Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector 1800431856, 9781800431850

Citation preview

Researching Craft Beer

This page intentionally left blank

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in An Evolving Sector

EDITED BY

DANIEL CLARKE University of Dundee, UK

VAUGHAN ELLIS Edinburgh Napier University, UK

HOLLY PATRICK-THOMSON Edinburgh Napier University, UK

AND

DAVID WEIR University of Huddersfield, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2022 Copyright © 2022 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-80043-185-0 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-80043-184-3 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-80043-186-7 (Epub)

Contents

About the Editors

vii

About the Contributors

ix

Foreword

xiii

Chapter 1  Introduction: Researching Craft Beer Holly Patrick-Thomson, Daniel Clarke, Vaughan Ellis and David Weir

1

Part I: Making and Selling Craft Beer Chapter 2  Behind the Beer: An Examination of ‘Entrepreneurial’ Motives for Starting a Craft Brewery Vaughan Ellis and James Richards

13

Chapter 3  Strategies for Success? Market Entry Strategies of New Craft Beer Producers Des Quinn, Vaughan Ellis and James Richards

31

Chapter 4  Illuminating Craft Brewers’ Experiences of Dealing with Covid-19 and Making Fresh Sense of What Covid-19 Can Do To/For Craft Beer: An Intègraphic Approach Daniel Clarke, James Bowden and Keith Dinnie

49

Chapter 5  The Artful Science of Crafting Ale: Discussing the Finer Nuances of Making and Selling Beer Victoria Ellis-Vowles

73

vi   Contents

Part II: Values of Craft Beer Production Chapter 6  Collaborative Resistance: How a Craft Beer Scene was Built Through Sharing and Nurturing Relationships James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser

79

Chapter 7  The Promise and Perils of Taking Craft Beer International Pavlina Jasovska

99

Chapter 8  Talking Equity, Taking Action: A Conversation with Jess Griego of Bosque Brewing Eli Revelle Yano Wilson

117

Part III: Serving Craft Beer Chapter 9  Assessing Quality in Craft Beer: Style Guides and Taste Descriptions in Beer Judging Practice Steven Wright

129

Chapter 10  From ‘Wet Led’ to ‘Dry Led’: Food and the Contested Framing of Alcohol Establishments Jed Meers

149

Chapter 11  From Connoisseur to Community: The Evolution of the Brewery Tap Room Phil Mellows

165

Part IV: Craft Beer Communities Chapter 12  Come One, Come All? The Impact of Craft Breweries on Revitalisation and Community-Building Perttu Salovaara

175

Chapter 13  Motivations Behind Craft Beer Online Buying Habits Among Italian Millennials Sergio Rivaroli, Martin Hingley and Roberta Spadoni

195

Chapter 14  Instagram Versus Reality: Chatting Craft Beer Communities with Roy Herd of the Blunt Chisel Brewery Holly Patrick-Thomson

225

Index

231

About the Editors

Daniel Clarke is a Senior Lecturer in Management and Marketing at the University of Dundee School of Business. He obtained his PhD on place making in small new business ventures in 2008 from the University of St Andrews. His scholarship operates at the intersection of organisational space and place and he has published work on teleworking, fair trade food consumption, the sensory retail environment, sport tourism and service work involving craft beer. In his teaching and research practices, Daniel uses participant-produced drawing and a range of experience-near methods including autoethnography, photography, video and poetry. He is passionate about introducing novel imaginative–creative, visual and experimental practices of pedagogy and research in to business management education. His work has been published in Management Learning, Qualitative Inquiry, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Leisure Sciences, The Design Journal and Forum: Qualitative Social Research. His favourite beer is North Sea Stout by Pilot. Vaughan Ellis is a Lecturer in Labour Relations and has been employed at Edinburgh Napier University since 2007. He specialises in the contemporary organisation and experience of work. His PhD examined changes in the labour process of clerical workers at British Gas (1970–2004) and in particular was concerned with the impact of privatisation and the introduction of call centres upon the organisation and experience of work. His present research interests include the nature of work within the Scottish micro-brewing sector, changing patterns of work organisation within the UK Higher Education sector and trade union responses to the changing nature of work. He has published in a number of top-rated international journals including Work, Employment and Society and New Technology, Work and Employment, of which he is a member of the Editorial Board. He is a member of the British Sociological Association, the Association of Business Historians and the British Universities Industrial Relations Association. Holly Patrick-Thomson is a Lecturer in the Human Resource Management Group of Edinburgh Napier University’s (ENU) Business School. She obtained her PhD in 2013 from the University of St Andrews. Her research interests lie in the creative Industries, craft beer, employment precarity, institutional theory and leadership. Her work has been published by Edward Elgar Publishing, Work, Employment and Society, Management Learning and further scholarly journals in

viii    About the Editors the UK and Australia. Before joining ENU, she was a Visiting Scholar for two years at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). During her time there, her work was presented at UTS, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of Melbourne, as well as prestigious conferences such as the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management. Her favourite beer is Wild Beer’s Millionaire. David Weir is Professor of Enterprise at University of Huddersfield, Professor of Intercultural Management at York St John University and Visiting Professor at University of Lincoln. He has held professorial posts at several Universities in the UK and France, including Glasgow, Essex, Bradford, Northumbria, Liverpool Hope and CERAM, a Grande Ecole in France and Visiting Chairs at Lancaster, Hull, Bolton and Edge Hill and as Prof Affilié at ESC Rennes. He has held posts in Industry as a Director of Gulliver Foods, Chairman of Forever-Broadcasting (Yorkshire), Arbitrator for the Dairy Industry (Scotland) and was co-owner of Fragrance, a small retail business in the perfume sector in Scotland. He was a member of the Research Assessment Panel for Business and Management and of the Council for National Academic Awards and of committees of the Economic and Social Research Council and of the Science and Engineering Research Council. He was Professor of Whisky for a decade at the Universite des Eaux de Vie in Cognac. He has published over a wide range of topics including with Holly and Daniel on craft beer servers. He has a family connection with the brewing trade as his son as well as working in the City, has a proper job as owner of a micro-brewery who brews some lovely craft beers. His favourite pint is Timothy Taylor’s Landlord.

About the Contributors

James Bowden is a Lecturer in Finance at Strathclyde Business School, Scotland. He is currently a Course Director for the MSc Financial Technology and teaches Corporate Financing at undergraduate level. His research primarily focusses on the application of textual analysis techniques to the finance domain, and seeks to evaluate the extent to which the content, presentation and delivery of textual information influences financial markets. More recently, his research seeks to address the impact of sentiment, influence and misinformation within social media platforms on investor behaviour. His research has previously been published in the European Journal of Finance and Journal of Comparative Economics, and he has previously reviewed for journals such as Qualitative Research in Financial Markets. His favourite pint is Jarl by Fyne Ales. James Cunningham is Academic Team Lead and Lecturer in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University. His research covers many areas of entrepreneurial behaviour, particularly in the context of artisan production and small family business. He has previously published studies on brewing in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, while his broader work has appeared in journals such as Family Business Review, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Family Business Strategy and the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, among others. His favourite beer is Wanderlust by 6° North. Though this is best enjoyed in the evening, looking out over Stonehaven harbour. Keith Dinnie is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Dundee School of Business (UDSB), Scotland. He is the Head of the Management and Marketing discipline at UDSB. He has extensive experience of public engagement with food and drink producers as well as with public sector bodies such as the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and Brand Scotland. His Master’s dissertation was funded by William Grant & Sons Ltd and focussed on the branding of Scotch whisky in the Greek market. His research has been published in leading journals such as Marketing Theory, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research and Tourism Management. In addition to his academic work, he is also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Visit Dundee Ltd. His favourite pint is Phoenix Pale by The Blunt Chisel.

x    About the Contributors Victoria Ellis-Vowles is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Lincoln in the UK. She has published in the fields of brewing networks and entrepreneurship and has a special interest in the management and sustainability of pubs. Her favourite beer is Midnight Tempter by Horncastle Ales. Simon S. Fraser is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University. His research interests centre on rural entrepreneurship, sales and methods of entrepreneurship research. His work has appeared in the Journal of Business Venturing and the International Journal of Entrepreneurship Behaviour and Research, he also reviews for the Journal of Enterprising Communities. His favourite beer is M’ango Unchained from Brew Toon. Martin Hingley is Professor of Strategic Marketing at Lincoln International Business School, University of Lincoln, UK. His research interests are in food and drink sector marketing, retailing and supply chain management. His specialism is in business network relationships, having published and presented extensively on the management of power dependency in retail supply. His favourite beer is Batemans XB from Wainfleet, Lincolnshire. Pavlina Jasovska is a Lecturer in International Business and Strategy at UTS Business School. She earned her Doctoral degree in International Business from UTS Business School in 2019. Her research interests are in the internationalisation of both small and large firms with a specific focus on entrepreneurship, and institutional embeddedness and change across borders. Prior to joining academia, she gained professional experience in supply chain management including working in the brewing industry – a sector, which was also studied in her doctoral thesis exploring internationalisation of the craft beer industry from small open economies. Her research appears in journals such as Journal of World Business and Journal of Knowledge Management and she has recently co-edited a book titled Contemporary Entrepreneurship Issues in International Business. Her favourite beer is Young Henry’s IPA. Jed Meers is a Lecturer in Law at York Law School, University of York, UK. He has particular research interests in alcohol licencing and the Pubs Code, and manages the UK Pubs Observatory project. His favourite pint is Kernel’s Export India Porter. Phil Mellows is a Freelance Journalist who has written about brewing and pubs for more than 35 years, mostly for industry titles, and has been a regular judge for The Publican Awards and The Great British Pub Awards. He is a founder member of the British Guild of Beer Writers and serves on the committee of the Drinking Studies Network. He is also a Founder Director of British Beer Breaks, a new travel company offering bespoke experiences for beer lovers. He has many favourite beers, but has opted for a pint of Harvey’s Best.

About the Contributors    xi Des Quinn is a Professional Doctorate candidate at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh whose research focus has been the formal and informal strategies employed by new craft breweries and the secondary factors that contribute to their success. He has previously worked in the hospitality sector as a licenced victualler, restaurateur, hotelier and brewer. His favourite pint is Harvey’s Best Bitter. James Richards is an Associate Professor in Human Resource Management at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and an Academic Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He has published research in human resource management and employee relations journals, edited book collections and consultancy-based reports. His current research interests include hidden disability and the workplace, in-work poverty, sustainable working lives, Leaveism and the Trade Union Act 2016. His favourite pint is Citra T40 by Oakham Ales of Peterborough. Sergio Rivaroli is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy. His research focuses on consumer economics, food economics and prosocial behaviour. His preferred beer is the ‘La IPA degli Obici’, which comes from ‘Obici’, a fine micro-brewery located in Finale Emilia (Modena, Italy). Perttu Salovaara is a University Lecturer at the Helsinki University, Finland. His research interests are collective and leaderless forms of leadership, self-managing organisations, democracy at workplace and community building. He had to share three favourite beers: Barbaforte Quadro from a very small brewery in Folgaria in the Italian Alps; Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss Beer from Germany; and from Finland his go-to favourite is MC Taakibörstä NEIPA by Olarin Panimo, a brewery that is closely associated with skateboarders and rap and graffiti artists. Roberta Spadoni, who has a PhD in Economics of the Agrifood Systems, is Associate Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy. Her main fields of interest are economics of agricultural and food markets, certification systems, agricultural and industrial marketing and product quality issues. Her favourite beer is the ‘Birra del Reno – Bianca’ from a particular farm from Castel di Casio (BO), called ‘Azienda agricola la Tartaruga’. Eli Revelle Yano Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. He is author of Front of the House, Back of the House: Race and Inequality in the Lives of Restaurant Workers (NYU Press). Dr. Wilson is currently researching the intersection of culture, consumption and work careers in the US craft beer industry. His newest book, co-authored with Asako Stone, is Beer and Society: How We Make Beer, And Beer Makes Us. His favourite beers are West Coast IPAs.

xii    About the Contributors Steven Wright is both Learning and Research Technologist for the Faculty of Health and Medicine at Lancaster University and an Independent Consultant on Qualitative Analysis Software. He is also a BJCP recognised beer judge and award-winning home brewer. His key interests are in qualitative methodologies and developing new approaches to working with complex datasets, in particular large text archives and multi-modal/multi-sensory data. His PhD in eResearch and Technology Enhanced Learning explored mobile learning by home brewers and the sensory assessment practices of craft beer judging. His favourite beer is Orval brewed by Abbaye d’Orval. He says you never know what it’s going to be like – but it’s always amazing.

Foreword for Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector

A brief but telling debate played itself out in 2017. Following a suggestion that alcoholic beverages, like cigarettes, ought to be sold under generic packaging, attention turned to the possible impact of such legislation on the flourishing craft beer sector. Perhaps, some argued, in a world of plain unbranded packaging craft beer would thrive as consumers focussed on the bold flavours and carefully select ingredients of the drink. Such a move could rebalance the uneven scales in the David and Goliath battle between the plucky micro-brewers, who prioritise quality and innovation, and the global conglomerates, whose mass-produced beers have for too long benefitted from market dominance propped by multi-millionpound advertising budgets and branding strategies this new breed of craft brewer are unable or unwilling to imitate. Or, others postulated, this would be a world where craft beer would struggle. For while the muted green label of the can or bottle might leave space for the brewery name and beer style, presumably in a small and non-offensive font, there would be no room for edgy or eye-catching logos and design work. Where, on such minimalist labelling, would the consumer read of hop varieties and flavour profiles? Most of all, there would be no space for narratives and ethos, and without value statements and origin stories the wouldbe consumer would know little about the world of passionate and skilled craft brewers that they are buying into when they purchase, serve and sup their chosen craft beverage. While the advent of enforced plain packaging is unlikely, in the proposed thought experiment these two scenarios speak to the contradictions that fascinate many who, in recent years and in this volume, have found the production, sale and consumption of craft beer to be a fascinating, and some might say conveniently pleasurable, subject through which to explore a host of issues relating to contemporary ideas about work, labour, consumption, identity and community. Part of the appeal of craft beer, for its advocates and for scholars looking to make intellectual sense of its emergence and endurance, is the premise that good beer, like good art or good music, is made by people with skill, passion and attitude. The leading craft breweries have gained devoted followers who, in a manner akin to the fans of iconic rock bands, pass many an hour discussing the latest releases, the evolution of signature styles, who has influenced who and who is

xiv   Foreword pushing boundaries and breaking rules while others merely perform crowd pleasing covers and greatest hits. Craft beer has captured the imaginations of many; in short, it is something that many people wish to align their identities with either through their work or their leisure. There are many who look to the sector for inspiration and for new ways of thinking about craft work, entrepreneurialism, localism and community. But there are also cracks, some might say foundational weaknesses, in the edifice of craft beer. Long celebrated for a culture of collaboration and a spirit of irreverence, as the craft beer sector matures from its rebellious adolescence it must reckon with cases of discrimination, charges of elitism and snobbery and accusations of selling out that threaten to fracture its relationship with long term participants and weaken its appeal with a new generation of potential craft drinks lovers. The book that follows is testament to the scale of craft beer for it spans from the very local to the national and global levels and, importantly, covers the life course of craft beer from its production, its branding, distribution and sale to the beer being served, drunk and appreciated. It is also commendably interdisciplinary and, in its inclusion of practitioner perspectives, remarkably non-hierarchical in refusing to see an analysis of the wider social, cultural and economic significance of craft beer production and consumption as solely emanating from the ivory tower of academic research. Indeed, far more ardent debates about the meaning of craft beer have been had over the pub table or the beer festival serving counter than over the university auditorium lectern. My own research journey began with a close friend, trusted drinking buddy and fellow recently minted Sociology PhD. Surveying the crowds at the closing stages of a local beer festival and musing that surely someone must try to make sense of this cultural phenomenon reshaping how people think about and relate to one of the oldest beverages known to humankind. The project I soon commenced began with a sole focus on the consumers of real ale and craft beer but, before long, I ventured hopeful emails to local brewers who, as it turned out, were more than willing to speak to me for research interviews, often perched on casks between mash tuns and fermentation vessels surrounded by the by then familiar smells of the brew house. Of course, I soon realised, the brewers were themselves consumers and passionately so. Sometime later, I spoke to others, writers, beer sommeliers and beer festival organisers. Again, passionate and committed consumers but also each participants in the dynamic and evolving craft beer community. It is a scene in which many people straddle the blur between production and consumption. It’s a community where, particularly in recent years with blogs, Tweets and RateBeer reviews, a host of amateur cultural intermediaries hold forth on the minutia of brewing, style and taste. Being asked to speak at the opening of the Craft Beer Research and Enterprise Workshop Symposium (CBREW) symposium in Edinburgh back in July 2019 and to prepare a foreword for Researching Craft Beer has been a welcome chance to reflect on the pleasures and perils of researching craft beer. The editors bring to bear on the topic their collective expertise in marketing, management and organisational studies. Further still, they exude both an appreciation of relevance of the fast-changing craft beer sector in Scotland, where they are based, and beyond.

Foreword    xv They also, of course, share no small amount of their own enthusiasm for good beer, brewed, served and consumed the ‘right way’. In each of the chapters, the contributing authors take aim at the moving target that is a rapidly changing craft beer sector – currently striving to adapt to the realities of the Covid pandemic and its impacts – and, as a whole, the book promises a timely contribution which both takes stock and sets agendas for the continued study of craft beer across academic disciplines and beyond. Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read Loughborough University May 2021

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 1

Introduction: Researching Craft Beer Holly Patrick-Thomson, Daniel Clarke, Vaughan Ellis and David Weir Beer plays an important role in society and the lives of many. It is something which people produce, package, sell, transport and gather around to share, tell stories, celebrate, and commiserate. As people have been brewing since at least 3000 bc, beer is one of the oldest drinks known to wo/man. Civilisation has grown around beer and to this day, in many cultures around the world, beer is still drunk on a daily basis and used to mark births, anniversaries, and deaths, amongst many other life transitions. Beermaking takes place in certain locales and via certain methods, and it also makes place; breweries often being central to the communities in which they are based. Since the beginning, beer was made largely by hand albeit with the use of basic tools. It is only in the last 100–150 years or so that we have seen a mass industrialisation in the beer industry, where the tangibility and direct use of hands constantly in contact with ingredients has largely been removed. However, there has recently been a return to small batch production of beer, mainly by hand: craft beer; and a rise in the number of small breweries has been seen in the USA, Australia, the UK, and across Europe. For example, in the UK, the number of brewers in 2018 was at its highest level since the 1930s (Cask Report, 2018). After decades of mergers and takeovers saw the emergence of a small number of global brewing conglomerates, many of the recently established brewers have spearheaded what has been referred to as a craft beer revolution. Typically producing small batches of artisan brews and with small workforces, the output of craft brewers accounts for approximately 2.5% of all beer sales in the UK, making craft beer the fastest growing sector of the drinks market (SIBA, 2020). The growth of the industry sector mirrors that seen by artisan food producers and has led some to suggest an emerging preference for rejecting mass-produced food and drink products. Whilst the growth of craft brewers (Hindy, 2014; Sprinkle, 2016; Watt, 2015), the organisation (Bell, Mangia, Taylor, & Toraldo, 2019), and nature of craft involved in the work of brewing craft beer (e.g. Thurnell-Read, 2014) have been

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 1–10 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211001

2    Holly Patrick-Thomson et al. explored in empirical research, there has also been theoretical consideration of the cultural dimensions of craft beer (e.g. Chapman, Lellock, & Lippard, 2017), including the rise of beer tourism (Alonso, 2011) and craft brewery tourism more specifically (Dunn & Wickham, 2016). Despite recognition of craft beer’s emergence, growth, and cultural significance, the sector remains ripe for further exploration. Utilising the craft knowledge of workers to design and sell ever expanding ranges of innovative products, the sector has been held up by some as offering an ‘… appealing antidote to modern industrial production and rationalised service provisions based on mass consumerism’ (Thurnell-Read, 2014, p. 46). Furthermore, as an everyday product (i.e. a fast moving consumer good) and thing (i.e. liquid), craft beer can do many things in the world. Beyond quenching a thirst, adding delight to a culinary adventure, and helping to bring people together, beer creates jobs and livelihoods, contributes to a sense of place, and can help build community. This volume embraces this wider cultural significance and meaning of craft beer by considering the multi-faceted areas for enquiry into craft beer through the lens of production, values, serving/ consumption, and community. By doing so, we ask what more beer is doing, and can do, in contemporary culture and economy, as understood and written about, from the dual perspectives of both brewers and academics. Researching Craft Beer stems from long standing friendships forged in pubs and tap rooms of the UK, culminating in a two-day symposium on craft beer held at Edinburgh Napier University (Scotland) in July 2019. The contents of this volume and the four parts it is organised into were born in that symposium, but now stretch further to encapsulate new contributions by beer researchers and practitioners from around the world.

How the Book is Organised This volume is organised into four parts related to the production and consumption of craft beer. The first part on ‘Making and Selling Craft Beer’ examines the production and valorisation of craft beer. Ellis and Richards (Chapter 2) begin by asking who are the people who start craft breweries and what are their motivations. Drawing upon theoretical constructs from the entrepreneurship literature, they show that few craft brewers are entrepreneurs by necessity but are in part driven to start breweries as an escape from more traditional careers (often in science or engineering). These initial motivations shape their subsequent approach to running a business, with those having an escape motivation likely to exhibit less planning and lower expectations of commercial success than those who were motivated by potential business opportunities afforded by the growth of the sector. Overall, they argue that craft brewers do not neatly fit the classical entrepreneurial mould; being driven primarily by a passion to make ‘good beer’, rather than seeing profit as the ultimate goal. In addition, they offer some useful methodological insights for those looking to ‘capture the field’ of craft beer and their chapter also provides additional background on the emergence of brewing and of the craft beer sector.

