars. This is partly due to the noise- cancellation that is social proof. But what craft has is the nimbleness of a Faf De Klerk to break the line, because you do not have to slay a giant to achieve success in beer in South Africa. Keep bringing innovation, as it is the essence of novelty, do it well, and the numbers will grow in your favour. And as they do, brace for comments like “selling out” and “no longer craft,” but if you continue to brew true to your DIY spirit in the process, it might not really matter. The beer still wins.