Introduction    3 In Chapter 3, Quinn, Ellis, and Richards explore how craft breweries have crafted their start up strategies. Quinn et al. highlight the need for craft beer producers to hone a whole different set of skills – from making beer to shifting it. This is where ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic planning skills’ come in. In their chapter, the reader is introduced to a diverse range of approaches adopted by craft breweries. Gleaning insight into strategies employed to establish a new craft brewery, including funding, marketing, location, motivation, goal setting, and growth plans, Quinn et al. introduce elements of intuition and luck into the mix of factors for consideration in relation to ‘strategic success’. Indeed, luck is something that reappears in the following chapter where we learn how craft beer brewers managed to still shift beer and survive COVID-19. In Chapter 4, Clarke, Bowden, and Dinnie ask what the COVID-19 pandemic has so far done for and to craft beer. Using an innovative intégraphic research approach, their analysis is focussed around a series of investigations into craft brewers’ views on COVID-19 via social media posts and interview data. They find that although the past year has been characterised by a febrile and unpredictable craft beer consumptionscape, as well as the many challenges this has thrown up, it has also created many opportunities for brewers, particularly as consumers change their spending habits. These struggles and new chances are evocatively illustrated by the authors’ poetic transcription of their interview findings. Ellis-Vowles’ discussion with a brewer and pub landlord (Chapter 5) brings these themes together, and provides an interesting longitudinal take on the maturation of the sector and the challenges this presents. Although much of the preceding chapters focus on growth and opportunity in craft beer, the brewer interviewed by Ellis-Vowles neatly explains how consolidation in the sector makes most routes to market very high volume, meaning that craft brewers who remain small end up becoming part of a cottage industry. His approach of brewing for his own pubs provides a route to larger volumes than direct selling, but without encountering the same price pressure as if selling via supermarkets or tied pubs. The second part on ‘Values of Craft Beer Production’ explores the meaning of ‘craft’ and the values which are suggested by such a concept. In Chapter 6, Cunningham and Fraser explore how the growth of craft beer is supported by cooperative approaches between small competing artisanal firms. Their chapter makes sense of the motivations driving craft beer collaboration through the concept of resistance and by focussing on how the building of resistance to the domination of larger brewers in the market is accomplished, the authors show how the logics of craft beer have evolved in North East Scotland, home to the biggest craft beer producer in the UK (Brewdog). Their chapter shows how resistance is built up and casts new light on the nature of its impact on craft beer brewing. Through their evaluation of the collaborative nature of craft beer production and entrepreneurial behaviours enacted to sustain the movement, they also tease out similarities and differences with more pervasive competitive logics within the market for mass-produced beer. Similarly, Jasovska (Chapter 7) premises her writing on the status of craft beer as a challenger movement in the industry, seeking to reaffirm the authenticity of beer. She goes on to explore how these entrepreneurial, authentic ideals are problematised when craft brewers begin to

4    Holly Patrick-Thomson et al. export their products and inhabit an international marketplace. Highlighting the darker side of growth, she shows the tensions around country reputation and managing the identity drift from local to global that internationalising craft brewers may face. Using a multiple case study design involving brewers and industry experts from four different countries (Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and the Czech Republic), she provides a rich analysis of the challenges craft brewers face in overcoming big breweries ‘fake’ craft offerings, challenging local stereotypes regarding the country of origin that consumers use to make judgements regarding imported craft beer, and identity dissonance whereby brewers may (be seen to) outgrow the craft label as they lose their local status and have to scale up production to meet demand. Wilson’s conversation with Jess Griego of Bosque Brewing (Chapter 8) moves the consideration beyond industrial values of competitiveness, exploring the propensity for craft beer to generate social benefit outside of the beer or the tap room itself. This practitioner viewpoint argues that whilst the products, strategies, and relationships of the craft beer sector have matured, the consideration of social issues (such as gender, disability, and race) is now beginning to be addressed, as more craft brewers place inclusivity at the heart of the business, rather than seeing it as a marketing tool or bolt on. The third part on ‘Serving Craft Beer’ considers how the nature of craft beer changes the work of servers working in pubs and tap rooms. Craft beer is typically associated with small batch production and use of quality ingredients resulting in quality beer. Indeed, in Chapter 9, Wright observes that SIBA defines craft breweries as producers of ‘quality beer’. But how, Wright inquires, is quality defined and assessed in craft beer? In his chapter, Wright treats us to a flight of craft beer styles and using a ‘novel assemblage of different methods’ he sets to task exploring the development and formalisation of definitions of beer styles and the development of contemporary language used to describe and assess taste. In doing so, Wright opens the door to craft beer judging activities in a UK homebrewing competition. Unpacking the contemporary language of taste description and the use of style guides in contemporary beer judging practices, Wright’s chapter then is an evaluation (of sorts) of evaluating beer. We know from recent research on the growth of beer writing that craft beer ‘… relies on writing to tell its story to consumers and other members of the industry’ (Rice, 2016, p. 237). Wright’s chapter highlights that the creation of a language for beer styles and taste used in such stories is not the work of one actor or even a kind of work based on just one style guide, rather craft beer quality and taste is shaped by interactions between multiple actors, formalised writing on/definitions of beer styles, contemporary language used to describe taste, judges affecting other judges, writing of new ‘compound’ terms, for example, and so on. Elsewhere, Wright also provides insight into the use of novel research methods for making sense of social practices of assessing taste which might offer orientation ‘towards a very practical objectivity’ in taste assessments that may be of interest to others working in proximate areas of practice. The nature of the establishments within which craft beer is served has an impact on the consumption habits and choices of patrons, and the rise of ‘dryled’ or food focussed pubs has increased the opportunity for craft brewers and

Introduction    5 servers to use food pairings to encourage consumers to try new craft beers. Contrary to past research, Meers argues (in Chapter 10) that this increase in ‘dryled’ establishments in the UK can be traced not (just) to diversification or to meeting changing consumer needs, but to regulatory pressure to produce more ‘civilised’ drinking cultures. Taking a legal perspective, Meers’ chapter shows the opportunities and challenges emerging for craft beer producers, sellers, and consumers in the light of regulatory pressure to grant alcohol licences predominantly based on whether food is also served. It is argued that this trend has emerged as a result of classed and ideological regulatory pressure to change drinking habits in the UK, particularly relevant where craft beer drinkers are seen as more ‘geeky’, or ‘better heeled’ than other pub goers. In a finding that may be of interest to prospective landlords, just like the drinkers of expensive single malt whisky may be less likely to be identified as alcoholics than someone drinking cheap cider, so may licencing authorities see craft beer drinkers as less problematic than the stereotypical beer swilling lager lout. Mellows concludes this part of the book on ‘Serving Craft beer’ by exploring (in Chapter 11) what the growth of tap rooms can tell us about the economics of craft beer, the nature of craft beer experience, and the importance of the craft narrative. He finally notes that the rise of tap rooms is symptomatic of craft brewers’ urges to build community around their beer, a topic which is explored in more detail in the next part. The final part of the book on ‘Craft Beer Communities’ considers the cultural significance of craft beer and in particular, its contribution to shifting spaces of consumption. In Chapter 12, Salovaara looks at the role of craft breweries in rejuvenating urban areas in Finland. Unpacking the relationship craft breweries have with the local communities in which they are found(ed), Solovaara explores how craft breweries contribute to community building and revitalisation of local economies. Revitalisation along with economic development, place-making and neo-localism are the analytical levers of choice in this chapter, highlighting the return to local traditions: drinking beer that is made locally by hand, in relatively smaller batches, attracting a community of drinkers who congregate around it to make a place for drinking. Problematising narratives around gentrification, for Salovaara craft beer is framed as a force for good, drawing our attention to the much needed and appreciated fresh life it can breathe into a city, neighbourhood, or community. He makes the case that public policy on craft beer should not only revolve around the health implications of alcohol, but should also recognise the potential of craft breweries to support economic and community building in urban areas. In Chapter 13, Rivaroli, Hingley, and Spadoni turn our focus to how the characteristics of the consumer may influence craft beer purchasing habits. Their study shows that Italian millennials can be divided into two groups with regard to purchasing craft beer: heavy (or frequent) purchasers and light (or infrequent) purchasers. They also show that as well as the overarching importance of taste, these two groups base their purchasing decisions on different criteria. Whilst heavy purchasers are swayed by the ease of shopping online and their own self-identity and expertise, light purchasers are more motivated by an interest in global culture and the ethics of craft beer. Despite previous research suggesting nutritional content was important to the purchasing habits of millennials,

6    Holly Patrick-Thomson et al. their study finds that calorie count was the least important criteria in decision making. Overall, Rivaroli et al. found that millennials attitudes towards craft beer were less important than conditions such as ‘ease-to-buy’, suggesting that there might still be quite a significantly untapped market amongst millennials for whom craft beer is not readily available (even if they do not have a particularly positive attitude towards craft beer at present). In Chapter 14, Patrick-Thomson concludes Part 4 by speaking to a rural Scottish nano-brewer who has relied upon his community to cope during the pandemic. Reflecting on the value brought by online versus offline communities, he argues that the glossy world of craft beer on Instagram can be more of a drain than an opportunity to small brewers. Whilst online marketing may reach a larger audience, it can be hard to break through the mass of global breweries on Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, micro- and nano-brewers would have little hope of keeping up with demand if their beers were to ‘go viral’. This brewer’s account shows the continuing importance of local relationships – with customers, suppliers, and other brewers – to small rural brewers.

Emerging Themes Four main themes emerge from these chapters. The first theme relates to the importance of good beer to good business in the craft beer sector. Ellis and Richards argue that good beer is made by those who are passionate about it and craft breweries are founded by those who are driven not by business opportunity or profit but by the enjoyment others take in their product (Chapter 2). The ethos of the sector is premised on the idea that there is not one best way to create good beer, but that the goodness derives from the in-the-moment hand crafted process by which the beer is produced. Building on the idea that notions of good beer are contingent, Wright illustrates how the notion of taste is linguistically constructed (Chapter 9). In other words, what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ beer is at least partly constructed by the way we speak about the beer and in turn, the stories we tell. For craft beer producers to stand the test of time however, good beer is only part of the story. Good strategy is needed too, to get beer ‘out there’ and to sell it. There is a lot of work involved in getting beer from brewery to glass and so, beyond the manual labour involved in making beer and the craft skills required to make it taste good, there is a considerable amount of ‘headwork’ needed to create a profitable business and craft strategies to make it sell. Quinn et al. demonstrate this point nicely (Chapter 3), showing that the craft of shifting beer and the luck involved in keeping it flowing, is just as important as making good beer. The second theme is the importance of mutual support amongst craft brewers. In contrast to other sectors where entrepreneurs see themselves as being in competition and their fellow entrepreneurs as rivals, the craft brewers studied in this book (similar to Porac, Thomas, & Baden-Fuller’s, 1989 knitwear producers) typically see themselves as a community with shared mental models and norms of cooperation. Ellis and Richards (Chapter 2) demonstrate the importance of this cooperation in the emergence of new brewers, finding that nascent brewers gain confidence and encouragement from the support given to them by more

Introduction    7 established breweries. In a more established community, Cunningham and Fraser highlight the cooperative behaviours that sustain the craft beer movement and build resistance to the dominant market forces of larger brewers (Chapter 6). All these findings are critical given the effects of COVID-19 on the sector. Many independent craft brewers do not have the expertise, contacts, or infrastructure necessary to go it alone in changing strategy, for example, when pivoting from selling mainly in pubs to direct sales or selling in shops (see Chapter 4). This is particularly important given the price pressure created by the mass-produced ‘crafty’ (faux/inauthentic craft) offerings by beer conglomerates. Rice (2016, p. 245) notes that ‘crafty’ is a term used to characterise conglomerates ‘pretending to be small craft breweries’. It is these ‘crafty’ offerings, or more specifically, it is how the craft brewers featured in this volume cope with them that forms the third main theme of the book. Since craft beer is more expensive to produce than its mainstream alternatives, it is important that craft brewers are able to distinguish their product and defend its reputation and consumer-base from the ‘craft-washed’ or otherwise ‘fake’ craft offerings from multinational beer companies. Jasovka highlights that big beer companies are increasingly ‘tapping the peripheries’ of the craft sector, undermining craft brewers’ attempts to export to international markets by lowering prices and blocking access to bars and restaurants in export markets (Chapter 7). Because local consumers perceive these lower quality ‘fake’ offerings as being true craft beer, this can then damage the reputation of real craft brewers attempting to export to the same market. The politics of managing product categories such as ‘craft’ are thereby exacerbated for craft brewers attempting to internationalise. However, these pressures still exist for those brewers who operate in a domestic or even a local market, and this may explain some of the efforts of craft brewers to build connections with consumers. This is evident both through the role of tap rooms in bringing the drinker closer to the nexus of production (as in Phil Mellow’s chapter) and in the points made in a number of other chapters about the way in which craft beers and breweries are often articulated with local identities (see e.g. Salovaara’s chapter). Aside from illustrating the coping strategies that craft brewers have adopted to fend off ‘crafty’ competitors, this theme highlights the vulnerability of the sector. Despite growth and opportunity still existing in the sector, there is an awareness of impending consolidation and uncertainty, as shown in Ellis-Vowles’ discussion with a brewer/landlord (Chapter 5). Whilst places are cold without people, they come alive with people (Tuan, 1991): people make place. People also make beer, and passionate craft beer producers, in turn, make place. Since part of the attraction and much of the appeal, reward and enjoyment associated with drinking craft beer is based around community and shared experiences, lovers of craft beer are willing to travel (Taylor, DiPietro, So, Hudson, & Taylor, 2020): love beer, will travel. But as noted in Mellows, some craft beer drinkers don’t need to travel far to drink beer at the monument to craft beer, that is, the brewery tap room. Observing the challenge tap rooms pose to the idea of the ‘local’ (pub) with the growing number of breweries opening tap rooms on their premises, much time, thought, and energy is being given over to the creation of (new?) places for consumption. This brings us then, to the fourth theme which is place-making.

8    Holly Patrick-Thomson et al. People make places and when people make places in the world, they make them twice. First, we make places with our hands, then with the casting of a linguistic net (Tuan 1991) – through storytelling and beer writing, for example – we make place with our words. This, in part, is how places get a name and become known for beer. See, for example, Callum Stewart’s (2021) article on ‘Beer Cities’ titled ‘People, passion, place’, in Ferment Magazine (Issue 64, pp. 8–45). That whole cities (Stewart, 2021), neighbourhoods (Salovaara) within cities, and local identities (Jasovska) emerge as destinations for the consumption of craft beer, we glimpse insights into how people, in turn, make places with and for beer. In Clarke et al. (Chapter 4), we also witness the creation of imagined consumption spaces for beer by brewers who do not have a tap room yet but would like one in the near future. Chapters relating to this theme, then, open the door on some of the beery conversations on the subject of where people can go to drink beer with other people. In any conversation about places for drinking, it would be remiss not to mention the prevalence of drinking online, possibly at home in front of a computer screen or on the move with a smartphone. Whilst we acknowledge (here!) the preponderance of virtual drinking, that is social media mediated drinking afforded by the creation of digital drinking spaces (such as CAMRA’s The British Red (On)Lion), with all the concomitant risks associated with potential for the rise in dangerous drinking behaviours, despite the prevalence of ‘meet the brewer’ online events and the uptake in use of apps such as Houseparty and platforms such as Zoom for virtual drinking; in recognition and praise of the centrality and role of ‘real’ physical places such pubs and bars in craft beer drinking culture and in society more broadly (Thurnell-Read, 2021); the chapter by Ellis-Vowles punctuates this theme, bringing the conversation back to the role and place of the humble landlord in making places for craft beer. In summary, then, if this fourth and final theme had a button you could PRESS TO HEAR ME SPEAK, it would be saying: beer is not just about the liquid in the glass, it’s not only about the beer; it’s about community and the kind of spaces/places that beer makes ….

Who this Book is For This book is interdisciplinary in nature and we hope it will appeal to a wide range of scholars, and also to practitioners and enthusiasts of craft beer. From an academic perspective, the chapters are authored from different disciplinary perspectives (predominantly business, sociology, and law). Whilst the parts of the book are not grouped around disciplinary boundaries, we expect that Part 1 on ‘Making and Selling Craft Beer’ may appeal to food and drink scholars and those generally interested in management studies. Part 2 on the ‘Values of Craft Beer Production’ will appeal to business and sociology scholars (perhaps marketers particularly), whilst the diverse disciplinary contributions to Part  3 on ‘Serving Craft Beer’ and Part 4 on ‘Craft Beer Communities’ might mean that the book will appeal to a wide range of scholarly communities.

Introduction    9 The empirical nature of the research underpinning the book will, we hope, also provide interesting reading for modules on contemporary trends in food and drink, the sociology of drink, and broader modules on management and marketing, work, and employment. Additionally, the contributors to this book have mobilised a wide range of methods of data collection that may be of interest to scholars of all levels. Ellis and Richards use a structured sampling method to recruit for an interviewbased study; both Cunningham and Fraser, and Quinn, Ellis, and Richards use interviews to build case studies; Jasovska and Salovaara also use a case study approach but combine interviews with additional observational and secondary methods of data collection; Meers uses archival research methods; Wright uses an ethnographic approach; at the most qualitative end of the methods spectrum Clarke, Bowden, and Dinnie use an intègraphic approach where poetic transcription serves to analyse their interviews and; at the most quantitative, Ravaroli, Hingley, and Spadoni use a survey design to test hypotheses. For brewers of craft beer, servers and others in the sector, there is much to be gleaned about the practices of craft brewing and selling. For those looking to start out brewing, Quinn et al.’s chapter gives a useful overview of the types of strategies that have been adopted by others, illustrating that there is no ‘one best way’ to approach founding a brewery, whilst giving some indication of the considerations involved. For those considering opening a pub in which to sell craft beer, Meers’ chapter gives some useful guidance on the underlying logic behind licencing regulations and both Salovaara and Mellows cover the economic and community benefits of opening a tap room on the site of the brewery. For established brewers looking to export, Jasovska’s comparison of internationalising brewers across four countries is a cautionary tale of the potential pitfalls, highlighting issues with competition but also the necessity of careful reputation management and brand storytelling. Finally, in a post-pandemic context, the use of online retail to facilitate direct selling to consumers has gained increased importance. On this, Rivaroli et al. use quantitative methods of analysis to generate rigorous and detailed managerial guidance on selling online, particularly to millennial consumers. Finally, the contributions to this book show a diversity of approaches within craft beer sectors around the world, yet they also highlight a commonality of key challenges and issues that arise in drinking, serving, and brewing across borders. Reflecting the location of the launch symposium in Edinburgh, a number of contributions focus on Scotland (Ellis and Richards; Cunningham and Fraser; Quinn Ellis, and Richards; Clarke, Dinnie, and Bowden; and Patrick-Thomson), whilst two of the practitioner viewpoints (Chapters 5 and 11) speak to the UK scene more generally (Ellis Vowles and Mellows respectively). Broadening out again, we have contributions from Europe, specifically Italy (Rivaroli et al.) and Finland (Salovaara). Jasovska’s chapter explicitly focusses on international comparisons, with case studies in Denmark, the Czech Republic, Australia, and New Zealand, and Wilson’s practitioner viewpoint returns us to the birthplace of the craft beer movement, the USA.

10    Holly Patrick-Thomson et al.

References Alonso, A. D. (2011). Opportunities and challenges in the development of micro-brewing and beer tourism: A preliminary study from Alabama. Tourism Planning & Development, 8(4), 415–431. Bell, E., Mangia, G., Taylor, S., & Toraldo, M. L. (Eds.). (2019). The organization of craft work: Identities, meanings, and materiality. New York, NY: Routledge. Cask Report. (2018). The Cask report 2018/2019. Cask reconsidered. The Cask Team. Chapman, N. G., Lellock, J. S., & Lippard, C. D. (2017). Untapped: Exploring the cultural dimensions of craft beer. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press. Dunn, A., & Wickham, M. (2016). Craft brewery tourism best-practices: A research agenda. Annals of Tourism Research, 56, 140–142. Hindy, S. (2014). The craft beer revolution: How a band of microbrewers is transforming the world’s favorite drink. New York, NY: Macmillan. Porac, J. F., Thomas, H., & Baden-Fuller, C. (1989). Competitive groups as cognitive communities: The case of Scottish knitwear manufacturers. Journal of Management Studies, 26(4), 397–416. Rice, J. (2016). Professional purity: Revolutionary writing in the craft beer industry. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 30(2), 236–261. SIBA. (2020). The SIBA British craft beer report 2020. North Yorkshire: SIBA. Sprinkle, T. (2016). True beer: Inside the small, neighborhood nanobreweries changing the world of craft beer. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Stewart, C. (2021). People, passion, place. Ferment Magazine, 64, 8–45. Taylor, S., Jr., DiPietro, R. B., So, K., Hudson, S., & Taylor, D. C. (2020). Will travel for beer: An assessment of beer-focused and non-beer focused tourists’ perceived similarity, brand loyalty and place loyalty. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 15, 100405. Thurnell-Read, T. (2014). Craft, tangibility and affect at work in the microbrewery. Emotion, Space and Society, 13, 46–54. Thurnell-Read, T. (2021). ‘If they weren’t in the pub, they probably wouldn’t even know each other’: Alcohol, sociability and pub based leisure. International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, 4(1), 61–78. Tuan, Y. F. (1991). Language and the making of place: A narrative-descriptive approach. Annals of the Association of American geographers, 81(4), 684–696. Watt, J. (2015). Business for punks: Break all the rules – The BrewDog Way. London: Portfolio Penguin.

Part I

Making and Selling Craft Beer

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 2

Behind the Beer: An Examination of ‘Entrepreneurial’ Motives for Starting a Craft Brewery Vaughan Ellis and James Richards Abstract Brewing has experienced a considerable revival in recent years with the number of brewers in the UK being at its highest level since the 1930s (Cask Report, 2018). After decades of mergers and takeovers saw the emergence of a small number of global brewing conglomerates, many of the recently established breweries have spearheaded what has been referred to as a ‘craft beer revolution’. Typically, producing small batches of artisan brews and with small workforces, the output of craft brewers accounts for approximately 2.5% of all beer sales in the UK, but is the fastest growing sector of the drinks market. The growth of the industry mirrors that seen by artisan food producers and has led some to suggest an emerging preference for rejecting mass produced food and drink products. Despite recognition of the craft beer industry’s emergence, growth and cultural significance, almost nothing is known about the individuals who started these new breweries, nor what their motivations for doing so were. Drawing upon 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with owner-brewers of craft breweries from across Scotland, this chapter presents findings examining owners’ backgrounds and motivations for starting their brewery. The findings show a range of motivations and expectations amongst the group of owners and provide a useful basis for making practical recommendations of how other aspiring craft beer ‘entrepreneurs’ can be best supported by the industry. Keywords: Microbreweries; brewing entrepreneurs; craft beer; push and pull factors; craft work; career change

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 13–30 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211002

14    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards

Introduction One of the most important developments within the brewing industry over the past decade has been the emergence of the craft beer sector. With significant numbers of new, small, artisan breweries being formed, the UK now has more breweries than it has had since Victorian times. As noted throughout this volume though, despite the (re)emergence of this new sector, to date relatively little scholarly attention has been given to the phenomenon. Although studies do exist which consider the cultural significance of craft beer (Thurnell-Read, 2014; Wallace, 2019), specific national and regional contexts (cf. Dennett & Page, 2017; Fastigi, Vigano, & Esposti, 2018), marketing strategies adopted by breweries (Williams, Atwal, & Bryson, 2018) and gender identities (Rydzik & EllisVowles, 2018) to date, the individuals who choose to create them and their reasons for doing so have been neglected. Gaining a better understanding of the profiles of those who have founded a craft brewery, their motivations for doing so and experiences of having done it, can assist in the development of more effective support for nascent businesses as well as making a more general contribution to our broader understanding of the sector. As typically very small entities, and in many cases sole traders, the experience, attitude, commitment and nature of the individuals who start them are likely to have a disproportionately high effect on the sustainability and thus longevity of craft breweries. For both socio-cultural and economic reasons, therefore, it is important to better understand the backgrounds, motivations and experiences of this cadre of brewing entrepreneurs in order to assess how they can be better supported. After all, for lovers of craft beer and those who support the broader artisanal food and drink movement it is important that these fledgling organisations survive. This chapter tells the stories of a group of owner-brewers who became part of this craft beer movement by establishing their own breweries across Scotland. In doing so, the chapter seeks to answer two questions: (i) who are the people who start craft breweries? And (ii) why do they do it? The chapter examines the individuals’ back stories, considers their motivations for establishing a craft brewery and the meanings that they derive from their work. The chapter is organised into five sections with an overview of relevant literature covered in the next section. Following this, an overview of the methodology adopted in collecting, analysing and presenting data is provided. The research findings are then presented and discussed with the chapter ending by drawing some conclusions.

The Business of Brewing The histories of beer, breweries and human development have been inextricably linked for millennia. Between 9000 and 7000 bc in several locations around the world, humans began the transition from a nomadic life (an extractive economy) to a settled one as farmers (an agrarian economy) (Swinnen & Briski, 2017). This change saw the development of civilisation, community and prosperity not possible through the less efficient nomadic lifestyle. Archaeologists found what are believed to be the earliest evidence of beer production, clay tablets recording

Behind the Beer    15 a recipe for making beer and dated to 6000 bc, in ‘Uruk’, Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation between the Tigres and Euphrates rivers (Swinnen & Briski, 2017). The Egyptian dynasties and the Sumerians also left considerable evidence of brewing in the archaeological record. In such civilisations, beer production was an essential industry ensuring sufficient production of a comparatively safe drink, a gift for the gods during religious festivals and a commodity to export for economic and political gain. Brewers, and their breweries, were often venerated and embodied as Gods within many societies.1 During the formative stages of beer production, brewing, in most cases involved multiple small-scale operations under the direction of skilled master brewers. In the UK, this tradition largely held right up until the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. Although it was the Romans who had initially brought the idea of a ‘pub’ to Britain it was not until the middle ages that they sold beer, often made by a brew mistress on the premises (Wolfe, 2016) and more latterly from ‘common brewers’, operations producing larger volumes of beer for retail to numerous ‘pubs’ (Pearson, 2010). The industrial revolution, based largely on scientific and engineering advancements producing new technologies, the emergence of the factory system of production and significant relocation of populations to emerging cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, led not only to significant increases in the demand for beer from thirsty manual workers, but also a fundamental transformation in the nature of the brewing process and models of ownership. With the greater application of technology, scientific advances and significant increases in scale of brewing volumes, the once venerated master brewer increasingly became proletarianised due to industrialisation commodifying their skills and separating much of the conception and execution of brewing. As in many other industries, increasingly, clerks and brewery managers took responsibility for planning brewery operations and controlling costs, as work was deskilled and cheapened (Braverman, 1974). In the industrialised brewery, ownership was typically distributed amongst shareholders, rather than held by an individual, and maximising profits rather than quality of beer became the goal (Swinnen & Briski, 2017). The industrialisation of beer production in eighteenth century Britain and the effect this had on profitability of breweries resulted in larger breweries and over time a concentration within the brewing industry as smaller brewhouses were unable to compete on price and reliability of production. By 1860, brewhouses only accounted for 10% of beer production in the UK and only in Birmingham did they hold onto a significant volume of retail trade (Pearson, 2010). In contrast, commercial brewing output in Burton upon Trent alone trebled in size every 10 years between 1850 and 1880 (Gourvish & Wilson, 1994). This concentration of brewing continued apace throughout the twentieth century and soon became

1

The most notable of these deities was Ninkasi, a Sumerian goddess of brewing who it was believed gave beer to the world and was also the brewer to the gods (Gately, 2008). Dating from around 4000 bc, she is the oldest of the many beer gods from ancient civilisations around the world.

16    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards a global phenomenon with mergers and takeovers of breweries around the world. This trend reached its zenith with the creation of AB InBev-SABMiller on 10 October 2016 resulting in the world’s first truly global brewing conglomerate with operations in almost every major beer market, ‘… earning half of the total global beer profits and producing one in every three pints of beer sold worldwide’ (Swinnen & Briski, 2017, p. 63). In the commodification of beer, the craft of the brewer became a largely forgotten, and no doubt for many irrelevant story. In essence, brewers became disassociated, and alienated from the beer they produced. However, this tendency of centralisation and the dominance of mass produced, and for many, bland tasting beer has not been without some resistance from consumers, skilled brewers and home-brewers alike. Although with its origins in the 1970s with the formation of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in the UK and provision of tax relief for smaller brewers in the USA (Hindy, 2014; Tremblay & Tremblay, 2005), a move mirrored in the UK in 2002, meaning small batch brewing was theoretically economically viable, the ‘craft beer’ movement emerged. Seen by many (cf. Brown, 2020; Cask Report, 2018; Sennett, 2008; Thurnell-Read, 2014) as allied with a broader societal rejection of mass produced goods, produced under Tayloristic (Taylor, 1911) working conditions, the craft beer sector has enjoyed impressive growth over the past decade across the world. As discussed throughout this volume, craft beers are artisan brews, typically made in small batches by small breweries often controlled and owned by brewers themselves, come in a diverse range of styles and take advantage of the wide array of new hop varieties to produce taste profiles lacking in ‘manufactured beers’. Seen as an economic, cultural and social phenomenon the ‘craft beer counter revolution’ (Swinnen & Briski, 2017) returns the owner-brewer to the story of brewing. When seeking to better understand the motivations of those who have started a craft brewery a number of contributions from entrepreneurial studies provide a basis for developing a conceptual framework for doing so. Many of these studies have attempted to classify entrepreneurial types and others have linked ‘types’ of entrepreneurs with economic outcomes in order to predict likely long-term success for their businesses (Berthold & Neumann, 2008; DeMartino & Barbato, 2003; Shinnar & Young, 2008). Understandably, given the discipline, many of these studies are grounded in a specifically econometric view of the entrepreneur, a value creator and innovator driving economic success by challenging and disrupting existing markets and creating new ones. As Swan and Morgan (2016, p. 121) note many call upon Schumpeter’s (1934) theory of economic development which argued entrepreneurial activity was key to economic success as it ‘… provided new income sources and generated employment through reorganization or better utilization of resources’. Indeed, this stereotype of the entrepreneur as a risk-taker, profit-maximiser and driver of economic success has been well entrenched within UK economic policy since the election of the first Thatcher government in 1979 which saw them as important agents in ‘transforming’ the UK economy. As Thurnell-Read (2021) presciently noted such a stereotype is still evident amongst politicians, academics, the media and entrepreneurs themselves.

Behind the Beer    17 Identifying Entrepreneurial Types Literature typically identifies two broad types of factors which motivate entrepreneurs to create a business (Hakim, 1989; Segal, Borgia, & Schoenfeld, 2005). Firstly, ‘pull’ or ‘positive’ factors are those that attract people to starting a business, such as seeing a market opportunity to meet a demand or to make a profit. ‘Push’ or ‘negative’ factors are those personal or external factors, such as loss of employment or dissatisfaction with current employment (Cromie, 1987). Such a binary approach to understanding motivations is commonly used within entrepreneurship literature with ‘pull’ factors having been found to be more prevalent (Segal et al., 2005). ‘Pull’ factors are taken as examples of voluntary entrepreneurship (Gilad & Levine, 1986) and ‘push’ factors as necessity entrepreneurship (Hessels, van Gelderen, & Thurik, 2008). Others in seeking to better understand these broad motivation types have added additional factors. In particular, Kirkwood and Walton (2010, p. 208) concluded that ‘motivations for entrepreneurship can be seen to revolve around four main drivers: a desire for independence; monetary motivations; factors related to family and factors related to work’. The first two of these main drivers are typically classified as ‘pull’ or ‘positive’ factors and the latter two, ‘push’ or ‘negative’ factors. The important contribution though by Kirkwood and Walton (2010) was to highlight lifestyle/family entrepreneurship as a generic motivation. Similarly a desire for greater autonomy (Borooah, Collins, Hart, & MacNabb, 1997) or flexibility (Feldman & Bolino, 2000; Gatewood, Shaver, & Gartner, 1995) have been reported by other researchers. Interestingly, when assessing the extent to which monetary gain was a significant motivator for entrepreneurial decisions to start businesses, research has concluded that money making typically ranks lower in motivations of entrepreneurs than other factors (Kirkwood & Walton, 2010) and particularly so amongst women (Taylor & Newcomer, 2005). Indeed, internal motivations for greater autonomy or independence (Cassar, 2007; Gatewood et al., 1995) and greater work–life balance (Hughes, 2006) have been found to be greater drivers for starting a business. A more subtle reading of relevant literature then recognises both the definitional ambiguity of the term ‘entrepreneur’ and the diversity of motivations for starting businesses, which extend beyond pure economic criteria (Baumol, 1990). In particular, recent literature highlights social (Dacin, Dacin, & Matear, 2010), sustainability (Dean & McMullen, 2007) and lifestyle objectives (Getz & Carlsen, 2000; Shaw & Williams, 2004) amongst entrepreneurs. Empirical research into entrepreneurial motivations recognises that people typically start businesses because they want to and not due to a lack of alternative options, nor because they had identified a stellar business opportunity (Hughes, 2006). Instead, pragmatic concerns for greater flexibility and control over their working lives appear to dominate. It is clear though that a range of motivations exists and that their relative importance to particular entrepreneurs is uncertain. Furthermore, a noticeable feature of much of the literature reviewed above though is the reliance on abstracted empiricism as a means of deducing meaning. A near fetishisation of hypothesis testing, large-scale surveys and correlations has

18    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards largely removed the individual entrepreneur from the study of entrepreneurship. Although perhaps offering some intuitive means of classifying entrepreneurial motivations, such an approach collapses difference, suggests general applicability regardless of context, potentially downplays the variance of motivations, perceives human behaviour as being predictable and in privileging economic rather than personal perspectives on entrepreneurship, loses the human story behind such decisions. Concurring with Kirkwood and Walton (2010, p. 206), this chapter argues that to understand the motives of those starting businesses ‘… we must view their decisions as being embedded in a wider sociological perspective’. In other words, greater knowledge of the individuals themselves, their backgrounds and life histories and the locations in which they live and work is needed as the social environment affects entrepreneurs (Hurley, 1999).

Methodology There is value in now focussing upon matters of research design and execution. In doing so, the chapter aims to make a methodological contribution which will hopefully support subsequent research on craft breweries. The chapter will therefore now provide an overview and justification of how the data presented here were collected and analysed. At the time of beginning the research project, no definitive list of craft breweries existed. The first stage of research design, therefore, involved creating a list of craft breweries within Scotland, the area that the study was to focus on. Although a number of lists of breweries did exist they contained different breweries so could not individually be relied upon to provide a definitive ‘population’ of craft breweries in Scotland. Instead, a new merged and verified list using a number of sources was produced by the research team. The CAMRA’s (2019) annually published Good Beer Guide (GBG) provides a useful list of breweries at the time of printing which includes information on location, contact details (including social media presence), brewery size and date of formation. This list was supplemented by reference to a website containing a map of breweries in Scotland, available at: https://brewedinscotland.co.uk/map/. The advantage of this source over the GBG was that it was regularly updated as new breweries were established and others closed. Finally, a search for ‘craft breweries in Scotland’ on Google, Facebook and Twitter was conducted to ensure that no breweries had been missed. Having produced a list of 130 craft breweries2 operating in Scotland, the decision was made to invite all of them to participate in the study. The reasoning here was given the absence of any existing research examining who the founders of craft breweries were and why they started one, along with having the resources to visit all 130 breweries if required,3 maximum breadth and depth of data collection should be the aim. Involving as many different breweries as possible provides the best opportunity to understand craft brewery owners as individuals and to discover their variety of motivations for starting a brewery. An information sheet 2

Craft breweries were defined as those producing less than 60,000 hectolitres of beer p.a. The study was funded by a research grant from Edinburgh Napier University.

3

Behind the Beer    19 providing details of the study’s aims was created and issued to all breweries by email, post or through a ‘contact us’ webform on their webpage. To further aid recruitment of participants a Twitter account (@behind_thebeer) was established along with a blog (https://behind-the-beer.co.uk/) upon which details of the project aims and updates on progress were posted. The twitter feed was also used to re-tweet posts from the breweries the project was targeting to participate in the study along with general news stories about the industry. All craft breweries in Scotland with a twitter feed were ‘followed’ and as is the tradition, most ‘followed back’. The twitter presence was an attempt to gain some sort of ‘insider status’ to build credibility and increase numbers of participating breweries. After initial requests for participation through letters, emails and web contact had stopped yielding new participants, ‘tweets’ were sent to all breweries who had yet to respond. Finally, as a last push for participants, postcards and beer mats with details of the project were produced and sent to all breweries yet to respond to earlier requests to participate (see Fig. 1). The combination of methods used, as well as a persistent approach, led to 30 breweries agreeing to participate, approximately 23% of the population. Of all the methods used to recruit participants, it is worthwhile noting that the use of twitter and the production of beer mats were the most effective. As outlined earlier, understanding of the motives of those who have started craft breweries is very limited. As such, a qualitative research approach was considered to be most appropriate to address the chapter’s research questions as qualitative research approaches are well suited for studies examining under theorised questions (Edmondson & McManus, 2007). Data presented in this chapter

Fig. 1.  Postcard and Beer Mat Used for Recruitment of Participant. Source: Author’s own.

20    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards were collected from 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with owners of craft breweries conducted between June 2018 and February 2019. Interviews typically lasted between 80 and 120 minutes, were recorded and verbatim transcripts produced. Participating breweries were drawn from across Scotland with the furthest south being in the Borders and the most northerly in Elgin. Breweries ranged from having been formed a few months prior to the interviews to having been operating for longer than a decade. Copies of transcripts were sent to participants for verification and where necessary, clarification. These transcripts were then thematically analysed using Miles and Huberman’s (1994) five step process in which discrete thoughts on transcripts led to codes being identified and attached to relevant sentences and paragraphs of text. Relationships between codes were then identified and explanations for findings sought. So far as was possible, codes were allowed to emerge from the data itself rather than being imposed. As such analysis was approached from an interpretivist standpoint focussing on participants’ understandings of events rather than relying on researchers’ observations (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). In contrast to much of the research on entrepreneurial motivations, this study consciously sought to explore the phenomena through identifying contexts and linkages that explain events and behaviours (Delanty, 2005, Willis, Jost, & Nilakanta, 2007). Given assurances of anonymity, the names of breweries and their owners have been changed throughout this chapter.

Findings The chapter now presents the research findings. This section is organised into two parts with the first examining the owner-brewers’ backgrounds and the second, their motivations for starting a brewery. The first part of the section examines the professional backgrounds, ages, genders and levels of brewing experience at the point of starting their brewery in order to better understand the individuals themselves and to place the second part of this section in context. Through first understanding the owners’ backgrounds, their motivations for starting their brewery can be better explained and theorised.

Who Are the Owner-brewers? Perhaps the easiest place to start getting to know the owners is with the most recognisable characteristics, their ages and sex. Regarding the sex of participants, all but two owners were men. The age of owners had much greater variability though ranging from the youngest in his mid-twenties to the oldest in his early sixties at the time of starting their brewery, with most being in their late forties or early fifties. The majority of owners were university educated, had backgrounds in fields unrelated to brewing such as a research analyst, college lecturer and a property investor with engineers accounting for nearly 20% of owners. Most of the owners, therefore, came from white collar professional and skilled-manual occupations. Many of these roles had allowed the owners to acquire a broad range of commercial skills such as project planning, finances, marketing and leading businesses.

Behind the Beer    21 A notable feature of participants was that around half had held senior positions including directorships and managing director roles. A number had been exposed to planned management development programmes during their careers which had seen them move between firms, organisational functions and in some cases national contexts. For one of the owners, though, their previous career was an unusual one for sure and not one that obviously brought any transferable skills for founding a craft brewery: I left the RAF in 2009 and went to work for a French Defence company who have a contract to provide Tornado simulator training so I’m an ex-Tornado pilot. I flew that jet for about ten years and a couple of others whilst I was in but ended up flying with the Dam Buster squadron. (James, Towser Brewery)4 However, around 20% of the brewery owners previously had related careers with a number having scientific backgrounds, some of which would prove useful in their new jobs: I did science as a career so I did cover a bit of brewing when I was doing microbiology at University …. I did a PhD in microbiology and then came up to Dundee twenty years ago and worked in an agricultural research institute. (Steve, Mod Brewery) For some of these scientists, their degrees had built upon an earlier interest in home brewing with one owner having made his first brew as a teenager: I’m a trained chemist, trained at University. I have always been a hobbyist in terms of brewing and my first beer I think I brewed I was thirteen with my Dad in the garden shed and it was awful stuff! (Johnny, Canary Brew) Only just under 10% of owners had experience of working in the brewing industry, and not all of those who had brewing experience, with some having worked in administration or management roles. However, a small majority of owners did have experience of home brewing at the point of starting their breweries, although levels of experience differed greatly. For a minority, home brewing had been a long–term passion, such as Johnny from Canary Brew and Simon (below): I probably started brewing around about 1980 when I started brewing home brew kits from malt extract. Then I found a book ‘brewing beers liker those that you buy’ and it was the first time I had seen recipes for whole grain beer and how to fake up your own kit to actually produce a grain beer. So from there, I just brewed more or less as a hobby for 25, 30 years up until around 2014 where I applied for a job in a local brewery. (Simon, Garage Brewery)

4

Please note that names of individuals and breweries are pseudonyms.

22    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards For most with home-brewing experience though, the hobby was a relatively new pursuit and they described their experience as ‘limited’ at the point of starting a brewery. A small number of the home-brewers also possessed general ‘handy-man’ skills such as electrics and plumbing which they had either developed or enhanced through brewing. However, four owners had never brewed beer themselves and haven’t since starting the brewery and two of these owners did not possess any kind of manual skills. For these owners, their other skills and experiences gained in their careers were emphasised. Around 30% of the home-brewers had attended formal brewing courses, with BrewLab four day courses in the North of England proving most popular. For these owners, brewing was a science that needed to be learnt and importance was placed on understanding the principles as well as practicalities of brewing. I did a brewing course at Brew Lab for a little while which was invaluable … but it’s a bit like passing your driving test, you actually start to learn how to brew after you have finished, after you have got your qualification. (Tom, Village Brewery) For the rest though, they described themselves as self taught, relying on books and internet research to learn the process of brewing. All of the homebrewers emphasised the continuous learning by trial and error that home brewing afforded them as well as the support of others. Whether it be through networks of other home-brewers or from friends who were professional brewers, their brewing knowledge was continuously acquired through collaboration with others and trial at error at home. Finally, it is important to note that only one of the owners described themselves as independently wealthy. Although a number had had senior management careers and were by no means suffering financial hardship at the time of starting their breweries, most had limited savings to be drawn upon. Indeed, nearly all of the owners were keen to emphasise the relatively low levels of capital that was required to start their brewery.

Why Did They Start a Brewery? Given their varied backgrounds, it is perhaps unsurprising that the owners had a variety of reasons for starting a brewery. The three main reasons given by owners though were encouragement from friends/families, to provide a more fulfilling work–life and because they saw a business opportunity. For many, the decision was described as ‘accidental’ rather than ‘planned’ with a number emphasising that owning a brewery was never part of their life plan but rather it just happened. Furthermore, there was often more than one reason why they started a brewery with motivations being a complex mixture of factors. For those who acted upon encouragement of friends and family all were existing home-brewers. The journey towards establishing a brewery typically started

Behind the Beer    23 with receiving positive feedback on the quality of their home-brew or an offer from their local pub to stock their beer if they could guarantee supply: After I had been home brewing for about a year or so I got talking to the landlord of the local pub and I didn’t know at the time but he had been interested in getting some local beer. He said to me one night ‘so how’s the brewing going’ and as it was the end of the night so I was probably a few pints in I joked ‘it’s better than the crap you sell, I’ll bring you some’. I gave him some beer and the next time I saw him he said to me ‘you know if you ever want to put that in the pub I’d be happy to sell it. I just went away and thought, hmmm Maybe I should. I mean its pure ego and just for the laugh, how cool would it be to have your own beers selling in the local pub! (Sam, Garden Brew) Many of the home-brewers felt confident about their beer making abilities but had never believed it feasible to establish a brewery. Given that the brewing industry had become so concentrated within Scotland, as it had across the UK as a whole, perceptions of the minimum size of brewery required and the high start-up costs were powerful barriers to entry. So many of the owners talked about the impact visiting other craft breweries, as customers on brewery tours, both in the UK and overseas, most notably the USA had upon them. Seeing the small size of many of these operations and often having the opportunity to discuss with those owners how they had established their breweries appears to have been a significant stimulus to realising that doing the same was feasible. Many of the owners also emphasised the importance of early trail blazers such as BrewDog and other local breweries as providing inspiration to start their own. Seeing that others have done it and being able to connect with them was inspiring and acted as a proof of concept. Two colleagues were returning to the States and wanted to set up a brewpub. They looked into touring around the local breweries here and I tagged along swearing I’d never start a brewery. I tagged along and saw that the kit that BrewDog, Cairngorm, Black Isle, Cromarty, the equipment these other local breweries were using was just a big version of what I’d already built in the garage. I guess that made it all very real and feasible. (James, Towser Brewery) Dissatisfaction with existing jobs provided the initial stimulus for a number of the owners to start a brewery. This was particularly the case amongst those from a scientific background. For these owners, brewing seemed a way to escape a career that they were no longer enjoying whilst still making the most of their existing skill set. I didn’t have the staying power in the industry (Chemistry) to get to where I wanted to be so I moved back to Moray. After brewing a beer for mum’s birthday and being told ‘that’s really nice, you should start a brewery’ a lightbulb goes on, the more research

24    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards I do, the more I thought I could pull this off, so from the first idea to launch was eighteen months, not bad. (Johnny, Canary Brew) I’ve always been a consumer and coming from a science background where you are under contract and everything is laid on a plate, salaries, pensions etc. So it’s a big challenge to move into being self employed … but for me, it was just doing something creative that I was after and I do enjoy drinking beer! (Steve, Mod Brewery) For others, particularly those in their fifties the prospect of starting a brewery afforded an opportunity to reshape their working life. No longer needing to focus on salary and promotion prospects to the same extent as when they were younger, starting a brewery was perceived to offer the chance for a better work-life balance. A number of the owners had set up their breweries either at home, in a garage or a shed or very near to home so avoided commuting. Able to plan brewing around other life commitments was seen as an attractive proposition and given their love of beer and brewing many commented that running a brewery did not feel like work, but rather a long holiday. The creativity afforded by brewing and the sense of ownership of a complete process was seen as bringing meaning to work, something that was attractive: I get to hold the product and own quite literally the product from start to finish and you have something to show for your work at the end of the day. There is something very gratifying about that. At my stage of life, that was a very appealing thing for me. It seemed like a very rewarding way to pass some time and that I can do all of this around my other life responsibilities is the icing on the cake really. (Sally, Kingdom Brewery) Interestingly, very few owners stated that the decision to start their brewery was primarily motivated by recognising a business opportunity. Although unsurprisingly most of the other owners did admit to assessing the business rationale for their brewery to some extent. Most of these owners cited the lack of other breweries within their area and a sense that demand for craft beer was growing. For a handful of owners, the decision to start the brewery though was as a result of identifying an opportunity to make money and as such the decision was a commercial one. Involving detailed market research, assessment of strategic positioning, development of detailed business plans and clear objectives, the brewery was there to complement existing businesses that they owned. One of the owners, a property investor, spoke about having an opportunity to purchase some land in a fashionable part of their city and recognised an opportunity to use it for a brew pub, for that he needed a brewery. Another, needed to find a use for a former tractor showroom that he had inherited once his father had passed away and thought that a brewery would be an excellent way to showcase his firm’s engineering abilities, as well as utilising a space. Finally, another inherited a farm when his father died which had a legacy brewery attached that had been losing money.

Behind the Beer    25 In order to avoid a further drain on the family finances and seeing the potential to make a profitable business, the brewery was re-launched. Inspired by trips to craft breweries in California, the owner saw the potential of mimicking these set ups in rural Scotland. With a strong focus on innovative beers and a re-branding of the business as a farm brewery, the owner applied well-developed business acumen to making the new brewery a commercial success. These owners had ambitious plans to gradually expand the size of the brewery operation, to employ more staff and to increase profits. For the vast majority of the owners though adopting such a business focus and being driven by targets and objectives was an anathema and brought unwanted complexity and anxiety for them. Many of the owners talked about having little desire to grow the business from their present size given the additional costs and pressure to sell beer that this would bring. This was particularly true of those sole trader owners who were in their fifties at the time of starting the brewery. Of those who did wish to grow their brewery nearly all indicated that they wished to do so organically and only at a pace that could be funded by profits. The vast majority of the owners did not wish to undertake crowdfunding or to seek external financial support to fund expansion as they did not wish the additional stress that came with it. Indeed, the main motivation for wanting to expand the business was not the realisation of greater profits for the sake of it but to make it possible to provide employment to others. A number of owners spoke at length about their pride in being rooted within a local economy and wanting to offer employment opportunities. This was particularly true of those owners whose breweries were based in rural locations and was the raison d’être for one of them: I had been involved in the community purchase of a wind turbine for the village, setting up a development trust for the sports centre and the community initiative in saving the local pub. We felt that the brewery should work in parallel with these developments. It’s a small village with everyone knowing everyone and there was much enthusiasm about our project. So I came at it from a view of thinking about sustainability and trying to do things as locally as possible both in terms of employment and ingredients. We see the brewery as an opportunity to provide good local beer for the community and tourists alike whilst providing training opportunities for local people. (Andrew, Village Brew) It was clear as the owners spoke at length about the breweries and the journeys they had taken in forming and sustaining them the love and passion for what they did. Although the satisfaction of making and selling beer may not have been the founding motivation for all of the owners, it is what keeps them doing it. All of the owners spoke about the pleasure of creating beer and seeing others enjoying it. Many highlighted their pride in contributing to their local community, in many cases returning brewing to an area where it had long since disappeared. The brewery owners interviewed were a content lot, doing something they enjoyed.

26    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards When considering the significance and meaning of research findings it is first, worthy of note that none of the participants reported any scarce skills or specific work related experiences which they felt had been critical in successfully establishing a craft brewery. Indeed, the humility and candour of participants suggested that starting a craft brewery was an achievable goal for anybody who wanted to do so. A sense of learning ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do it’ whilst ‘doing it’ is writ large through the testimonies collected. Given, the relatively low costs of starting a craft brewery and at least for now, an expanding demand for craft beer, being a craft brewery owner is an accessible career choice for more people than may recognise it. Of course, this is not to diminish the pressures of running any kind of business or the high failure rate of small businesses in general, but a genuine sense of pleasure, pride and self-actualisation is offered by doing so. Having discussed the backgrounds of the owners, it is now important to return to the conceptual framework introduced earlier in the chapter in order to theorise, so far as is possible, the reasons for starting their breweries. Literature on entrepreneurial types and motivations provided a useful means to assess the meaning of findings discussed above. As such literature suggested would be the case, the decision to start their breweries was a positive one rather than forced. Although motivated by a range of differing reasons including a search for a more fulfilling career, an extension of a home-brewing interest with a push from friends and family or the rarer desire to take advantage of a business opportunity starting a brewery was something that ultimately all of the owners wanted to do. None were without other options at the time of doing so, whether that was remaining in existing jobs or starting alternative businesses. As such there were no ‘necessity’ entrepreneurs found amongst the owners who participated within this study. However, ‘push’ factors were commonly cited by owners. The desire to escape from unfulfilling jobs in other industries was particularly common. Many of these owners coming from a scientific background, and some who had homebrewing experience, saw the emergence of other trail blazing craft breweries as an opportunity to set up themselves. For these owners, their idea to establish a brewery was not sufficiently planned and strategised though to be classified as evidence of a ‘pull’ factor being the primary driver behind their choice. Each of these owners felt the push away from their existing roles more than the pull of an identifiable and specific business opportunity. Theirs was an idea that running a craft brewery was feasible and given relatively modest financial expectations from their businesses they took the plunge. Their approach can be contrasted with those few owners who did cite a response to a business opportunity as being the main motivator. The approaches taken by the two sets of owners differed, with greater planning and expectations the hallmark of those seeing the brewery as a commercial entity first and foremost. The one ‘pull’ factor that was most commonly cited by owners was the desire for more flexibility and autonomy. Nearly all owners spoke about the attraction of greater control over their working lives and this is common amongst entrepreneurial motives for starting a business (Borooah et al., 1997; Feldman & Bolino, 2000; Gatewood et al., 1995). For some, the need to be able to work around family commitments was the driver whereas for others it was about avoiding unnecessary

Behind the Beer    27 time wasting commuting. Given the range of ages of the owners no single reason for the attractiveness of flexibility other than a generalised desire to work to live, rather than live to work. For nearly all of the owners who were in effect ‘lifestyle entrepreneurs’ starting a craft brewery was driven by a desire for a better life. It is important to note that many of the owners recognised the important and stimulating role played by others in giving them confidence that their desire for a more flexible life could also be a viable business. Visits to other breweries, informal support from other brewers as well as mentorship and guidance from Business Gateway and the Chamber of Commerce were all important enablers of realising their ambition. Indeed, the collaborative nature of the industry appears to be an important feature encouraging and sustaining nascent businesses. Existing breweries appear to play an important role, therefore, in stimulating further creation of new breweries. Finally, it is clear that most of the owners do not fit the stereotypical notions of an entrepreneur outlined by Schumpeter and extolled by politicians ever since. As others have found, financial motivations were the least significant motivation for starting their brewery. Indeed, by their own admission, a number of the owners accepted that they weren’t the greatest business people nor was profit what drove them. Instead, their passion for making good beer and the satisfaction derived from seeing others enjoy it was what drove them. Many felt fortunate to be able to at least cover life’s essential expenses through making and selling beer.

Concluding Comments This chapter sought to understand who the individuals who started craft breweries were and the reasons why they did so. In doing so, the backgrounds and experience of the owners were examined in order that their motivations could be better contextualised. The chapter has shown that there existed a variety of reasons for starting breweries with very few having much to do with making money. Instead, the brewery owners were typically looking for more meaning or greater flexibility and control from their working lives. In conclusion, it is valuable to consider the implications of this study’s findings for the craft beer industry. Firstly, the vast majority of participants in this study had no previous involvement in the brewing industry and thus starting a brewery represented a change of career. Although some had previous careers in related fields many didn’t, and most learnt as they went. To help maximise the likelihood of new craft breweries being successful in the long term, the industry would benefit from establishing a mentoring scheme. Such a scheme could pair new craft breweries with more established ones in order to enable transfer of this learning and skill development to others. Industry bodies such as The Brewers’ Association of Scotland (TBAS) and the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) would be well placed to facilitate such a scheme within their respective memberships. Alternatively, existing sources of State support for new businesses, such as Business Gateway or Princes Trust, could establish a scheme. The purpose, scope and longevity of the scheme is best determined by the industry, but the findings of this study suggest that there would be value in new or aspiring craft brewery owners having access to those

28    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards who have faced the challenges of starting a new business in the industry. A significant number of this study’s participants noted the important role played by others in assisting during the early stages of forming the business, and in particular helping provide confidence that successfully running a brewery was achievable. Secondly, there would appear to be an opportunity for the industry to consider its approach to more formal training and development for brewery owners. Changing careers and transitioning to being a business owner requires the acquisition of new skills and although most appear to acquire sufficient proficiency to get by, a more considered and planned programme of training and development sessions may better support those owners who wish to thrive rather than just survive. Given the objective of TBAS to grow the economic contribution of craft breweries in Scotland over the coming decade and the value in having an industry specific programme, rather than relying on generic business skills training, they may be best placed and motivated to co-ordinate such a scheme. Finally, there is a need for further research into the experiences of starting and running a craft brewery. A greater understanding of a wider group of owners than considered here, broadening the scope to include the rest of the UK and particularly the experiences of women, would provide an even richer knowledge base from which to develop appropriate policy to support and develop this exciting sector which has done so much already to revitalise brewing in the UK.

Acknowledgements The authors would also like to acknowledge the input of Jennifer O’Neil (Edinburgh Napier University) who assisted with data collection.

References Baumol, W. J. (1990). Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive and destructive. Journal of Political Economy, 98(5), 893–921. Berthold, N., & Neumann, M. (2008). The motivation of entrepreneurs: Are employed managers and self-employed owners different?. Intereconomics, July/August, 236–244. Borooah, V. K., Collins, G., Hart, M., & MacNabb, A. (1997). Women in business. In D. Deakins, P. Jennings, & C. Mason (Eds.), Women in business (pp. 45–72). London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York, NY: Monthly Press. Brown, P. (2020). Craft: An argument. Why the term craft beer is completely undefinable, hopelessly misunderstood and absolutely essential. London: Storm Lantern Publications. CAMRA. (2019). Good Beer Guide, St. Albans: CAMRA. Cask Report. (2018). The Cask Report, Colchester: Cask Marque. Cassar, G. (2007). Money, money, money? A longitudinal investigation of entrepreneur career reasons, growth preferences and achieved growth. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 19(1), 89–107.

Behind the Beer    29 Cromie, S. (1987). Motivations of aspiring male and female entrepreneurs. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 8(3), 251–261. Dacin, P. A., Dacin, M. T., & Matear, M. (2010). Social entrepreneurship: Why we don’t need a new theory and how we move forward from here. Academy of Management Perspectives, 24(3), 37–57. Dean, T. J., & McMullen, J. S. (2007). Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(1), 50–76. Delanty, G. (2005). Social science. Berkshire: Open University Press. DeMartino, R., & Barbato, R. (2003). Differences between women and men MBA entrepreneurs: Exploring family flexibility and wealth creation as career motivators. Journal of Business Venturing, 18(6), 815–832. Dennett, A. R., & Page, S. (2017). The Geography of London’s Recent Beer Brewing Revolution. The Geographical Journal, 183(4), 440–454. 10.1111/geoj.12228. Edmondson, A. C., & McManus, S. E. (2007). Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1245–1264. Eriksson, P., & Kovalainen, A. (2008). Qualitative methods in business research, London: SAGE. Fastigi, M., Vigano, E., & Esposti, R. (2018). The Italian microbrewing experience: Features and perspectives. Bio-based and Applied Economics, 7(1), 59–86. Feldman, D. C., & Bolino, M. C. (2000). Career patterns of the self-employed: Career motivations and career outcomes. Journal of Small Business Management, 38(3), 53–67. Gately, I. (2008). Drink: A cultural history of alcohol. New York, NY: Penguin. Gatewood, E. J., Shaver, K. G., & Gartner, W. B. (1995). A longitudinal study of cognitive factors influencing start-up behaviours and success at venture creation. Journal of Business Venturing, 10(5), 371–391. Getz, D., & Carlsen, J. (2000). Characteristics and goals of family owner-operated businesses in the rural tourism and hospitality sectors. Tourism Management, 21(6), 547–560. Gilad, B., & Levine, P. (1986). A behavioral model of entrepreneurial supply. Journal of Small Business Management, 24(4), 45–53. Gourvish, T. R., & Wilson, R. G. (1994). The British brewing industry 1830–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hakim, C. (1989). New recruits to self-employment in the 1980’s. Employment Gazette, June, 286–297. Hessels, J., van Gelderen, M., & Thurik, A. R. (2008). Entrepreneurial aspirations, motivations and their drivers. Small Business Economics, 31(3), 323–339. Hindy, S. (2014). The craft beer revolution: How a band of microbrewers is transforming the world’s favorite drink. New York, NY: St Martin’s Press. Hughes, K. (2006). Exploring motivation and success among Canadian women entrepreneurs. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 19(2), 107–120. Hurley, A. (1999). Incorporating feminist theories into sociological theories of entrepreneurship. Women in Management Review, 14(2), 54–62. Kirkwood, J., & Walton, S. (2010). What motivates ecopreneurs to start businesses?. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, 16(3), 204–228. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). An expanded sourcebook: Qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Pearson, L. (2010) Strategy for the historic industrial environment: The brewing industry. A report by the Brewery History Society for English Heritage. Retrieved from historicengland.org.uk. Rydzik, A., & Ellis-Vowles, V. (2018). Don’t use the “weak word”: Women brewers, identities and gendered territories of embodied work. Work, Employment and Society, 33(3), 483–499.

30    Vaughan Ellis and James Richards Segal, G., Borgia, D., & Schoenfeld, J. (2005). The motivation to become an entrepreneur. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 11(1), 42–57. https:// doi.org/10.1108/13552550510580834 Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The theory of economic development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. London: Penguin. Shaw, G., & Williams, A. (2004). From lifestyle consumption to lifestyle production: Changing patterns of tourism entrepreneurship. In R. Thomas (Ed.), Small Firms in Tourism: International Perspectives (pp. 99–114). Elsevier, Amsterdam. Shinnar, R., & Young, C. (2008). Hispanic immigrant entrepreneurs in the Las Vegas metropolitan area: Motivations for entry into and outcomes of self-employment. Journal of Small Business Management, 46(2), 242–262. Swan, C. D., & Morgan, D. (2016). Who wants to be an eco-entrepreneur? Identifying entrepreneurial types and practices in ecotourism businesses. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 17(2), 120–132. Taylor, S. R., & Newcomer, J. D. (2005). Characteristics of women small business owners. In S. L. Fielden & M. J. Davidson (Eds.), International handbook of women and small business entrepreneurship (pp. 17–31). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Swinnen, J., & Briski, D. (2017). Beeronomics: How beer explains the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, F. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management, New York: Harper & Row. Thurnell-Read, T. (2014). Craft, tangibility and affect at work in the microbrewery. Emotion, Space and Society, 13, 46–54. Thurnell-Read, T. (2021). Kindred spirits: Doing family through craft entrepreneurship. The Sociological Review, 69(1), 37–52. Tremblay, V. J., & Tremblay, C. H. (2005). The U.S. Brewing Industry: Data and economic analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wallace, A. (2019). Brewing the truth: Craft beer, class and place in contemporary London. Sociology, 53(5), 951–966. Wolfe, W. (2016). Brewing beer for art. Kinston, NC: The Free Press. Williams, A., Atwal, G., & Bryson, D. (2018). Luxury craftsmanship – The emergent luxury beer market. British Food Journal, 121(2), 359–370. Willis, J., Jost, M., & Nilakanta, R. (2007). Foundations of qualitative research: Interpretive and critical approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Chapter 3

Strategies for Success? Market Entry Strategies of New Craft Beer Producers Des Quinn, Vaughan Ellis and James Richards Abstract Fewer than half of UK start-up businesses survive beyond five years (ONS, 2020). The Scottish Small Business Survey of 2019 found competition in the market and uncertainty as to how to face it were considered the most significant barrier to success by almost half of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) (Scottish Government, 2020). This chapter considers how four Scottish breweries have formulated start-up strategies to respond to competition in an ever-increasingly crowded marketplace in order to maximise their likelihood of survival. The findings from each of these case studies are presented in an accessible format, and indicate that a variety of approaches to the development of the businesses can be adopted, albeit planned approaches dominate. Drawing on real life experiences of four successful businesses, the practical choices they took provide guidance and inspiration for other aspiring craft beer entrepreneurs in selecting an appropriate approach to and content of their founding strategy. Keywords: Scottish craft breweries; start-up strategies; strategy formation; differentiation; planned strategy; emergent strategy

Introduction Most new businesses in the UK will fail within the first five years of operation (ONS 2020) and the commercial threats posed by competitors were cited as the most important factor in this outcome for Scottish businesses (Scottish Government 2020). However, after decades of declining numbers, the past decade or so in the UK has seen a surge in the number of new breweries being formed with approximately 80% of these in Scotland classified as microbreweries

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 31–48 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211003

32    Des Quinn et al. (O’Connor,  2018). The craft beer sector is seen as having significant potential for further growth with associated benefits to the local and national economies in which they operate. However, the reasons for this spectacular disruption of what had been a stagnating beer market are not entirely clear nor is how new craft breweries have achieved successful entry to market. Gaining a better understanding of the start-up strategies of craft breweries will not only broaden our knowledge of the craft beer sector in general, but also open the possibility of more tailored support and guidance to be provided to other aspiring craft brewers. The newness of this market sector, combined with many new entrants often having limited knowledge of business, marketing and strategy (Miller  & Munoz, 2016) provides an opportunity for impactful new research into the start-up decisions made by these organisations. By the nature of the term ‘craft’ something is made using a particular set of manual skills but for that to become a viable business venture requires a different set of skills and an element of luck. This chapter addresses one main research question: How do craft brewery owners form their start-up strategy? It focusses upon four new entrants to the market, their current activities and the routes they took to market and explores the strategies employed to establish a new craft brewery, including funding, marketing, location, motivation, goals setting and growth plans. The chapter begins with a discussion of relevant strategic management literature in order to understand generic approaches to strategy formation and what is known about strategy adopted by craft breweries with guidance on what is considered ‘best practice’ discussed. Following this, a brief overview of the research design and execution is provided. The chapter then presents the research findings in the form of four case studies, before concluding with a discussion of their specific and wider significance.

Strategy and Small Businesses A noticeable characteristic of much strategic management literature is its conceptualisation of the strategy formation process as a rational and planned one, with the inference being that such processes are, or should be, similar in different sized organisations who may have different aspirations, operating environments, products or resources. Whilst there is no single definition of what strategic management is, many researchers agree that it is essentially a plan of action where an organisation’s resources are utilised to achieve business goals (Beckham, 2000; Fuertes et al., 2020; Koseoglu & Parnell, 2020; Nag, Hambrick, & Chen, 2007). Often drawing on militaristic conceptions of strategy as a formal, detailed and planned process, the strategic process can seem daunting and cumbersome for new businesses. Uncertain of how best to approach crafting a business strategy there is a real danger that small businesses neglect to do so. If searching for ‘strategy templates’ on the internet to guide them, small business owners would be confronted with around 277 million results, most promising a route to success, despite advocating many different approaches. Such confusion over how to approach strategy formation is a potential impediment to small business development and understanding of how businesses have done so in practice is likely to prove more useful than abstract discussions of definition.

Strategies for Success?    33 Turner and Endres (2017) found that small businesses typically operate in an innate way, driven largely by individuals’ personalities, rather than by formal strategy. There is also an assumption that small businesses do not employ set strategies, rather they react to situations and the response is often intuitive (Rizzo & Fulford, 2012). This type of impulsive response to business challenges is often considered to be the result of a lack of knowledge about the market or having insufficient awareness of what their competitors are up to (Cronin-Gilmore, 2012; Day, 2000; Kotler, 2004). It is argued that the key challenge for small business owners is how to craft innovative strategies to achieve market penetration that leads to long-term growth, whilst operating within their existing resources (Turner & Endres, 2017). One recent study by Williams, Smith, Aaron, Manley, and McDowell (2020) found that a mixture of strategies was most likely to lead to such success for small businesses. In particular, the setting of clear and achievable goals, a constant programme of quality control and improvement and control of the organisation’s fiscal position are key. Similarly, Porter’s (1996) generic strategy types of cost leadership, differentiation and market segmentation are argued to be the three key strategic areas which small businesses must pay most attention to. Indeed, several studies (Alstete, 2014; Barth, 2003; D’Amboise, 1993; Pelham, 2000) have found that broad differentiation from competitors is typically the most favoured strategy utilised by SMEs. Considering how small businesses form their start-up strategies, Stonehouse and Pemberton (2002) identified two generic approaches, prescribed (or planned) and emergent. The former was defined as an organisation setting longer-term goals, typically over a 3–5 year period and the latter using a shorter-term timeline and being more reactive in nature. Others saw these two strands as being poles of a spectrum of strategic decisions, with in reality a combination of both approaches being more common. In other words, small businesses typically make general plans to move the organisation in a particular direction whilst responding to evolving circumstances by adjusting the plan during implementation (Leitner & Guldenberg, 2010).

Strategy and Craft Breweries Traditional concepts of strategy have emphasised the inherently competitive nature of strategy, however, there is growing evidence that this is not always the case amongst craft breweries. For them, an alternative approach is to adopt a collaborative strategy, choosing to work with selective ‘competitors’ with the aim of achieving a more rapid entry to the market, refining products or respond quickly to competition from others. Miller and Munoz (2016) in their analysis of complex start-ups, found that new craft beer entrants often had mentors within their market who would advise them at the formation stage of their business. As these new entrepreneurs established their own breweries so they in turn would mentor new entrants to the market, often sharing their business plans which helped decision making and reduced risk. This behaviour is described in the theories of knowledge transfer where existing business pass on their expertise to aspiring entrepreneurs. It is seen as a less of a sharing and more a transfer of information from one party to another (Carlile & Rebentisch, 2003).

34    Des Quinn et al. Such a spirit of collaboration amongst microbrewers was also found by Danson, Galloway, Cabras, and Beatty (2015) whose research concluded that competition was structured around craftsmanship, identity and authenticity, rather than pricing: a key marker for competitive differentiation. This is where horizontal differentiation is to be seen and offers a partial explanation for the willingness of established breweries to support new businesses. As they are not competing on price there is perhaps a perception that there is less risk in supporting the development of a new product with its own identity into the market. Taken together, these contributions do much to eschew notions that there is a ‘one best way’ to approach strategy formation and development. Instead, strategy is best understood as a general direction of travel whilst remaining sensitive to changing environmental circumstances. Craft breweries face choices over whether to adopt a formal or less structured approach to devising a strategy and whether competitive or co-operative strategies are sought. The variety of approaches available and diversity of guidance on what to focus on whilst perhaps initially daunting should be seen as providing space to craft a strategy that fits with what the owner(s) are trying to achieve and to do so in a way that is both comfortable and suitable for the specific conditions the brewery operates.

Methodology: Designing Research to Explore Craft Brewing Business Strategies Data presented within this chapter were collected as part of a pilot study for a doctoral project examining strategy formation and evolution within Scottish craft breweries. Adopting purposive sampling (Emmel, 2013), four craft breweries were selected and invited to participate in the study. Based on the research team’s preexisting knowledge of Scottish microbreweries exemplar cases were selected with the aim of examining a range of different approaches to start-up strategies. The four breweries selected were drawn from across Scotland (one in west Scotland, one in the east and two in central Scotland). Evident from material on brewery websites each selected brewery had chosen to follow a different start-up strategy, in different locations at different times, although all within the last 15 years. As such each case provided a unique opportunity to examine strategy development, evolution and success in situ. No claims are made here that the selected cases were ‘typical’ or ‘ideal types’ in any way. Indeed, a core argument of the chapter is that approaches to strategy formation are, and should continue to be, heterogeneous. Having selected the breweries, contact was made with the owner(s) via an email containing a prospective participant information sheet explaining the focus and aims of the study and inviting the prospective participant to an interview to examine how the start-up strategy was developed, why and how effective it has been. Interviews were conducted at the breweries between March and June 2019, were semi-structured in nature, typically lasted between 45 and 65 minutes and examined prior professional experience, the origins of the brewery, route to market and strategic positioning. Participants were asked to sign a consent form confirming their willing participation in the study and releasing data to the authors for use in research outputs. As part of that discussion, it was agreed that the breweries would not be identified during any subsequent use of material

Strategies for Success?    35 gained from the interviews. Interviews were recorded and verbatim transcripts produced. Utilising Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-step approach to thematic analysis, transcripts were read and re-read to ensure data familiarisation, coded, themes generated, reviewed, named and defined and narratives produced. Given the intention to present the findings as case studies further documentary evidence, such as press coverage of the brewery and material available on the breweries’ websites, was also collected to combine with interview testimonies. The choice of multiple case studies allows for contrasts and comparisons to be made, provides more convincing data and can permit the investigation of broader topics than single case studies (Yin, 2003). It is recognised that the small sample size necessarily limits any attempt to generalise findings from this study. However, as previously mentioned, generalisation was never an intention. Instead, adopting an interpretivist perspective the research design sought to examine the meanings, motivations and specificity of the actions taken by brewery owners and to champion their diversity.

Heterogeneous Strategies: Entering the Scottish Craft Beer Market The chapter now turns to the research findings and does so by presenting four case studies telling the story of how each brewery’s start-up strategies were formulated and what they contained. Each of the cases are allowed to speak for themselves with discussion of meaning, significance and implications covered in the next section.

Capercaillie Brewery Background.  Two friends had been home brewing together and had built up a popular following amongst their friends as the ‘go-to guys’ for beer for a party or celebration. Neither had a background in brewing or chemistry or sales, nor had they any professional experience within the beer industry. Eventually after hearing many times from their friends and families that their beer was ‘good enough to be sold’, they decided to ‘take the plunge’ and test their beers in the commercial marketplace. Initial Start-up Strategy.  Their goals were simple at this point and were reflected in the business plan they presented to the bank. They would take their home-brew recipes to a commercial brewery, refine them and then sell the beer as a premium product. The expansion of the practice of ‘cuckoo brewing’, using the resources of a larger, physical brewery, was what made this proposal viable. There were no funds available to invest in expensive brewing equipment, but there were a number of breweries within travelling distance who were happy to allow them access to their equipment and to assist with recipe development. This was a key point in turning an idea into a business proposition, as one of the founders describes it: […] borrowing other people’s breweries, being able to attain a bigger volume without plumbing the money into stainless steel. The bulk of our volume will not be tied to a geographical area as we’re brewing on other people’s systems so it’s the brand (that) takes the key focus, it’s the name and what we’re about.

36    Des Quinn et al. This venture was funded solely by their own (modest) cash reserves. A conscious decision was ultimately made not to seek support from external stakeholders and this gave them the freedom to make their own decisions and if the venture failed, no other parties would lose out. They had agreed that they would take no remuneration from the business and any and all profit would be reinvested to make the next batch of beer. The owners were fortunate to have partners who could support them financially through this initial trading period. Route to Market.  They pooled their savings (about £2,000) and did their first brew at a commercial brewery after some assistance from the brewers with test batches. As a result of a lack of access to the main route to market, pubs, they decided that their primary route would be to sell direct to the public: traipsing around farmers markets, foodie fares and selling via word of mouth through their friends and family. This last source of sales provided them with a cohort of informal brand ambassadors who promoted these new beers to their own networks, at no cost. Secondary routes were retail: specialist beer shops, delicatessens and grocers. As sales built, they were eventually able to open their own small brewery with a taproom attached, selling direct to their customers. Market Positioning.  Although their approach could fairly be described as unstructured, they made one critical decision that greatly contributed to the survival of their business. This one apparently simple decision had multiple facets to it that worked across different levels: they decided to sell their beers in 750 ml champagne-style bottles. Initially, some of these bottles were free: a friend worked in a hotel and would collect the empty Prosecco bottles for them. As well as being free there was kudos in the environmental/recycling/sustainability aspect of this – an important value amongst craft beer drinkers.1 This big decision had more modest roots as the one of the owners explained: I think that when we first started bottling our beer it was in champagne style bottles purely out of, not laziness, it was easier. So essentially one of those bottles instead of three smaller ones, less caps, less labels to do. But it played into our hands in that no-one else does it so we didn’t have to compete on price. Restaurants- we’d supply all (of) them as it’s considered a sort of social, communal thing, a table beer. On the whole beer drinkers like it because they’d drink a pint or two at a bar but there’s quite a disconnect between what people will drink at a bar and what they’ll drink at home. They might go home and have a tiny dinky bottle and we kind of crossed that border essentially and it was a closer relationship to drinking habits. The use of the champagne bottles was perceived to be a more sophisticated presentation that allowed their product to stand out amongst the generic 330 ml 1

https://www.dsm.com/food-specialties/en_US/insights/beverage/craft-beer-millennialsconsumer-insights.html

Strategies for Success?    37 or 500 ml bottles that are more commonly seen in bars or supermarkets. These bottles gave them a competitive advantage when trying to access the restaurant market, particularly the more upmarket ones. That particular customer demographic was being exposed to their product in a way that would have been difficult for a small start-up to achieve through more traditional marketing strategies. The champagne bottle allowed them to price their product at the higher end of the market on a cost per litre basis, approximately twice the price of a typical 500 ml bottle of beer. The weight of the bottle, a simple but sophisticated label and a champagne cork all contributed to the sense that a high value proposition was on offer. At that time, the only beers seen in the UK in champagne bottles were usually Belgian ones which carry a world class reputation in the beer world. That association with beer heritage and quality, in the eyes of the consumers, did them no harm even though the product was quite different. Selling beers in units of 750 ml also meant that for every batch of beer produced, fewer units had to be sold before it sold out. This not only reduced packaging costs and the storage of inventory, but it also freed up more time to make more beer, work on recipes and manage the finances. This last benefit was particularly important in maintaining the cash flow of a new business: less time is spent selling and more time is spent on developing the business. The result of this particular strategy was that the selling price per litre was higher than if they had decided to use more traditional sized bottles, and their packaging costs were lower: making a material difference to their net profit. Their beer continues to be sold in this format unless they are one-off special productions with an alcohol by volume (ABV) above 6.5%, when customers are happy to pay a premium for a higher ABV beer in a smaller bottle. Setting a benchmark higher price point for regular beers, albeit in a larger format, makes the differential step-up to a premium price more palatable. All of this allowed them to effectively build up a cash fund of around £50,000 within 12–18 months of trading. This solid financial footing allowed the business to move to another level with the opening of a taproom, something which was never planned at the outset. The taproom resulted in significantly increasing their profile, selling more beer, faster, increasing turnover and establishing themselves as a local business rather than itinerant brewers.

Wildcat Brewery Background.  Three friends, deeply entrenched in the licenced trade, decided to capitalise on their experience and exploit what they saw as a gap in the craft beer market by setting up their own beer company. Their backgrounds were all different but complementary: one was a logistics professional, experienced in sourcing raw materials and transport, one was a sales and marketing manager within the field and third was experienced in the on-trade market. Initial Start-up Strategy.  They had a very clear strategy of how they would position their new business within the market by following a well-trodden path

38    Des Quinn et al. amongst new craft beer producers of creating a backstory for their beers based on locality, historical events or local figures: we knew exactly what we were going to do. We wanted a strong connection to Scotland for the brand and for that we needed a place or historic event that people would identify with, even (those based) outside of Scotland. Their chosen place name for the brewery is laden with historical context in Scotland with a strong connection to a Scottish monarch and also, they surmised, would do them no harm if and when they ultimately decided to enter the export market to America. The use of this place name allowed them to structure the names of their beers around this location, strengthening the brand by association with the beers each time. They identified what they believed to be the core range of beers that would appeal to the widest demographic they viewed as their target market: A Golden Ale, a lager, a Scottish Ale and an IPA. These range in strength from 3.8% ABV to 5.2% ABV. In the craft beer world, where stronger beers are more prevalent than ever, restricting the strength and range of beers to this narrow band could be perceived as a risky strategy. On the contrary, it may represent an acute understanding of what their customers want and locates their brand very firmly midpoint within the crowded craft beer market. This broad-focus approach targets the widest group within a specialist market: when people order one of their beers, they know exactly what they will be getting. Route to Market.  In common with similar craft beer start-ups, they had no ready outlet in the form of licenced premises from which to sell their beer so they resorted to direct selling by attending farmers’ markets, food and drink festivals and having an online presence. When the brewery was being established, they selected a building with sufficient space attached to it to provide them with a taproom. There are numerous benefits associated with having a taproom, but the most practical is probably its usefulness in providing cashflow. In an era when retail outlets can take months to settle an invoice, having the facility to generate immediate cash sales was deemed essential. For wet-led, licenced premises in rural areas that are heavily dependent on tourism, the loss of business out of season can be hard to sustain. By providing the small local population with a hospitality destination, they built brand loyalty by being seen as an integral part of the local community: they share the experience of being there with them at the quieter times of the year. It also provided an opportunity to showcase their beers in the best possible condition: what could be fresher than drinking beer only metres away from where it was made? This sense of authenticity, drinking beer from the tap, untainted by marketing hype, packaging, hard sells or thirdparty retailers, was a strong pull for the craft beer drinker. Getting a taproom open, right next to their brewery, was a key part of the strategy to attract local and tourist custom. Market Positioning.  Brand identity, their starting point was an historical place name which they would name their brewery after. Next up were the beers

Strategies for Success?    39 themselves and before the beers were brewed the three partners decided on the style, flavour profile and image for each beer. As one of the partners succinctly put it: Once we had the place name (for the brand) the names for the beers took care of themselves and we knew exactly the kind of beers we were going to make that would appeal to the mass market. Only when they were satisfied that they identified what the beers would look like, did they invite a brewer on board to develop original beers with those flavour and image characteristics. Fortunately for them, no doubt as a result of their extensive experience in the beer market and the skill of their chosen brewer, it was feasible to reproduce in the real world what they had created on paper. To both protect and enhance the brand they decided to name each of their four beers after a historical figure with a connection to the area. This initial range has not been expanded, a tactic that allows consistency and quality of the product to build, predictability for their customers, reduced production costs, the development of strong supply chains and a focus on developing and expanding into new markets. This is seen in their additional offering of gins and whisky, again utilising the strong historical imagery for the names of these products. By identifying with a historical place or events, the brewery can be perceived to have been established for longer than is actually the case. People recognise the place name before they recognise the beer brand and that positive familiarity brings trust: an aspiration for every business.

Red Deer Brewery Background.  Two friends with no experience in the beer industry had a chance encounter in the street, after one of them had recently been diagnosed with coeliac disease, a condition also experienced by the partner of the other. As they were discussing their experiences one said, not entirely seriously: ‘oh my god, life’s not worth living, I’ve just been diagnosed coeliac and I can’t drink beer any longer … I’m thinking of starting a brewery’ and (the other) said ‘I’ll do it with you as I’ve always had a little fantasy about starting a food and drink business … and before we knew it we were writing a business plan and before I knew it we were employing people and here we are’. An ‘off the cuff’ remark about having to start a brewery to provide gluten-free beer for himself led to the friend immediately offering to be a business partner in such a venture. The perception of the first partner was that gluten-free beers were a poor relation of regular beers and that they could improve on the current offering available in the marketplace. Whilst this was not, in the moment, a serious comment it nonetheless took root and they started to consider what they could

40    Des Quinn et al. do. Theirs was a classic case of an idea building and taking shape until it reached a point where its own momentum took it forward. Initially, they intended just using their savings but realised within a few months that to really get the business growing in line with their ambition they would need a large injection of cash. Initial start-up strategy.  From the outset, this organisation was focussed on rapid growth and exports by exploiting what they saw as a gap in the market for gluten-free beers. At the time, around 2015, there was an increased awareness of and interest in all things gluten-free and vegan. Many new and existing producers of food and drink were identifying a growing market for these types of products. Having accepted that their own funds would be insufficient to meet the ambitions they had for the business, the partners turned to crowdfunding and angel investors. Within the first two years they had raised in excess of £500,000, an extraordinary amount of investment given their lack of experience in the industry and lack of fixed assets. For the application to the angel investors, they were required to provide a highly detailed plan of how this capital sum would be utilised, rationale for each spend, timeframes, reporting mechanisms and income targets. This process helped them to think through in detail each aspect of the business within the context of their goals for it: a valuable tool to guide through their expansion plans. Route to Market.  As neither had any previous experience in brewing they had to find a brewer to develop recipes and brew the beer. Through their own social networks, they were introduced to a brewer in their home town who was able to help them understand the manufacturing side of the business: particularly important given the gluten-free nature of their product. This brewer also helped with recipe development and identified partner breweries who could brew different products. As their business grew and volumes increased, they moved to progressively larger breweries. They now have three breweries brewing beer: one brewery focussed on producing beers and bottling them, one on can production and then their own new brewery producing cask and keg beers. In an industry where quality and consistency are essential, having three different manufacturers of the same product for distribution in different formats demands good quality control and supply chain management. An obvious advantage to this practice is that it reduces risk: should one area fail there are already two other resources who could assist with replacement stock. Although there is a premium to be paid for others to brew beer, the financial advantages of not investing in capital infrastructure such as canning and bottling lines more than offset these costs. There was a focus on building distribution routes domestically and internationally, even before the first beer was available. As one of the founders described it: […] for two and a half years we only had two beers and we have focussed entirely, all our efforts on, building distribution rather than doing lots and lots of different types of beers. So now we’re listed with all the major UK wholesalers and distributors. And now we’re going to start building our portfolio of beers.

Strategies for Success?    41 There was a recognition that with the relatively niche product they had, high density markets around the word would have to be targeted to get the production volumes up to where they needed to be. The decision to outsource the production in the first instance allowed the two partners to concentrate on their strengths: marketing and building supply and distribution networks. They turned their attention to large national and international wholesalers and distributors and had agreements in place with only two beers in their portfolio for distribution. Domestically, they had London and the South East in their sights: we’re a business in Scotland with global ambitions so Scotland is not big enough. … there’s a lot more awareness (in the South East) … about coeliac disease, gluten avoiding people, veganism, vegetarianism. Internationally because of volume … if you get a deal in Sweden or Canada you’re laughing. With the success of the crowdfunding and angel investors they were able to establish their own city centre brewery and taproom which was built with the potential to hold both corporate and social events, to further embellish the brand and broaden its appeal. As the owner said: this isn’t a locals pub, it’s a place to showcase our beers. Market Positioning.  Having started the business as a result of a medical condition they decided that they would form their identity and so marketing and branding was focussed on this being the first completely gluten-free and veganfriendly brewery in the UK, gaining formal recognition from certification bodies that was then incorporated into their marketing material. As the business has matured and become more established, there is less emphasis on this as a focussed differential and the marketing strapline has been changed to ‘beers for the free’. The gluten-free and vegan properties of the beers, whilst still mentioned, have less prominence now than in the early days: they are now adopting a broad differential strategy to appeal to wider section of the market, not just those who would be attracted to the product for health reasons. There was a clear goal at the beginning that this business was being built to grow and be sold: it was never going to be a lifestyle business. Whilst there was clear passion for the product and the initial driver for starting the business was for very personal reasons, emotion was never going to get in the way of returning the investment for the shareholders.

Pine Marten Brewery Background.  The owner was a non-active partner in the first iteration of this Glasgow brewery which eventually ran into financial difficulties and was close to collapse. The partner who was running it left the business and the non-active partner assumed legal and financial control. The remaining partner had no experience

42    Des Quinn et al. of running a brewery and had to learn the business and at the same time use family money to keep the business afloat. (Re)start-up Strategy.  The start-up strategy at this second stage of the brewery’s life was simply to survive, repay the creditors and hold on to the staff and equipment. Whilst those objectives were being managed in the background, the brand was being repositioned in the marketplace. Its German owner skilfully exploited their home country’s brewing heritage to form the brewery’s identity with its adopted home in Glasgow. This is where the unique proposition of the brand is positioned: it is German beer but infused with love from Glasgow. The marketing strapline for their beer being ‘Glaswegian Heart, German Head’. They claim to be the only UK brewer brewing every beer to the Reinheitsgebot standard, the German purity law of 1516 ensuring only four ingredients, water, malt, hops and yeast, are used to make the beer. This German beer culture is so strongly embedded that it extends to how their product is packaged and made available to retailers. The owner was very clear on this aspect: No cask at all. About 90% is kegged and 10% bottle and can … we are a German style brewery and cask beer doesn’t exist in Germany … no, never been tempted: won’t happen. The owner’s father, Franz, visited Glasgow and confessed to being unimpressed with the city’s beer offering at that time. In part, this drove the owner to establish a brewery to make beers that Franz would enjoy when he visited Scotland. This story is now woven into the fabric of the brewery’s identity and in the words of the owner: I wasn’t a lager drinker but my father is a massive beer fan … we basically set the business up to give him a beer to drink when he came to visit Glasgow. That’s the reason we exist … we have the Franz seal of approval for all of our beers … he comes every six months to try our new beers; he’s our quality control guy. This dynamic also plays into the notion of the beer community as an extended, supportive family which in turn appeals to the Glaswegian sense of themselves as warm-hearted hosts. This cross-cultural identity of the brewery has been extended to include the names of the beers: their first one was named after the patron saint of Glasgow, and subsequent beers reference either Glasgow or Germany. Route to Market.  It was perhaps inevitable that a brewery with such a familial identity would establish itself in a park in central Glasgow in an A-grade-listed building of particular architectural merit: two locations that Glaswegians hold dear to their hearts. Not only is the park a major attraction in its own right, drawing in some 2 million visitors each year, the building in which the brewery is located is also home to 150 apartments and other businesses. This strong location provides a steady stream of custom from locals, tourists and members of the nearby business community. Having a bar and restaurant within the same space

Strategies for Success?    43 as the brewery provided many advantages for the management of the business in terms of product quality, cost management, sales, staff support and brand management. This latter point is particularly relevant in the context of their food menu where many of the dishes are German in origin but with Scottish produce, reinforcing the synergy of the two countries that creates the brand. Pine Marten was not immune to the attraction of having another outlet and in 2015 opened a new pub in Glasgow’s West End. However, it closed within three years as rising fixed costs, beyond their control, meant it was no longer financially viable. The brewery wanted their own second premises to ensure a guaranteed distribution point for their beers which would also give them greater control over the quality of their products. This direct line to consumers, allowed for stronger brand management and opportunities for direct market research for new offerings, was an integral part of an overall marketing strategy but it came at a heavy cost to the business. The challenges of moving into a new area and going into direct competition with other well-established business for customers and staff was always going to introduce a new element of risk to the business. Far easier and cheaper to extend into an adjoining space, where the cost of sales can be largely contained within one part of the existing operation, than to establish a new business some distance from the ‘mothership.’ Market Positioning.  The positioning of this brand is very firmly at the upper end of the market and an ever-increasing space in the iconic building has been given over to food and events, as well as a larger brewery. They have achieved this positioning and growth by their food and drink pricing policy, the targeting (but not exclusively) of the corporate market for use of their events space, the quality and style of the furniture and fittings, installing expensive copper clad brewing vessels to put on display and the use of aspirational, consumer imagery in their marketing material. There are several clear advantages to such a strategy, not least of which is the ability to have multiple revenue streams attracting different demographic groups that can be inter-connected or stand alone. This forms the basis of this brewery’s value proposition: it is a hospitality one-stop shop for drinks, food and events.

Towards Lessons Learnt from Start-up Strategies of Small Craft Breweries This chapter sought to answer the question how do craft brewery owners form their start-up strategy? The chapter has illuminated the strategic decisions made by four new beer producers in Scotland that ensured successful launch and survival within the sector. This section considers factors which shaped these decisions and how they were implemented. Findings suggest that there are as many different start-up strategies, and approaches to formulating them, as there are breweries. From raising hundreds of thousands of pounds from crowdfunding platforms, to solely self-funded or traditional sources of finance, participants’ approaches varied. These different choices reflect differing attitudes to risk, available resources as well as short- and long-term goals and ambitions for each of the brewery owners.

44    Des Quinn et al. Table 1 provides a summary of the approaches taken to founding the brewery, forming their start-up strategy, planning the route to market and their market positioning. As can be seen, the breweries represent a range of different strategies, albeit with two out of four displaying more characteristics of a planned approach. The purest example of the planned approach to strategy formation was Wildcat Brewery with their rational, analytical and purposeful strategy based upon incremental and organic growth. The approach taken can in part be explained by the significant and complementary business backgrounds of the founders. Having acquired competence in strategic planning and having significant trade experience within the team, the founders were both able, and attracted, to adopting a more prescriptive approach, with clear, researched objectives. However, this is not a complete explanation of the approach adopted. Instead, attention must be paid to the age of the founders and the opportunistic motives for starting the brewery. Having identified a commercial opportunity to provide a source of locally inspired, and ultimately locally made beer, of a traditional Scottish style to a predominantly tourist clientele, there is a clear logic in developing a well thought out plan of how to best exploit it. From the start, this was a brewery which defined itself first and foremost as a commercial entity. In contrast, Capercaille’s approach to strategy formation is an example an emergent approach. Inspired by a love of home brewing and positive feedback from friends on the quality of their beer, but without any professional brewing experience or formal business acumen the approach was much more an example of relying on intuition, rather than formal planning. The brewery was initially founded on a ‘good idea’, which gradually led to other ‘good ideas’ being followed. The strategy, therefore, was very loosely formed at start-up and subsequently evolved over time as market intelligence was gathered, and time was expended on forming a clearer vision as opportunities presented themselves. As such, the strategy evolution was more reactive, than pro-active in nature. In line with the image of a stereotypical entrepreneur, the founders responded to opportunities to diversify such as the chance to open their own taproom, something that was never planned. However, it is important to note that even in an emergent strategy such as Capercaille’s there were planned elements. Necessitated by the need to access business banking facilities, such as credit cards and overdraft facility, the founders created a business plan establishing their idea for the brewery and how it would be started. To be clear though, the plan lacked the depth and time horizon of Wildcat’s. Capercaille’s founders were ‘keen amateurs’ whereas Wildcat’s were ‘experienced professionals’ from relevant fields. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the approach to strategy formation differed in these two contexts. The final two case breweries moved closer towards a more planned approach to start-up strategy formation but not to the same extent as Wildcat. In the case of Pine Marten, faced with an urgent need to relaunch a failing business and having significant family resources tied up within the brewery, but relevant managerial and professional experience a rational and considered approach to business survival, or ‘restart’ could be expected. The initial salvage operation to save the business meant responding to immediate threats to the ability to trade such as demands from creditors or losing key staff. Keeping creditors happy

Use crowdfunding to Getting listed early with major build a substantial capital domestic and international pot to establish a unique distribution companies allowed brand. Aim for rapid wide exposure to the market as growth in both domestic soon as the product was available. and export markets Used angel investors to raise funds for a brewery and taproom once the brand was established Restructured financially Sales to pubs and retail. Brewery whilst establishing a clear and taproom opened, then a brand identity based restaurant and events space, all on family heritage and within one building location

Two friends with no beer industry experience but with substantial business experience. United by a common health condition

Red Deer

Pine Marten Non-active, non-industry partner took control when the business started to fail. Borrowed from family members to keep the business going

Traditional routes via pubs, and major retail. Opened a taproom next to their brewery, targeting locals and tourists

Develop a clear brand identity which could be grown as the business developed

Three friends with substantial industry experience

Wildcat

Direct selling to public via markets and food fayres. Targeting specialist retail outlets. Eventually achieving their own taproom

Route to Market

Use cuckoo brewing. Reinvest all profits

Initial Start-up Strategy

Capercaillie Two friends with no beer industry experience. Limited funds. Strong family and friends support

Background

Table 1.  A Summary of Findings.

Top end of the market achieved through pricing, sophisticated marketing and food and events offerings

Initially held a niche position but have since moved to a more mid-market position to appeal to a wider demographic

Firmly mid-market. Have stuck to a core range of four beers that will appeal to a wide range of established and new craft beer drinkers

Top end position achieved by using champagne style bottles which gave a higher price point per litre sold

Market Positioning

Strategies for Success?    45

46    Des Quinn et al. whilst finding both a product and an identity that would provide a continuation of the business required both a reactive and a planned response. As the future of the business became more secure, the opportunity to implement a planned strategy emerged. For these reasons, Pine Marten is most closely associated with a hybrid model of strategy. There is a logic in falling back on professional training in a time of crisis. Again though, this planned approach evolved and incorporated emergent elements, such as the move into hospitality. Similarly Red Deer exhibited both planned and emergent strategic elements. Although initially inspired by a chance conversation and desire to access beer that the founder could drink, it soon became apparent that the founders had identified a significant, and potentially very lucrative gap in the beer market. Similar to Wildcat, the brewery was always defined as a commercial entity and the objective was to maximise business value in order that it could be sold. What is notable from the case breweries is the extent to which where brewers produce specific types of beers largely for their own personal reasons, they rely less on planned strategies. Both Capercaillie and Red Deer founders were motivated to make the type of beers that they would like to drink themselves. The Pine Marten owner wanted to make a beer her father would enjoy and the Wildcat owners made beers that they thought would appeal to most people. Whilst the beers in all four cases are tied into the identity of the brand, the one with the strongest planned strategy had included the profile and name of each beer before any beer had even been produced. In the craft beer world, where notions of authenticity are related to consumer satisfaction with the product, an inference can be drawn that the historical place name chosen by Wildcat produces sufficient authenticity. As mentioned previously, the beer names chosen provide a strengthening link back to the brand by their association with the location. It is apparent that there is no strategic masterplan that will work for all new business: there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach that can be replicated in its entirety. That is not to say that having no strategy is an option or that new business owners should not look to what others in their field are doing. Instead, it can be shown that by having a destination in mind upon founding the business, decisions that are subsequently taken can be considered within the context of reaching it. As discussed in the introduction, the appetite for risk plays a part not only in the decision to start a business but also influences other decisions. It may be significant that the two breweries that were at, or close to a fully planned strategy were the older, seasoned professionals who may have wanted the security of a plan to reduce their exposure to risk. Financially, they felt they had personally more to lose so the way to reduce that risk would be to plan carefully to achieve their goal. The youngest brewers, in their mid-20s, started their business with no clear end point in sight and adopted a more relaxed view of their strategy, content for their decisions to be more reactive in nature. This approach supports Turner and Endres’ (2017) findings that strategic decisions in small businesses were more likely to be intuitive and driven by the owner’s personality. The founding group with the most members, Wildcat, reduced the opportunity for this type of individual decision-making processes by having an almost fully formed product and a route to market firmly established prior to launching their product. The four case

Strategies for Success?    47 breweries were founded by the owners believing that they could produce either something better than was currently available or something new and that aspiration was essential in guiding their decision making.

Conclusions: Lessons Learnt and Wider Implications This chapter has presented four case studies detailing how founders of craft breweries went about forming their initial ‘strategies’. It has been shown that a variety of strategies can be adopted and that there are different paths to achieving success, however, that is defined. Furthermore, the chapter has suggested that despite ever-increasing levels of competition within the market there remains space for breweries to adopt idiosyncratic strategies which largely reflect the personalities and experiences of the founders. In other words, notions of a ‘one best way’ to approach strategy formation are rejected. New breweries should have a sense of what they are trying to achieve upon founding and have the confidence to select a strategic approach that is consistent with these aims. The chapter has shown with these four examples that the ability to achieve grand differentiation can play a key part in establishing market share and thus enhance the prospects of survival. Given the small sample size it is not possible though to offer definitive conclusions on the nature of strategy formation within craft breweries and so the chapter concludes by highlighting the need for further research in this area. A larger sample size would deepen understanding of the variety of strategies that have been adopted by craft breweries and how they were created. Emerging patterns and themes arising from such research would provide a platform from which to track the longer-term impacts of any given approach to strategic formation. Longitudinal research would also be invaluable in assessing the extent to which the nature and content of strategies change over time, why and what effect they have on the sustainability of the brewery. In particular, the extent to which founding strategies remain unaltered in breweries that grow sufficiently to separate ownership and control would be an interesting question to address. Finally, given the emergence of craft beer industries around the world, comparative research examining the issues considered within this chapter would also be worthwhile.

References Alstete, J. W. (2014). Strategy choices of potential entrepreneurs. Journal of Education for Business, 89(2), 77–83. Barth, H. (2003). Fit among competitive strategy, administrative mechanisms, and performance: A comparative study of small firms mature and new industries. Journal of Small Business Management, 41, 133–147. Beckham, J. D. (2000). Strategy: What it is, how it works, why it fails. Health Forum Journal, 43(6), 55–59. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.

48    Des Quinn et al. Carlile, P., & Rebentisch, E. (2003). Into the black box: The knowledge transformation cycle. Management Science, 49, 1180–1195. Cronin-Gilmore, J. (2012). Exploring marketing strategies in small businesses. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 6(1), 96–107. D’Amboise, G. (1993). Do small business manifest a certain strategic logic? An approach for identifying it. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 11, 8–17. Danson, M., Galloway, L., Cabras, I., & Beatty, T. (2015). Microbrewing and entrepreneurship: The origins, development and integration of real ale breweries in the UK. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 16(2), 135–144. Day, J. (2000). Commentary – The value and importance of the small firm to the world economy. European Journal of Marketing, 34(9), 1033–1037. Emmel, N. (2013). Sampling and choosing cases in qualitative research: A realist approach. London: SAGE Publications. Fuertes, G., Alfaro, M., Vargas, M., Gutierrez, S., Ternero, R., & Sabattin, J. (2020). Conceptual framework for the strategic management: A literature review—Descriptive. Journal of Engineering, 2020(7), 1–21. Koseoglu, M. A., & Parnell, J. M.A. (2020). The evolution of the intellectual structure of strategic management between 1980 and 2019. Journal of Strategy and Management, 13(4), 503–534. Kotler, P. (2004). Ten deadly marketing sins; signs and solutions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Leitner, H.-H., & Guldenberg, S. (2010). Generic strategies and firm performance SMEs: A longitudinal study of Austrian SMEs. Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal, 35, 169–189. Miller, J. R., & Munoz, L. (2016). Complex start-ups: A thematic analysis into entrepreneur– opportunity fit concept. Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, 28(1), 1–29 (Fall edition). Nag, R., Hambrick, D. C., & Chen, M. J. (2007). What is strategic management, really? Inductive derivation of a consensus definition of the field. Strategic Management Journal, 28(9), 935–955. O’Connor, A. (2018). Brewing and distilling in Scotland- economic fact and figures. Scottish Government [Online]. Retrieved from https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ ResearchBriefings/Report/2018/10/11/Brewing-and-distilling-in-Scotland--economicfacts-and-figures#Executive-Summary ONS. (2020). [Online]. Retrieved from https://www.ons.gov.uk/ Pelham, A. M. (2000). Market orientation and other potential influences on performance in small and medium-sized manufacturing firms. Journal of Small Business Management, 38, 48–67. Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy?. Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61. Rizzo, A., & Fulford, H. (2012). Understanding small business strategy: A grounded theory study on small firms in the EU State of Malta. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 20(3), 287. Scottish Government. (2020). Small Business Survey 2019 [Online]. Retrieved from https:// www.gov.scot/ Stonehouse, G., & Pemberton, J. (2002). Strategic planning in SMEs – Some empirical findings. Management Decision, 40(9), 853–861. Turner, S., & Endres, A. (2017). Strategies for enhancing small business owners’ success rates. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 16(1), 34–49. Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. London: SAGE Publications. Williams, I. R., Smith, A., Aaron, R. J., Manley, C. S., McDowell, C. W. (2020). Small business strategic management practices and performance: A configurational approach. Economic Research, 33(1), 2378–2396.

Chapter 4

Illuminating Craft Brewers’ Experiences of Dealing with Covid-19 and Making Fresh Sense of What Covid-19 Can Do To/For Craft Beer: An Intègraphic Approach Daniel Clarke, James Bowden and Keith Dinnie Abstract In this chapter, the authors explore the impact of Covid-19 on craft beer in the here-and-now of the pandemic by examining responses of Scottish (UK) brewers to it. The authors’ aim is to organise their responses to the situation in which they find themselves with the objective of making fresh sense of the dynamics of organising during a global pandemic. In pursuit of fresh insight to all of this, the authors seek to illuminate what Covid-19 can do to/for breweries and to know the world differently (through recognising more than one way of knowing). So, to enrich the reader’s understanding of organising in the haecceity of responding to and dealing with Covid-19, the authors’ method of inquiry involves integrating empirical materials from brewery social media activities with poetic transcription from interviews with brewers. The authors find support for the view that such integration of findings through research poetry clothes the social media content findings and neither approach dominates the other. Potential implications for future beer studies from the field of poetry are discussed in light of the new comings-together in this chapter. Keywords: Covid-19; situational analysis; brewery/brewer experiences; haecceity; intègraphy; social media; research poetry

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 49–72 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211004

50    Daniel Clarke et al. Intègraphy is ‘… a consumer research process and an example of a study of ­situations …’ (Levy & Kellstadt, 2012, p. 1073) comprising four stages: observation, annotation, investigation and implication. We adapt and adopt this multimethod approach to explore the situation of Covid-19 and its impact on craft beer in Scotland. By telling how we have come to our particular focus and sharing the ‘… thinking of the researchers that precede the launch of the actual study’ (Levy & Kellstadt, 2012, p. 1074), we enter the first stage of intègraphy: observation. –––

Introducing the Thinking that Precedes the Research: Observation (Stage 1) As with many other research projects and in keeping with what this book is about (i.e. researching craft beer), this chapter began life as a conversation in a pub after a hill run in the Ochils (Stirlingshire, Scotland) during the Summer of 2020. Discussing the not-yet-known (Gale, 2018) in terms of the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic (referred to as Covid-19 from now) on pubs and craft beer breweries, and wondering how craft beer in general would survive the pandemic, our conversation then (and this chapter now) was driven by astonishment and breakdown in our understanding (Brinkmann, 2014) and a ‘sensitivity to the ongoing situation that acknowledges the simultaneous becoming of the researcher and the research’ (Brown, 2020, p. 14). Daniel informed James about the backstory of this very book, explaining that it is based on a two-day symposium that took place, pre-Covid, in mid-2019. Since Covid-19 did not exist at the time, it was not mentioned at the symposium. As speakers at the symposium submitted proposals for chapters based on the work they presented at the event, it was not surprising that none of the ideas for chapters directly addressed the situation of the pandemic and/or its many elements (e.g. the event of ‘going into’ lockdown, social distancing, ‘coming out’ of lockdown, the government Eat Out To Help Out scheme, the 8 and 10 p.m. curfews and The ‘Rule of Six’). Whilst supping their beer, Daniel and James’ curiosity deepened as they began wondering (Carlsen & Sandelands, 2015), how an edited volume on researching craft beer might be received if it is published almost a year since the start (i.e. March 2020) of ‘lockdown 1.0’ and yet does not feature a chapter dedicated to exploring the impact of Covid-19 on craft beer? Especially when, unfortunately and quite tragically, viewed from within the thick of writing this chapter (i.e. November 2020) it seems quite possible that Covid-19 is still going to be around and the global catastrophe is still going to be on everybody’s lips come April 2021, when this book was originally scheduled for publication (with work for the proposal having started as far back as August 2019). ––– Covid-19 is a situation and an ongoing event and, given the immediacy of the unrelenting ‘mo(ve)ment’ (Gale, 2018, p. 165) with everything Covid-related,

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    51 both the research and writing for this chapter has taken place during the pandemic. Moreover, the ‘polishing’ of an earlier draft version of this chapter began just days after lockdown 2.0 was announced (i.e. 5 November 2020). This chapter, then, has been composed ‘in all its ins and outs, ups and downs, forwards and backs in just one fantastic haecceity’ (Gale, 2018, p. 131). That is, our writing offers insights into the thisness of writing, researching and living out the impact of Covid-19 on craft beer where ‘those who are interested are invited to join in’ (Gale, 2018, p. 140). ––– ‘Researchers are observers’ (p. 1074) and as researchers we have observed the instigation of our project. The next stage is annotation, the subject to which we will now turn. –––

On the Impact of Covid-19 on Craft Beer: Annotation(s) (Stage 2) Our aim in this section of the chapter is to annotate, as matter of ‘fact’, the situation of Covid-19 in relation to craft beer in order to prepare the ground for analysis of the impact of Covid-19, that is, according to craft beer brewers, gleaned from our own investigations in stage 3. In annotation, Levy and Kellstadt (2012, p. 1074) write, ‘Media of all sorts can play a role, including newspapers and magazines, which traditional researchers often neglect’. From that, the chapter now pivots (Ulmer, 2020), offering insight into the impact of Covid-19 on craft beer according to non-academic literature. –––

Timeline of Events1 1 March: First positive case of Covid-19 confirmed in Scotland (i.e. Tayside). 11 March: UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces £12bn package of emergency support to help UK businesses. 13 March: First confirmed death of a patient in Scotland (i.e. Lothian) with Covid-19. 15 March: Scottish Government (SG) advised organisers to cancel or postpone all mass events (500 people or more) indoors or outdoors. 16 March: Lockdown inferred by Matt Hancock in speech.

1

Key source for the above timeline: ‘Timeline of Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Scotland (https://spice-spotlight.scot/2020/11/27/timeline-of-coronavirus-covid-19-inscotland/).

52    Daniel Clarke et al. 17 March: SG First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urges every citizen to reduce all non-essential social contact. 19 March: SG announces the closure of schools and nurseries from the end of the week (Friday, 20 March). 20 March: UK Government orders all pubs, restaurants and other social venues to close. 23 March: Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives a televised address to the nation, telling people that they should only go outside to buy food, to exercise once a day and to only go to work if they cannot work remotely/from home. 26 March: Across the UK, people start a weekly clap at 8 p.m. as a show of thanks to NHS workers and care-givers. 26 March: UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak introduces a package of measures to support self-employed workers. 27 March: Prime Minister Boris Johnson and UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock test positive for coronavirus. 15 April: SG announces second phase of small business relief funding, worth £120m. 30 April: SG announces new £100m package of grant support for Small & Medium Enterprises. 18 May: Lockdown eased with garden centres and cafes opening. 18 June: SG publish a list of all measures taken by SG to support the food and drink supply chain during the Covid-19 outbreak. 20 June: SG announces intention to allow Scotland’s tourism and hospitality sector to reopen on 15 July. 4 July: Hospitality venues in England were able to reopen, with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland soon following suit. 15 July: Pubs reopened in Scotland. 3 August: Eat Out To Help Out launched. 14 August: Mandatory for hospitality settings to collect the contact details of visitors to their premises in support of Test and Protect. 25 September: 10 p.m. curfew introduced in Scotland for all pubs, bars and restaurants. 7 October: SG restricts hospitality opening hours (i.e. 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) indoors, with no sale of alcohol. Premises may open outdoors until 10 p.m., with sales of alcohol. All licenced premises in the central belt area will be required to close, with the exception of takeaway services. 18 October: SG launch the ‘Scotland Loves Local’ grant for local projects. 2 November: New, five-tier system of Covid restrictions introduced in Scotland. 5 November: England entered into lockdown 2.0. 13 November: In Scotland, the local authority areas of Angus, Fife and Perth and Kinross were moved up from Tier 2 to Tier 3. [England went into lockdown 2.0 but it’s hard to identify lockdown 2.0 in Scotland because of the introduction of a different tiered system allowing pubs to serve beer in Tier 2 meant that Covid-19 restrictions were distributed unevenly across different local authorities within Scotland.]

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    53 20 November: Some parts of Scotland enter Tier 4 which evokes certain aspects of lockdown 1.0, that is, pubs, cafes and restaurants are closed and no alcohol can be served but schools and colleges remain open and essential travel for key workers is still allowed. ––– Summing up the impact of Covid-19 with a one-size-fits-all answer, for some, is an ‘impossible task’ (McKirdy, 2020). Across the food and drink sector, however, attempts have been made to assess the loss of revenue. For example, Scotland Food & Drink (SFD, 2020) report that ‘The impact of Covid-19 has been grave … with up to £3 billion of revenue lost to the industry in 2020’ (p. 3). In March alone, Perrett (2020) observes that ‘the effect on the beer market of lockdown was immediate as beer sales plunged by 40% compared to the same period in 2019’. Elsewhere, global exporters have not been immune from the impact of Covid-19, with Diageo predicting ‘… profits will be hit by up to £200m this year as China’s on-trade all but closed down’ (Gray, 2020). From all this, the picture that has emerged is one in which craft brewers have raced (Holloway, 2020) to repurpose and repermit, turning physical spaces within the brewery into opportunities to generate alternative revenue streams. They have also sought to find new ways to use their customers’ spaces as marketing spaces and to change their own approaches to decision making where activities are more about survival than ‘the new never’. –––

Investigation(s) (Stage 3) In this stage, our approach to writing involves searching for empirical materials (i.e. ‘data’) that ‘… exert a kind of fascination, and have a capacity to animate further thought’ (MacLure, 2013). Following Gale (2018, p. 150), by ‘data’ we also allow in ‘transgressive data’, that which are ‘… uncodable, excessive, out of control, out-of-category forms of data’ including: emotional data, dream data, sensual data and response data. So, in this section of the chapter we cherry-pick (Gabriel, 2018) that which shimmers from our olio of data to tell a story of what Covid-19 can do to/for craft beer. Whilst working at the wonder of what Covid19 does, we are handling ‘… things that are not supposed to relate, connect and surge into new intensities’ (St. Pierre, Jackson, & Mazzei, 2016, p.104) to make fresh sense of things. For example, before we started out writing this chapter, we did not know that fishmongers, milk bottles (i.e. ‘growlers’) and Covid-19 were connected. –– The overarching storyline or plot, if there is one, for the picture that has emerged from our glimpsing of brewers’ responses to the impact of Covid-19

54    Daniel Clarke et al. based on our two complementary investigations on craft beer is cut together here in three bullet points. Covid-19 can do the following (and more-than) to craft beer, it can: ⦁⦁ make for a febrile atmosphere and with beer flowing differently, posing an

existential threat, it can also make brewers care more for their team(s) and customers; ⦁⦁ make social media more important than ever before, allowing brewers to remain relevant and stay connected with their consumers whilst turning their website/ Facebook/Instagram into a shop window or a full-fledged on online shop; ⦁⦁ make consumers reassess spending habits, giving them time to think about what they value thereby also challenging traditional and established ways of getting beer from brewery to glass (i.e. upend and shake up existing business models), creating opportunities for those with time and flexibility and a diverse portfolio. It also sparks innovative ways of getting products to customers (distribution/supply/delivery), bringing small independent business owners closer together. Covid-19 can do the following (and more-than) for craft beer: ⦁⦁ help brewers (re)connect with local audiences and buyers, bringing new cus-

tomers to the brewery and strengthening existing connections/bonds/relationships with the kinds of consumers brewers want to connect with.

Whereas ‘to’ is read as negative impacts of Covid-19 on brewing, ‘for’ is read as opportunities and new activities afforded thanks to Covid-19. –––

Examining Social Media Activities (Investigation One) A survey of European micro and nanobrewers conducted by Alonso, Bressan, and Sakellarios (2017) found innovative marketing through social media channels to be one of the most agreed upon ways in which brewers were innovating, second only to the creation of new beer recipes. As one respondent in the survey noted: ‘We find that social media is a fantastic marketing tool and actually get orders through them’ (p. 148). Since craft beer brewers use social media platforms such as Twitter as a marketing communication channel, posts about craft beer tend to be ‘public’ and open access, with the intention of positively influencing attitude, perception and behaviours towards the brand. Social media therefore presents us with an ‘invaluable real time window’ (Das, Martinez, Jerez, & Tufano, 2005, p. 103) through which we can observe if and how brewers engage with the public in the here-and-now of the coronavirus pandemic. Stanley (2020) observes that the considerations for using online social media data are: distinction between public and private spaces, informed consent and protecting data to ensure confidentiality and anonymity. With regard the latter, since the data from Twitter in this chapter is exclusively drawn from public-domain

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    55 accounts, ‘Informed consent is assumed here as for any other publication’ (p. 248). For this reason, brewery names are given in the text so that experiences of the force with which Covid-19 has hit can be directly attributed to the brewery, linking what Covid-19 can do to/for craft beer to the brewery. Following Stanley (2020), ‘where identifiable names are given in the text, these are the names of people who have, themselves, published about their experiences’ (p. 248) and this information is already available in the public domain. In order to identify relevant Twitter accounts to analyse, we first construct a list of Scottish brewers using craft beer maps made available by Visit Scotland and The Brewers Association of Scotland. We filter this initial list of 38 brewers based on three criteria: (i) the brewery must have a public Twitter account, (ii) the brewery must have ‘tweeted’ on at least one occasion during the date range spanning from 16 March 2020 to 15 July 2020 (the ‘lockdown period’)2 and (iii) the brewery must have also ‘tweeted’ on at least one occasion during the corresponding date range in 2019.3 The latter condition, relating to the previous year, is introduced as it provides a benchmark from which to identify and analyse ‘abnormal’ brewer activity on Twitter. Introducing these three criteria reduces our sample to 25 Scottish brewers. Using the username for each brewer’s Twitter account, we retrieve and compile a history of brewer tweets using the Twitter Application Programming Interface (API).4 Tweets are then brought into a dataframe in Python, a highlevel programming language, and analysed using packages such as Natural Language Toolkit and Gensim (for topic modelling purposes). Our final dataset consists of 4,575 tweets published during the lockdown period in 2020, which marks a 23% increase in tweet frequency when compared to the same time period in 2019. This preliminary evidence suggests that the importance of social media as an innovative marketing tool (Alonso et al., 2017) increased during Covid19. However, this trend is not observed across all brewers: in the case of 44% of brewers, twitter activity decreased or remained broadly the same. Brewers were particularly active on Twitter in the first two weeks following the Prime Minister’s recommendation to avoid ‘… pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues’ on 16 March 2020 (UK Government, 2020); the highest number of tweets on any

2

This date range is selected as it spans from the day on which Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressly recommended that the public ‘… avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statementon-coronavirus-16-march-2020), until the day on which the SG’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, permitted pubs and restaurants to reopen following the nationwide lockdown. 3 We also download brewer tweets dated between the 16 March and 15 July for years 2015 through to 2018. We do this to identify broader trends in Twitter activity over time, but we do not utilise or highlight individual tweet data from these time periods in our analysis. 4 The Twitter API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api) allows users to ‘programmatically analyse, learn from, and engage with the conversation on Twitter’.

56    Daniel Clarke et al. one day (154 tweets) was 21 March 2020, and five of the top ten most active days in the lockdown period took place during March. Perhaps a sign that brewers were adopting creative and innovative methods during the UK-wide lockdown lies in the creation of original content. Our analysis suggests that 25% of tweets from Scottish brewers during the lockdown period were ‘retweets’ of content originally published by others, versus 40% of tweets over the same time period between 2015 and 2019. Unique tweets (those that were not retweets or direct responses to other twitter users) constituted 29% of all brewer tweets during the lockdown period, compared to 22% in previous years, which is again suggestive of an increase in original content. Furthermore, the popularity of a number of ‘… at home …’ events organised by brewers and published during the lockdown period, such as #FyneFestAtHome and #AMunroOfStairs, suggests that Scottish brewers were – as Holloway (2020) claims – repurposing their online spaces to establish and maintain a connection with customers and non-customers. During the lockdown, Fyne Ales (@FyneAles) invited followers to interact with the brewery by partaking in online quizzes and creating videos in which they shared their fondest memories of previous Fyne Fest festivals, using the hashtag #FyneFestAtHome. Harviestoun Brewery (@HarviestounBrew) shared footage of staff climbing their stairs 361 times, and asked followers to share ‘climbing selfies’ using the hashtag #AMunroOfStairs, as part of a charitable campaign to raise funds for NHS Charities Together. According to Kleban and Nickerson (2012, p. 74), social media has ‘brought microbreweries, nanobreweries and large breweries to a common battlefield …’ in which those that ‘… strategically utilise these networking resources, will prevail’. Though this may be the case, there is little evidence to suggest a ‘battlefield’ mentality exists amongst brewers during the lockdown period. This may – to some extent – reflect a belief that the industry can best weather the ongoing uncertainty through cooperation and togetherness. This matches much of what has been learned of craft beer elsewhere (e.g. Kraus, Klimas, Gast, & Stephan, 2019), where even ‘getting into bed’ with the competition is a norm. As Tempest Brewing Co (@TempestBrewCo, 17 March 2020) articulate: Never has it felt more unpredictable than it does right now, but this is a storm we can weather together if we stay positive and look out for each other. And that extends to the bottle shops, bars and all the other great breweries that we owe so much to. Indeed, Campervan Brewery (@campervanbrew, 21 March 2020) express disappointment in an action that contradicts the sense of togetherness amongst brewers, bottle shops and bars: Disappointed to see a local bar chain cancel their Direct Debit today. I thought we were all in this together? We have help now and as long as we keep money flowing amongst us we should all see the light of day. Just talk to us, don’t assume it’s ok to hang us out to dry.

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    57 Again, this suggests a close-knit brewing community in the online arena, rather than a platform for direct battle. We also note that this phenomenon is not exclusive to 2020; a similar trend emerges when we examine interactions during the corresponding period in 2019, and words such as ‘collab’ and ‘collaboration’ emerge as key topics in brewer tweets historically. Finally, our analysis suggests an increased utilisation of online shops, and a focus on key dates (such as Father’s Day) as a key retail opportunity during lockdown. The #FathersDay hashtag features in the top 10 most used hashtags during the lockdown period, whereas it is not present in the top 25 between 2015 and 2019. As an example, St Andrews Brewing Co. (@StAndrewsBrewCo, 12 June 2020) offer a ‘… new Father’s Day selection – now online! …’ featuring ‘… eleven dad pleasing beers and a branded pint glass to bring the pub to him’. The hashtag #growler was not something we expected to find in the list of most popular hashtags amongst brewers during the lockdown period. The popularity of using containers to ‘take out’/‘take away’ beer (‘growlers’) for consumption off-premises grew as a method of supplying direct-to-consumer, especially amongst brewers with a taproom and/ or an off-licence who turned their brewery into a gift shop/retail space. This is consistent with Holloway’s (2020) observation of a repurposing of physical space. For example, as Loch Leven Brewery (@LochLevenBrew, 21 March 2020) tweeted: Full clean down as we turn our Taproom from a bar and gift shop into a gift shop only, including our famous #Growlers …. Fantastic #Craft #Beer #Ale & #Gin to help see you through. –––

Interviewing Brewers (Investigation Two) Translating what can a body do? (Gale, 2018) into what can Covid-19 do to/for craft beer? and drawing on insights gleaned from stage 2, we developed an interview schedule (see the Appendix) to guide our research conversations, and we interviewed craft beer brewers to assemble possible answers. A long list of brewers I (Daniel) would like to speak with, based on convenience, proximity, likelihood of gaining access – through personal networks – and genuine curiosity/interest in those breweries was written up, producing a dozen names. Brewers were then contacted by email and direct messaging via Facebook, inviting them for a conversation about their experiences of keeping the beer flowing during Covid-19. A range of brewers in terms of size, number of years trading and location were targeted to elicit a diversity of experiences and voices, resulting in a short list of seven brewers who replied positively to my request for an interview. One was difficult to tie down, failing to reply to follow-up communications and another did not reply until very near the end of the research stage, sounding an alarm that: Things are quiet at the brewery …, bit 50/50 how it will end up to be honest. But I have my health and so do my family and friends so that’s the main thing. (Personal Communication, 14 December 2020)

58    Daniel Clarke et al. Table 1.  Research Participants. Brewery

Founded Staff

Fyne Ales

2001

25

Wasted Degrees

2017

Blunt Chisel Glen Spean

Location

Representative

Role/Position

Cairndow, Argyll

Jamie Delap (JD)

Managing Director

2

Blair Atholl, Perthshire

Conall Low (CL)

Founder

2018

1

Blairadam in Kinross, Fife

Roy Herd (RH)

Founder

2018

3

Tirindrish at Spean Bridge, Lochaber

Ian Peter Co-founder MacDonald (IPM)

My reissue of an invitation to discuss managing and organising ‘how it will end up’ was subsequently not engaged with. Not wanting to appear like we were fishing for gossip, I wished him well and desisted with my request for an interview. In the end, it was possible to arrange a conversation with four brewers (see Table 1). Between 2 and 12 December 2020, two telephone and two in-person interviews (physically distanced, at the brewery) took place, lasting between 48 and 82 minutes. They were recorded using both a smartphone and a digital voice recorder, then transcribed afterwards, producing over 232 minutes of audio and more than 12,800 computer processed and handwritten words of interview transcription. This empirical material has been reduced and represented using poetic transcription according to Glesne (1997) for whom the rules are: (1) words should not be mine, (2) you can pull phrases from anywhere in the transcript and juxtapose, (3) keep enough of their words together to represent their speaking rhythm, their way of saying things. To facilitate readability and attributing experiences to research participants, all words that are not ours will be presented in italics and initials of the brewer given after the poemish (Lahman, Richard, & Teman, 2019) ‘findings’ are presented. Inspired by Darmer and Grisoni (2011) who chose to write their article as a radio broadcast, I present just the headings of each section like a newspaper headline (e.g. ‘Covid-19 makes for a febrile craft beer atmosphere’) to summarise what Covid-19 can do to/for craft beer. I use three dinkuses (i.e. “***”) to signify a different brewers’ experience/voice, and I use a single dinkus (i.e. “*”) to separate out different yet related experiences of the same brewer. Four participants provided informed consent for use of their brewery and personal names and member checking was done with all participants to ensure trustworthiness and accuracy of each of the poemish assemblages featured in this chapter. Two brewers requested no changes. One of the brewers requested just one word to be changed out for another, for fear of saying something that alienates and insults his customers. And another brewer requested that one of the poetic transcriptions be ‘unattributed’ because it came across, in his view, as painting a much bleaker picture than he would want to. As such, the poetic

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    59 transcription remains in this research text but it has been anonymised. It has been preserved because first, we strictly adhered to Glesne’s (1997) three simple rules; secondly, we feel it tells an evocative, expressive and compelling part of the much larger Covid-19 and craft beer story where the in vivo quality of the poetry stands out (something observed by one of our reviewers) and thirdly, the poem resonates with experiences recounted by other brewers in our study, evoking some of the far-reaching implications of Covid-19 with vivacity. ––– Poetry seems to matter in craft brewery marketing communications. For example, product descriptions on craft beer labels can be quite poetic. It could also be argued that beer in and of itself is poetry (if all but in liquid form). And, indeed there are many poems about beer. For example, see Tierney-Jones (2016) for poetry about beer by some of the most celebrated writers such as Charles Dickens, and read ktbryski (2015) for furthermore Victorian poems of beer. Beer poetry, then, is in fact a thing, all on its own (Beslouer, 2017). Since an aim in this chapter/ book is to make the research on craft beer more accessible, because ‘… poetry might make research more accessible to an audience’ (Lahman et al., 2011, p. 894) and it ‘… results in dynamic texts that might be appealing to broader audiences’ (Thomas, 2020, p. 7), it made sense as a next move to incorporate research poetry into this study. –––

Covid-19 Makes for a Febrile Craft Beer Atmosphere Covid-19 can be destructive. It can also worry and frustrate craft beer brewers, posing an existential threat. And although the impact of Covid-19 was immediate, there was something in the air before it ‘hit’…. Elsewhere, being lucky can help avoid financial pain. Febrile-ness is in the air Ever shrinking bank balances debts growing … Very bleak meetings and financial pain. A very febrile year. Substantial closures already a substantial number more. Existential threats, plans have been torn up, thrown out the window.

60    Daniel Clarke et al. This whole year has been one change after another Pubs shutting without a doubt took a huge volume away from us. It’s been: A 1000-year storm A smack in the face. A very febrile year. (Anonymous) *** End of our world? A flipping immediate impact. Just so destructive. Oh my god. This is the end of our world. Not an easy experience. By golly. You know, Covid. We had to take some deep breaths. Not an easy experience. We don’t want to live through that again. Not an easy experience. (IPM) *** to be a brewery next year it’s been, well, shit. we moved here in May 2019 in July 2019 we produced our first batches start of 2020 we were ready to open our taproom ready to push on maximise what we had a rural, tourist- driven economy from March to October it would have been busy for us

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    61 we were ready to run as a bar but the way things worked out we only got to open for five Saturdays our year is encapsulated by that major frustration if lockdown is a prolonged event, it will be catastrophic if this is still happening next year, it wouldn’t be worth our while to be a brewery it might be a race to the bottom reducing prices to get beer on that tap with the knock-on effects, there is going to be a dearth of breweries that go under I think the worst is yet to come (CL) –––

Covid-19 Makes Social Media More Important Than Ever before While social media has ‘always been important’ (JD), during Covid-19 it took on a whole new level of importance. Important ingredients of beer A famous beer blogger once said: ‘The core ingredients of beer are malt, hops, yeast, water and the core ingredients of craft beer are malt, hops, yeast, water and Facebook/Instagram/Twitter’

62    Daniel Clarke et al. Normally, 3,000 people come to us and camp for a weekend of beer, food and music. All of that stuff has fallen away. So we really had to focus on staying connected to our customers in a very different world. We don’t want to emerge from all this …. ‘Oh! Yes. Fyne Ales. I remember them. They were really 2019 weren’t they?!’ (JD) *** Deliver fun film and photographs I cannot under estimate the value of social media: getting on to Facebook, getting onto Instagram, bringing a bit of us to the brand. We did a video of a local taking receipt of a delivery of beer and people really enjoyed that a lot of people up here know that guy and they got such a laugh out of it. We also got a little model delivery van, we took it out on roadtrips and posted photographs of it, trying to just bring some personality to the brand I want us to be remembered as one of the entities in our community who kept life kind of lively and fun and interesting. Reached several thousand people who really got a buzz out of what we were doing and they’d enjoy seeing the van. With a bit of ambivalence, it says ‘Trucking great beer’ on the back. It makes people snigger and that term has been enjoyed (IPM) *** post off-the-cuff things if all the shops and bars were shut the only way for us to sell was online or, to local people. it’s a case of, if I am in the brewery today

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    63 shipping boxes anyway, on the off-chance someone is coming by I will post off-the-cuff things on Instagram or Facebook: ‘The brewery shop is going to be open today between 10-1. Come by if you want’; ‘Our regular hours are Thurs-Sat 10-1pm. Come visit our shop’. (CL)

Covid-19 Makes Consumers Reassess Spending Habits (With Knock-on Effects) The pandemic halts established ways in which human beings co-constitute experiences. It also gives people time to think about what they value, handing an ‘olive branch’ (RH) to those who are able to offer what consumers are looking for. ‘Party Rules Applied’ (JD) early on during lockdown, creating a challenge for brewers who heavily relied upon traditional and established (i.e. on-trade using keg/cask) ways of getting beer from brewery to glass. Whilst larger breweries with infrastructure and resources (i.e. bottling/canning and online shop), and those with a varied portfolio, successfully pivoted with relative ease, smaller breweries developed innovative and collaborative ways of getting product to customers (through alternative means of distribution/supply/delivery). Changing habits Farmers markets weather was great everybody started re-assessing their spending habits I genuinely got the impression that for lots of people: ‘Oooo. This is quite exciting. Maybe I’m going to get my meat from the butchers instead of Asda’. lots of little business saw this amazing boom from that and I was one of them. (RH) * Looking for local products Covid has given me great exposure to people who want to try new things and … given me the grants to buy the kit to make enough beer. It’s been quite good

64    Daniel Clarke et al. I found that a lot of people were really inquisitive: A lot of dog walkers pass the brewery A lot of interest at the markets too … looking for local businesses. ‘I see you make beer, can I try some?’ A lot of people looking for local products I sell in bottles. It wasn’t, ‘Oh shit! The pub trade is falling apart’ It didn’t bother me in the slightest. It probably helped me a lot (RH) *** A really constructive benefit our value is in doing home deliveries we hooked up with our local butcher and fishmonger in a very geographically wide area it meant if I’ve got orders from Mallaig/way out west, the fishmonger takes our beer out on a Tuesday/Friday if I got an order from Glen Coe/Ballachulish then the butcher takes beer down on Wednesday (I would take all their meat and fish back to our area on a Saturday and Tuesday) dealing mostly with hotels and pubs (to satisfy mainly the visitor, not the local) people hadn’t heard of us a major brand benefit: an association with those two much more established brands. (IPM) –––

What Covid-19 Can Do For Craft Beer: Covid Helps Brewers (Re)Connect with Local Audiences/Consumers Perhaps the main thing Covid-19 can do for craft beer that is acknowledged and discussed by each brewer whose voice is used to craft (Brown, 2020) this part of our investigation is, it can (re)connect brewers with local the community/customers as people have been drawn towards buying locally and direct form producers during the pandemic. Sales ebbed and flowed as pubs opened and closed so pivoting has been crucial (Holloway, 2020). The ‘monument’ to craft beer community is the brewery taproom (see Phil Mellows in this book). Often hailed the ‘local’

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    65 community fixer, although this idea is not without criticism (e.g. see Hubbard, 2019), the dream of opening a taproom spells cautious hope but brings optimism and desire amongst brewers without one. With a rich desire to ‘bed down’ (IPM), to ride out the ‘storm’ (DP; Holloway, 2020) and ‘we-want-to-still-be-here-nextyear’ determination (adapted from CL), the general feeling tone is: Not just yet Not now The time is not right But … Our plan Basically the future Open a taproom You betcha! (Poetic transcription, juxtaposing words from IPM and RH) ––– Eggs and silver linings whether its cask beer or selling to supermarkets, or whatever else if we can sell online and through our own bar, we don’t sell at half the price to other shops if people are coming into the shop, we don’t need a delivery van, we don’t need boxes if there is a silver lining, it’s direct-to-consumer but putting all our eggs in one basket? if your market collapses overnight then you are in some seriously deep shit It’s a blended model We’d like to be known for that wide, varied approach (CL) *** I am not going to count my chickens On the right train but not cashing the cheque yet. We need to see what happens.

66    Daniel Clarke et al. 2020, a year of consolidation. The plan for winter: larger storage and a taproom. Not this year. Increasing capacity: big cost with big implications for the business. Next year we are going to be squeezed really hard. This is no time to be speculating. Just bed down (IPM) *** I’d love to be in a position where I’ve got a taproom. That’s basically the future of this place (RH) * Borderless-ness and transient movement of people and goods is good for some but wasteful. If you are on the wrong side of it, you are fucked! Being independent, small and local Supporting local, it’s the only way we are going to be able to live But I must remember, in general, most people are spoilt by convenience and are time poor, liking things that are easy to understand and delivery to the door. That’s basically the world we are living in That’s difficult to balance (RH) ––– We now arrive at the final stage of Intègraphy (Levy & Kellstadt, 2012) where the aim is to take a step back and ask, where are we going? what have we learned?

Implication (Stage 4) Suggesting a ‘game opener’ is where we are going …. In keeping with Gale (2018), what we want to offer here is more a ‘game opening’ (p. 140) than a ‘conclusion’. There is nothing to conclude from our ‘data’ on the ‘thisness’ of craft beer, Covid19, lockdown and brewers’ responses because the ‘Data keep dataing’ (Nordstrom, 2018, p. 5). Entering the impact of Covid-19 on craft beer here, there and everywhere, we started our writing in the middle of the pandemic and remain in the middle of not yet knowing because at the time of crafting this ‘conclusion’,

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    67 the second wave of the virus is spreading more virulently than before. We were in lockdown, then we were out (or, sort of was), and now we are back in it (January 2021). The territory is always on the move (Gale, 2018). Covid-19 and data just won’t stand still. ––– Temple (2020) observes that Ray Bradbury saw a car crash when he was 15 and five people died as a result of it. Arriving within 20 seconds of hearing the collision, we are told that, for Bradbury, it was ‘the worst mistake of his life’ and ‘he was shaken’. We then learn, some six or seven years later, Bradbury turned that encounter into the situation of a short story called The Crowd. Temple (2020) continues: So out of this horror – this really terrible event – you take something that has taught you a certain kind of fear and you pass it on to others and say, ‘This is what a car can do’…. Adapting then, Bradbury’s advice on writing, here, in this section, out of the nightmare and horror of Covid-19 – this really terrible event – we say, this is what research poetry can do for craft beer researchers. We exemplify ‘what research poetry can do’ because we use poetic transcription (Glesne, 1997) to communicate the ‘findings’ from our research conversations and borrow from practices of poetic juxtaposition (Thomas, 2020) – that is, a mix of ‘poetic transcription’ from the findings and ‘found poetry’ made from the literature review – in the process of writing our discussion (in stage 4) and addressing the question, what have we learned? in our ‘game opening’ (Gale, 2018, p. 140), that is, conclusion of this chapter. –––

What We Have Learned: Covid-19 is Still Coviding What we have learned is, throughout Covid-19, whilst brewers are always ‘architecturing’ (Gale, 2018, p. 167), that is, designing (e.g. taprooms and brewery layouts), building (e.g. online shops) and enacting (e.g. distribution channels and responses to strains of Covid-19 spreading), and consumers are ‘always being moved’ (Gale, 2018, p. 173). In the race for space (Holloway, 2020) (i.e. stage 2) and through our investigation(s) (i.e. stage 3), we have found support for the view that consumers are not only being physically moved to transact online, to then collect their beer from the brewery or pick it up on their very own doorstep. Rather, they are also being emotionally moved to reassess their spending habits; partly attributable to brewers’ attempts to (re)connect with local consumers, partly due to consumers actively seeking out new local products that resonate with their own values. Using poetic juxtaposition, the following words seek to paint this picture.

68    Daniel Clarke et al. real a(b)le (to live)   at home brewer and landlord and grocery shopkeeper and delivery driver a storm we can weather bed down take out a blessing really lucky fortuitous worried appreciate real ale buy local and (stay) at home, the only way we are going to be able to live ––– Glimpsing ‘… just one fantastic haecceity’ (Gale, 2018, p. 131) in our investigation, touching the intensities associated with pivoting and repivoting to keep beer flowing through Covid-19, in this chapter we have seen anew what Covid-19 can do to/for craft beer. We have seen how social media analysis draws attention to what Covid-19 can do to craft beer by sketching aggregations of brewers’ responses to it through highlighting ongoing events. And we have shown how poetic transcription draws our attention to the ‘immediation’ (Gale, 2018, p. 141) of events, casting new light on potentially corresponding brewer emotions, concerns, frustrations and dreams behind such aggregations, clothing social media data and fleshing out what Covid-19 does to craft beer. In doing so, we exemplify (Chia & Holt, 2008) an approach for coming to see with fresh eyes ‘whatever is real’ and ‘makes itself felt in some way’ (Gale, 2018, p. 141), finding

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    69 support also for the view that such integration of poetic insights from research clothes the social media content findings and neither approach is subservient to the other. And with these mo(ve)ments, we learn that there are many ‘middles’ as brewers are left with a headache of what to do next …. Brewers are in the midst of things and do not know exactly where we/they are going, so to understand the situation of the moment, in the moment is the point. From all this, what is making itself felt and might be next, in more concrete terms, is the continued development of a collaborative ethos amongst craft brewers, and the challenge of sustaining the emergence of localism once the pandemic has subsided. ––– We want to invite you to consider what this body of text might do for your craft beer research. In Gale’s (2018) hands, headaches make an open and creative approach to world making. We hope our writing is generative and our poetic juxtapositions of brewers’ experiences (and our subsequent discussion thereof) are intellectually moving. We hope that you also feel physically moved (Brewis & Bell, 2020) to include more playful approaches in your own research praxis but in light of these new comings-together (e.g. Intègraphy, Covid-19, textual analysis of social media content, poetic juxtaposition, etc.) we acknowledge you may be left with a headache ….

70    Daniel Clarke et al.

Appendix: Interview Schedule What Covid-19 Does/Can Do ‘To’ Craft Beer 1. How were things before Covid-19? 2. How did you initially experience and respond to Covid-19? 3. Some eight months into the pandemic, where would you say Covid-19 has hit the hardest? [Remain open but if prompt needed: where has Covid-19 hit you/ the brewery/business the hardest ….] 4. How would you describe the force with which Covid-19 has hit [craft beer generally and them as brewery owner/manager]?

What Covid-19 Can Do ‘For’ Craft Beer 5. What changes did you make to keep beer flowing? … to remain active … stay in business …. 6. How would you say you are handling the impact of Covid-19? 7. How you had to ‘let go’ of some things/projects? 8. What have you ‘held’ onto during this pandemic? 9. How would you like to be remembered and what you like to be known for (in terms of your response to the impact of Covid-19) when the pandemic is over? 10. What, if anything, good has come out of all this? [What can Covid-19 do ‘for’ craft beer/your brewery/your beer? What can Covid-19 do for a brewery or any business?]

References Alonso, A. D., Bressan, A., & Sakellarios, N. (2017). Exploring innovation perceptions and practices among micro and small craft breweries. International Journal of Wine Business Research, 19(2), 140–158. Beslouer, L. (2017). Did this guy seriously write a book of beer poetry?. The Beer Necessities. Retrieved from https://tbn.ethershaft.engineering/did-this-guy-seriously-write-abook-of-beer-poetry/. Accessed on November 20, 2020. Brewis, D. N., & Bell, E. (2020). Provocation essays editorial: On the importance of moving and being moved. Management Learning, 51(5), 533–536. Brinkmann, S. (2014). Doing without data. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 720–725. Brown, A. (2020). The mark of the researcher’s hand: the imperfections of craft in the process of becoming a qualitative researcher. Management Learning, 1–18. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1350507620972235 Carlsen, A., & Sandelands, L. (2015). First passion: Wonder in organizational inquiry. Management Learning, 46(4), 373–390. Chia, R., & Holt, R. (2008). The nature of knowledge in business schools. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7(4), 471–486. Darmer, P., & Grisoni, L. (2011). The opportunity of poetry: Report about poetry in organizing and managing. Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, 9(1–2), 1–13.

What Can Covid-19 Do To/For Craft Beer?    71 Das, S., Martinez-Jerez, A., & Tufano, P. (2005). eInformation: A clinical study of investor discussion and sentiment. Financial Management, 34(3), 103–137. Gabriel, Y. (2018). Qualitative researchers: Cherry-pickers or beachcombers?. Personal Blog. Retrieved from http://www.yiannisgabriel.com/2014/12/the-researcher-asbeachcomber.html. Accessed on November 20, 2020. Gale, K. (2018). Madness as methodology: Bringing concepts to life in contemporary theorising and inquiry. London: Routledge. Glesne, C. (1997). That rare feeling: Re-presenting research through poetic transcription. Qualitative inquiry, 3(2), 202–221. Gray, E. (2020). Coronavirus: How Covid-19 is affecting the UK drinks trade. Imbibe Magazine. Retrieved from https://imbibe.com/news/coronavirus-how-covid-19-isaffecting-the-uk-drinks-trade/. Accessed on November 20, 2020. Hubbard, P. (2019). Enthusiasm, craft and authenticity on the High Street: Micropubs as ‘community fixers’. Social & Cultural Geography, 20(6), 763–784. Holloway, S. (2020). The race for space: COVID-19 pivots in the craft beer industry. Craft Beer Professionals. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CnCqBOGJvW0. Accessed on November 20, 2020. ktbryski. (2015). Odes to Ale: Beer poetry. The Black Creek Growler – The Journal of the Black Creek Historic Brewery. Retrieved from https://blackcreekbrewery.wordpress. com/2015/06/11/odes-to-ale-beer-poetry/. Accessed on November 20, 2020. Kleban, J., & Nickerson, I. (2012). To brew, or not to brew – That is the question: An analysis of competitive forces in the craft brew industry. Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 18(3), 59. Kraus, S., Klimas, P., Gast, J., & Stephan, T. (2019). Sleeping with competitors. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 25(1), 50–66. Lahman, M. K., Richard, V. M., & Teman, E. D. (2019). ish: How to write poemish (research) poetry. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(2), 215–227. Lahman, M. K., Rodriguez, K. L., Richard, V. M., Geist, M. R., Schendel, R. K., & Graglia, P. E. (2011). (Re) Forming research poetry. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(9), 887–896. Levy, S. J., & Kellstadt, C. H. (2012). Intègraphy: A multi-method approach to situational analysis. Journal of Business Research, 65(7), 1073–1077. MacLure, M. (2013). The wonder of data. Cultural Studies? Critical Methodologies, 13(4), 228–232. McKirdy, T. (2020). The complicated impact of Covid-19 on the craft beer industry. Vinepair. Retrieved from https://vinepair.com/articles/impact-covid-19-craft-beer-industry/. Accessed on November 20, 2020. Nordstrom, S. N. (2018). Antimethodology: Postqualitative generative conventions. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3), 215–226. Perrett, E. (2020). How are breweries surviving coronavirus?. Food Manufacture. Retrieved from https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2020/09/07/How-are-breweriessurviving-the-COVID-19-pandemic. Accessed on November 20, 2020. SFD. (2020). Recovering from Coronavirus and fuelling Brexit preparation. Scotland Food & Drink. Retrieved from https://scotlandfoodanddrink.blob.core.windows.net// media/3904/recoveryplan.pdf. Accessed on November 20, 2020. Stanley, P. (2020). Unlikely hikers? Activism, instagram, and the queer mobilities of fat hikers, women hiking alone, and hikers of colour. Mobilities, 15(2), 241–256. St. Pierre, E. A., Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (2016). New empiricisms and new materialisms conditions for new inquiry. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 16(2), 99–110. Temple, E. (2020). Ray Bradbury’s greatest writing advice. Literary Hub. Retrieved from https://getpocket.com/explore/item/ray-bradbury-s-greatest-writing-advice?utm_ source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB. Accessed on November 27, 2020. Thomas, R. (2020). Poetic juxtaposition, a method for connecting data, theory, and every day texts. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(5), 626–636. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420948080

72    Daniel Clarke et al. Tierney-Jones, A. (2016). Beer in so many words. The best writing on the greatest drink. London: Safe Haven Books. UK Government. (2020). Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 16 March 2020. UK Government. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/ speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-16-march-2020. Accessed on December 07, 2020. Ulmer, J. B. (2020). Pivots and pirouettes: Carefully turning traditions. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(5), 454–457.

Chapter 5

The Artful Science of Crafting Ale: Discussing the Finer Nuances of Making and Selling Beer Victoria Ellis-Vowles Abstract This chapter brings together a commentary on the three chapters in the part Making and Selling Craft Beer. Highlighting key themes emerging from these chapters, they were put to a seasoned brewer who owns a microbrewery which services his own pub in rural Lincolnshire. The conclusion presents a discussion between the researcher and the brewer to unpack the everyday realities of making and selling beer with particular consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Keywords: Brewing; brewing collaboration; beer routes to market; tap rooms; social media for brewers; future of brewing

To know love is to know ale An artful science in every detail It’s the colour, the flavour and the ABV Inspired excitement, a true devotee Personalities and experiences shape the taste Expand, stay the same, grow at your own pace Bottles and tap rooms, a relaxing sigh Making smiles, a grin, that twinkling eye (Victoria Ellis-Vowles)

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 73–76 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211005

74    Victoria Ellis-Vowles The brewing industry is saturated yet the love of ale, the infinite combinations, the autonomy of the end-to-end product proves alluring for many. It has attracted and continues to attract budding brewers and ale enthusiasts from all backgrounds into this collaborative industry where the quality and diversity of ale excites. For many brewers, the act of brewing does not feel like work, yet throughout the COVID-19 pandemic these very same brewers have been working exceptionally hard. Longer term business goals have been reimagined as traditional routes to market have disappeared. Far from being phased by this uncertainty, these brewers have risen to the challenge. They have been diversifying and blending their routes to market, experimenting with social media and engaging in local community, all of which has added greater complexity to their business models. These intuitive responses have maintained, and in many cases, enhanced their value propositions. Even so, some of the themes emerging from these chapters raise further questions. The enthusiasm for the artful creation of quality ale seems to encourage the sharing of knowledge, skills and in some cases equipment, sitting at odds with competitive practices. Routes to market seem to be as diverse as they are many, but it is unclear how sustainable they are looking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges they may bring to expansion opportunities. Many brewers spoke of the desire to open a tap room, a fundamentally different strategy that brings together the sale and consumption of the ale into the same space. Marketing strategies have changed, although how this may influence the wider online social space is difficult to foresee. Community as a theme has emerged as breweries seek to engage with the local as an alternative way to add value, raising questions over the importance of these relationships to business success. These questions were put to a fellow brewer to unpack the complexities of the industry and offer insight into lived realities. He is a publican of two decades who brews as a means to supply his two pubs in rural Lincolnshire. He also supplies free of tie pubs in the local vicinity and bottle conditioned ales to independent retailers. The brewing industry seems to be a very collaborative. How can this level of collaboration be maintained while remaining competitive? The information I could give somebody from my brewing experience on my equipment might not transcend to somebody else’s equipment. Unless he completely followed everything that we did to the letter, it will be different. Let me give you an example. We took on a brew from a company that had been designed especially for one of their clients. They wanted to discontinue it and asked us if we wanted to take on that client. We said yes and we were gifted the recipe. We had the same brewer, it was the same hops, same type of everything. It was all done at the same temperatures. Everything was done the same except it was brewed on our equipment. It sold like wild fire on our bar, but then when we supplied it to the client he didn’t like it because it tasted different. It’s not transferable thing. The outcome of the brew is very individualised. By virtue of the fact that you brew your own beer, you are unique to the market. Whether you’re successful or not, then that depends on your marketing ability and your ability to access routes to market. And that’s a completely different issue.

The Artful Science of Crafting Ale    75 The COVID-19 pandemic has made many brewers re-visit their routes to market such as farmers’ markets and shops, food and drink festivals, independent retail outlets and selling online. Are these routes sustainable in the long term? Will they impact on the work–life balance so many brewers enjoy? The very second you sell out you then have to allow a margin for selling on. There is so little profit in beer. If we send the beer away to a bottling plant, have them bottle it, have them label it and send it back to us. It means that we’d be making pennies per bottle. I mean pennies. The value of the label is worth more than the value of the beer. You need economies of scale to make it worthwhile like when you’re selling tens of thousands to say one of the supermarkets or one of the pub chains. The problem is, they don’t guarantee you the sales. They will put X amount on and if they sell, they will take some more. But what would we do if they didn’t sell? It would be an insurmountable task to try and sell directly to individual customers and where would we store that many bottles? The problem with these routes to market that sell directly to the customer is that they are so very time consuming. You’ve got to cart the bottles to them, you’ve got to staff the stalls, you’ve got to stand there all day. It all costs money. Then you’ve got to run the risk of taking the stock back home and storing it which takes up valuable space that I can use to store barrels. They give me a far better return for much less time, outlay and effort. It might be socially nice to speak with the general public about the beer I’ve made, but they just don’t offer the sales volumes that you need to make a profit. None of these routes to market do. Selling them online is a non-starter for us. Say someone orders six bottles, any profit I might make would go out the window by the time I’ve packaged them and put them in the post. There is also a ceiling on how much I can sell them for, and the more people selling them, the more saturated the market becomes, ultimately it’s a race to the bottom. Everything you do is time consuming and in the end, you only have so many hours in a day. You either pay someone to do it for you or you do it yourself. You just have to decide where best to spend your time. Many of the brewers wanted to open a tap room. Do you think they pose a threat to pubs, one of their key routes to market? No, not at all. These tap rooms are not like pubs. They do tours, they do events and I would say that they’ve got it right because a tap room is only open for a very short period of time. They don’t pretend to be a pub. They use their tap room to showcase. The problem is, if you put a tap room in you have got to have a sustainable time period in terms of when you open, when you close and someone’s got to service that bar. It’s an expense and any beer that you don’t sell goes down the drain. They will work for a short period of time because enthusiasm always last for a short period of time. It’s getting them to work longer term that’s difficult. A brewery is a factory. In a factory you pretty well have no contact with the general public, and when you sell beer, you’re selling beer to sober people. When you have a tap, you’re selling beer to people that are possibly not so sober. There is a completely different mind-set, it takes a different set of skills. Social media uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic has flourished. Is this something that brewers should be embedding into their marketing strategies?

76    Victoria Ellis-Vowles Social media is at the forefront of advertising. You’ve got to get social media in your advertising. It’s basically a very cheap shortcut to market. It worked effectively with the people that knew us, but all it was only a route to the people that already knew us. We got a few new customers, but they were nearly all people that knew one of our existing customers. But again, its time consuming, so you have to decide where to allocate your time to get the most profit. To what extent is community engagement important for breweries? A local brewery has got to have somewhere to sell their beer. They’ve got to sell copious amounts of beer to make a profit. They’re looking for proper bona fide contracts to sell to our local chain pubs and supermarkets. It doesn’t matter almost a jot if the local community are involved in them. What local communities can buy is a drop in the ocean compared to how much you have to sell to make a profit. What concerns do you have for the future of the brewing industry? It’s not so much about the access to market, it is access to a market that is profitable. The success of small brewers is tied up with the success of pubs because it is the only route to a profitable market. The fate of pubs and breweries are intertwined. Independent pubs are the lifeline of small breweries and small breweries attached to a pub is the lifeline for pubs. The combo makes the brewery and the pub profitable. We supply our own pub which means that I’ve been able to cut down what I buy from outside suppliers. We also can do exchanges. We exchange our beer for cider so everything that comes into our pub now comes in at our production costs level. We are losing pubs at an alarming rate and we’re going to lose more in this pandemic. All the time the big brewers own the vast majority of pubs, they could make it all but impossible for small brewers to sell to them as we cannot afford to undercut anybody. So what you do as a small brewer is take yourself out of the market and create our own micro-market and that micro-market is your own pub or two pubs. So when you sell to yourself, you can sell at any price that you like! As drinking is shifting from your traditional pubs to at home, routes to market for brewers are quite likely to become limited as their profitable routes to market through pubs are diminishing and the access to off-licences become more dominated by the bigger brewers. The supermarkets have a stable supply chain with the big brewers and these brewers have the economies of scale to make a profit. A small brewer could never satisfy a supermarket demand and the more people drink at home, the more closed that route to market becomes as bigger players dominate the market. All that is left is a cottage industry, small brewers are becoming a quirky and quaint industry. It is political as well. There are so many competing agendas, public health, stopping antisocial behaviour but at the same time, beer has always been used as a cash cow for the government. They have legislated it and taxed it up to the eye balls, which ultimately effects the way people drink. When you analyse how government make their decisions, they are based on the overall industry. If they make a decision that damages those big breweries that dominate large sways of the market, the government think it’s a bad idea. If that very same decision only damages those small breweries that don’t individually have much impact on the market, it doesn’t matter as they can be swallowed up by the remainder of the industry.

Part II

Values of Craft Beer Production

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 6

Collaborative Resistance: How a Craft Beer Scene was Built Through Sharing and Nurturing Relationships James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser Abstract In this chapter, the authors explore the entrepreneurial nature of craft brewing. The authors find growth in the microbrewery sector has been supported through a cooperative approach between competing artisanal small firms. This has helped build competitive advantage in resistance to the dominant market forces of large brewers. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews with 12 craft brewers in the North East of Scotland. Analysed findings are used in the design of a conceptual model on the nature of collaboration in the craft beer sector. An artisanal scene is presented, where community benefit and continued development of the craft beer movement is prioritised, over commercial and strategic growth. The typically small firms in this area share resources and support each other in a drive to wean customers away from the large mainstream producers. The authors argue that the nature of the craft beer sector seeks to actively resist market dominance, not only through product quality and marketing, but also in the entrepreneurial behaviours enacted to sustain the movement. The findings suggest a co-existence of both collaboration and competition in the strategic decisions of craft brewers. The focus is on the locally embedded connections these firms develop in the maintenance of their craft roots, with a range of complex interconnected factors linking brewer, community, and the broader industry. Keywords: Craft beer; artisan production; resistance; collaboration; entrepreneurship; brewing

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 79–98 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211006

80    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser

Introduction The craft beer sector has developed to such an extent that we could be forgiven for assuming that the phenomenon has always been with us. While individually passionate campaigners for ‘real ale’ have been present in the UK since the early 1970s with CAMRA – the consumer-led Campaign for Real Ale (Cabras & Bamforth, 2016; Thurnell-Read, 2016), in more recent years, small independent brewers have exponentially appeared to both create and benefit from a craft beer movement (Cabras, 2018). This has led to the celebration of small-scale entrepreneurial outfits (Danson, Galloway, Cabras, & Beatty, 2015; Garavaglia & Swinnen, 2017) which are able to present themselves as an alternative to a generalised and hegemonic beer market based on mass production. In such a way, any discussion on craft beer cannot exist without being in relation to the larger, more commoditised brewers. The shifting structures of the brewing industry are not confined to the UK. Multiple analyses from North America (Murray & Kline, 2015), South America (de Oliveira Dias & Falconi, 2018), Australia (Argent, 2018), South Africa (Rogerson & Collins, 2019), Northern Europe (van Dijk, Kroezen, & Slob, 2018), the traditional wine producers of Southern Europe (Fastigi & Cavanaugh, 2017; Gómez-Corona, Lelievre-Desmas, Buendía, Chollet, & Valentin, 2016), and even the stalwart beer producing economies of Belgium and Germany (Schroeder, 2020) all posit similar interpretations on the rise of the independent artisan against incumbent commoditisation, and what they perceive as mass produced blandness. This creates a very attractive narrative, framing a plucky and impassioned protagonist against the industrial maturity and marketing budgets of global corporate giants (Cannatelli, Pedrini, & Grumo, 2017; Clemons, Gao, & Hitt, 2006; Lewis, 2001). In this chapter, we seek to explain how this resistance to global market forces is built, by demystifying the entrepreneurial practices of craft brewers. In explaining shifts in the beer industry, literature on craft brewing points to a number of strategies adopted in the sector to facilitate market entry despite the barriers to entry raised by the dominance of larger conglomerates. Our analysis points to a ‘connection with community’ inherent in craft brewer behaviour (Murray & Kline, 2015), which appears to directly challenge what is offered by global and generalised mainstream brewing outfits. This follows a broader societal trend towards localism as a reaction to globalised industry (Graefe, Mowen, & Graefe, 2018). As such, the impact of craft beer is not confined to industry restructure, but has broader implications for local and regional economic development. While much of this perspective takes its lead from marketing initiatives (Eberts, 2014; Gatrell, Reid, & Steiger, 2018), we follow those studies which view craft beer as a cultural industry (Mathias, Huyghe, Frid, & Galloway, 2018; SjölanderLindqvist, Skoglund, & Laven, 2019). We consider craft brewers to be contextually embedded entrepreneurial actors (Lounsbury, Gehman, & Glynn, 2019) and examine the connection to surrounding context, helping us uncover how craft brewing as an entrepreneurial event is manifested. In unpicking how this occurs, the chapter offers a socialised account of craft brewers. We reveal the mechanisms

Collaborative Resistance    81 and behaviours used to collaborate with others in the locale, building a stronger and more sustainable resistance to what they see as oppressive market forces in the broader brewing industry. We utilise the perspectives of 12 independent craft brewers local to the North East of Scotland and examine their relationships with others in the area, from suppliers and customers, to direct competitors. We paint the picture of a collaborative craft beer scene which prioritises community benefit and the greater development of the craft beer movement, over commercial and strategic growth. From this, we argue that the nature of the craft beer sector resists the dominance of large brewing industry players, not only in quality of product and marketing, but also in entrepreneurial behaviours enacted to sustain the scene.

Craft Beer as Resistance Globally, the beer industry is dominated by a small number of large global brewers (Woolverton & Parcell, 2008). Issues of resource scarcity and high capital requirement mean that these larger organisations have been able to consolidate their position by relying on classic barriers to entry (Argent, 2018; Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000), thus creating a monopoly-type situation in the beer market. In contrast to the commoditised offerings of large-scale brewers, craft beer has become highly differentiated, resisting the perceived oppressive and generalised beer product (Clemons et al., 2006). A differentiated focus and specialised offering are characterised by a typically small-scale operation and focus on being a ‘unique’ and independent alternative to mass production (Alonso, Bressan, & Sakellarios, 2016; Bastian et al., 1999). This is supported by industry definitions on craft brewers as ‘small’, ‘independent’, and ‘traditional’ (Brewers Association, 2017). What originated in hobbyist brewing has now morphed into a robust artisan industry. Kesmodel (2009) suggests that this shift can be explained by considering that many microbrewers are founded by individuals released from corporate employment. This has built a band of home-based ‘necessity’ entrepreneurs, seeking only a living from the craft skills they have developed. A combination of tax levies and accessible brewing equipment has facilitated the beginning of the craft brewing ‘movement’ (Mason & McNally, 1997; Wyld, Pugh, & Tyrall, 2010), along with the presence of talisman ‘heroes’ such as BrewDog and Sierra Nevada (Cunningham & Barclay, 2020). The connotations with home brewing may explain a preoccupation with quality over price in craft brewing (Poelmans & Swinnen, 2011). However, Danson et al. (2015) warn that this does not always translate to sustainable growth, which is a notion supported by Wyld et al. (2010). Though the market has seen an influx of brewers, with around a 180% growth in UK microbrewer numbers from the early 2000s (British Beer & Pubs Association, 2016), this is not necessarily driven by profit maximisation and growth goals (Maye, 2012). Instead, it is in the introduction of new and different beer varieties which has led to a welcoming of new entrants in the market (Ellis & Bosworth, 2015; Murray & O’Neill, 2012). This implies an inherit limitation on the ability of the craft movement to challenge and indeed alter the long-standing dominance of large-scale brewers.

82    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser By focussing on craft brewing as resistance against commoditised and financially driven mainstream brewers of scale, this drive for variety and quality is understood. However, as society, we do perhaps privilege the image of a newly formed throng of artisan champions, who we uphold as they face a hostile environment dominated by the ‘Goliaths’ of mass production. As both customers and observers, we want our champions to succeed, to beat the corporate villains at their own game. However, Markantoni, Strijker, and Koster (2013) highlight that this is a simplistic approach. They see the presence of microcraft brewers as distorting the competitive landscape of brewing. While craft brewers may strengthen ties of locality and regional impact, they do not have the same overheads as larger producers and therefore have no need to pursue the same growth agendas. This presents a fragmented marketplace, where some brewers look to expand and innovate, while more moderate entrepreneurial outfits look only to continue their lifestyle and maintain local reach (Ellis & Bosworth, 2015). It can therefore be suggested that resisting the dominant market players is more of a sensemaking exercise than it is an informative strategic approach (Holt & Macpherson, 2010). Craft brewers may not seek to replace the hegemony of a small number of large-scale brewers, but instead look only to be seen in contrast to it, through organising an alternative industry structure characterised by more artisan behaviours. Regardless of intention, by suggesting a direct comparison to what people have come to expect from the broader brewing industry, craft brewers are better able to define what they are, and make the case for their own form of differentiation, thus helping navigate the barriers to entry erected by the dominant mainstream brewers.

The Force of Collaboration The acknowledged rise of the craft brewing has impacted at the policy level, but we still know relatively little about how this entrepreneurial event functions in context (Alonso et al., 2016; Danson et al., 2015; Murray & Kline, 2015). This may be down to the sheer variety of brewing activity, presenting a challenge in researching a growing and continually changing area (Cabras, Canduela, & Raeside, 2011). However, if we view the craft brewing revival as a form of strategic resistance against the generic offerings of the monopolised industry, we can more clearly see trends in behaviour to set these brewers aside by comparison (Everett & Aitchison, 2008). For example, the localisation of brand seeks to serve smaller enterprises struggling against dominant monopolies. This prompts a connection to local place in the minds of the consumer less apparent with the likes of Heineken, AB InBev, or even national producers such as Tennant Caledonian (Burnett & Danson, 2004; Galloway, Sanders, & Deakins, 2011). Local sensitivities thus become informative, as the brewers are socially embedded in a cultural economy of the locale (Lee, 2017). It could then be said that craft brewing has developed as a field, which is facilitated by relational learning and localised support in a specified geographic area (Valdaliso, Elola, Aranguren, & Lopez, 2011). In acknowledging the importance of local collaboration, Maye (2012) adds to a socially embedded view by suggesting that such tightly held relationships with customers and suppliers also create benefit in terms of quality control, which

Collaborative Resistance    83 supports the battle cry of many craft brewers bemoaning the blandness of large-scale brewing (Ilbery & Maye, 2011). Aside from vertical supply–chain relationships, a highly networked community of producers has come to characterise the sector, encouraged by cooperation among supposed competitors (Drakopoulou Dodd, Wilson, Bhaird, & Bisignano, 2018; Elzinga, Tremblay, & Tremblay, 2018). The conventional strategic drivers of competition appear less relevant in an environment where resources and opportunities can be shared openly (Kraus, Klimas, Gast, & Stephan, 2019). However, such skilled networking between brewers cannot be assumed in the standard entrepreneurial toolkit we have come to expect from independent operators. McGrath and O’Toole (2013) suggest that individual craft entrepreneurs, from a hobbyist background, may not have the networking capacity to engage fully with collaborative efforts, suggesting that any collaborative behaviour originates more organically, than purposefully planned. But it does seem, in the craft brewing sectors, that there is much to be gained from this type of behaviour. While Kraus et al. (2019) focus on collaboration with competitors, Ellis and Bosworth (2015) connect the desire for collaborative efforts, in all directions, to the lack of formalised training and suggest that it is through collaboration that entrepreneurial knowledge in the sector is built. This combines with a general lack of support from centralised business grants, etc., and emphasises the siege culture surrounding these localised communities of practice, where economic relations are reliant on social trust (Granovetter, 1985; Maye, 2012). Drakopoulou Dodd et al. (2018) see this as the development of normative behaviours through linked relationships and common goals and understandings, again suggesting the sensemaking role which resistance can play in building a common understanding of what craft brewing is in relation to mainstream industry norms. It may be that other stakeholders in the brewer’s local areas also buy into the resistance narrative, seeing their own sustainability as linked to holding back waves of generalised globalisation. Pret, Shaw, and Drakopoulou Dodd (2016) suggest that strategic action in such a field focusses on the accumulation of capital, both resource and social, building a collective strength against a common adversary. Karataş-Özkan (2011) would claim that such capital is gained through the learning of entrepreneurs from their locale and their relationships with others. We therefore seek to understand how these collaborative behaviours and linked relationships help build sufficient capital to resist mainstream brewing in the market and develop a sustainable segment to withstand these more oppressive forces.

Methodology We take an interpretivist approach to uncover the socialised construction of collaborative activity among craft brewers. We use qualitative interview data from 12 craft brewers, local to the North East of Scotland. These data are supplemented with secondary information and other supporting material, but the dominant data used to build this analysis are the primary data from the craft brewers themselves. The vast majority of our interview participants are the owner/managers of their breweries. However, where this was not possible, senior management of

84    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser the businesses were used. A total of 15 participants were identified to help build a picture of the 12 organisational cases. Two research assistants collected the data separately, each with separate lists of target brewers. In such a way, we can be confident that the findings are reliable, as similar themes emerged from all participants, regardless of the interviewer. From an initial desktop search, we uncovered 10 self-identified craft brewers operating in the North East of Scotland. Six brewers from this initial search agreed to participate in the study, and snowball sampling led to a further six participants who were not previously identified in the desktop search. The participant sample is presented in Table 1. The sample brewers all operate within the broad geographic scope of the North East of Scotland. While this extends to Perthshire, we feel that the culture of these areas is similar enough to warrant inclusion, though where there may be differences in the findings and interpretations of participants due to geographical context, this is highlighted. We follow the principles of Braun and Clarke (2006) to illicit the key themes found in the data, as is common when accessing perspectives of social construction. First, we present the themes emerging from the data and build an interpretive analysis using the constant comparative method. Second, we integrate these findings with the extant literature to build a conceptual model on the nature of collaboration in the craft beer sector. As such, we develop from the initial exploratory work of Cunningham and Barclay (2020) to build an explanatory model to frame future research. Table 1.  Sample Cases. Brewery

Location

Interview Participant(s)

Operating Form of Since Operation

Brewer 1

Laurencekirk Owner/founder

2010

Brewer

Brewer 2

Perth

Owner/founder

2018

Brewer

Brewer 3

Angus

Owner/founder

2016

Brewer

Brewer 4

Stonehaven

Owner/founder

2013

Brewer

Brewer 5

Aberdeen

Owner/founder

2017

Home brewing

Brewer 6

Perthshire

Owner/founder

2015

Direct customer sales

Brewer 7

Peterhead

Owner/founder

2018

Brewer

Brewer 8

Torphins

Husband and wife – owner/founders

2004

Brewery and café

Brewer 9

Ellon

Three senior managers

2007

Brewery and pubs

Brewer 10 Stonehaven/ Lauencekirk

Marketing manager

2013

Brewery and pubs

Brewer 11 Peterhead

Owner/founder

2017

Brewer

Brewer 12 Aberdeen

Director/founder

2015

Brewery and pubs

Collaborative Resistance    85

Findings Through the analytical process, four core themes emerge from the data: commitment to local; community of brewers; education of the market; and issues pertaining to smallness. Each of these core themes is now taken in turn and assessed in relation to what we consider from the extant literature. As we explore the themes found through the data, we seek explanation for the continued rise of craft brewing. We interpret how the brewers, as entrepreneurial actors, behave both independently and with each other to build a collaborative ‘scene’ to resist the powerful market drivers of the broader brewing sector. Our brewers present a clear picture of independence. Many of their observations are made in comparison with others, particularly the large brewers. We account for this in the analysis and explore where meaningful interpretations can be made. While the data are necessarily anonymised, to protect commercial sensitivities among such a tight knit group of businesses, we found that many of the participants make reference to each other. This is also noted in the analysis, though care is taken to protect the identity of the subjects. Further, we present one deviant case in our analysis. This case brewery is Brewer 9, who represents the larger brewer in our sample. While the sampling strategy of this work focusses on definitions of craft, a key finding from the data emphasises smallness. This is explained thematically, and is found to create a further distinction in relation to Brewer 9. Instead of removing this case from our analysis, we have chosen to retain it as it provides a useful source of contrast. However, we do find that with respect to themes other than smallness, Brewer 9 is aligned with our other participants.

Commitment to Local The first theme to emerge from the data focusses on the importance of place and an embeddedness in the local community (Fig. 1). This is most evident with numerous examples of ‘outreach’ engagement and fundraising at charitable events. Aside from an effective marketing technique, the notion that our brewers are both supportive and supported by the local community presents a reciprocal and meaningful relationship (Murray & Kline, 2015). At times, it feels like the brewers exist for the local community as the primary objective, embedding in and interacting with a spatial context which ultimately informs how the business operates. This is made most clear in the follow excerpt: We are very much active in the community, in fact our whole ethos is to ‘keep it local’ making our beer a part of the experience for folk who live here and for visitors alike. We have very little enthusiasm or ambition to distribute our beers further afield, ignoring supermarket deals and wholesale internet middlemen. We like the lifestyle the brewery affords us and the freedom and pride of being famous in our parish. We hold bi-annual markets at the brewery for other traders and just as an excuse to bring people together. (Brewer 6)

86    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser Example data

Axial coding

Core Theme

We regularly hold a number of pop-up bar fundraisers for local schools and clubs, it’s great to help the local community and do your bit, whilst also benefitting from the positive press. (Brewer 1) We make a beer to raise funds for the local Fireballs Association, which helps fund organising the community event every New Year. (Brewer 4)

Local events

It’s just not us though, we don’t have a plan for world domination, just making excellent beer and having time to relax and enjoy the wonderful country and community we live and share. (Brewer 6)

Ever since we’ve opened up, em, Peterhead’s really gotten behind us. We’ve had a range of different types of people coming in, trying beers, em, and it’s all seemed to have gone down really well, had really positive feedback, em, one beer in particular at the moment, they’re really mad for. (Brewer 11) Using the names of local mountains or legends seem to go down well with consumers… the [local] strawberries are well renowned in the area and incredibly tasty, what better way than to use fresh, local ingredients, an emphasis on provenance and lists of ingredients would serve to improve the sector as well as help drive the importance of buying local products. (Brewer 4)

Supportive communities

Commitment to local

It’s not just about community of being a village, it’s about whether it’s supporting businesses, or it’s about the breweries or it’s art, you know each element is a community on its own. (Brewer 8)

Product resonance

Place marketing is stronger amongst smaller breweries with an identity, it becomes lost when a brewery grows to the size of [Brewer 9], that local identity seems to disappear as they try and satisfy all corners of the market. (Brewer 5)

Fig. 1.  Commitment to Local – Data Structure.

A further dynamic is introduced to this theme in the usefulness of place in the development and marketing of the final product. A focus on local ingredients taps into the zeitgeist of neo-localisation, and takes advantage of the consumer will for unique offerings. Place is presented as a key aspect of this, from a supplier and marketing perspective, but also offers place-based advantage. Brewers benefit from the visitor draw to the locale, and provide an offering to represent an exclusive chance to experience their product (Mathias et al., 2018). Many brewers suggest the importance of place in providing a market: Tourists tend to buy a varied amount, to sample a range of what’s on offer, our location is perfect for tourists to stop at when castle seeking. (Brewer 5)

Collaborative Resistance    87 Smaller breweries thrive on their sense of place and uniqueness; an element they believe defines craft beer. Many visitors to these smaller breweries are often tourists and just want to meet the people who make it. (Brewer 6) The multi-functional way in which place is presented provides reason for a ‘commitment to local’. This is often proudly declared in contrast to mainstream producers of the international market. The emphasis in such a theme is one of uniqueness, place providing an opportunity to claim that their beer cannot be found elsewhere. The supportive nature of this embeds the enterprise further, so as to purposefully set the brewer apart from larger, multi-national commoditisation, and maintain a somewhat righteous ‘craft’ image as one channelling various aspects of community. We found that the brewers suggested that their identification with the local area and their unique offerings allowed the creation of a market which celebrated a collaboration between local producers in producing a collective range of beers for their community which can compete in the area with the small range of beers produced by mainstream brewers.

Community of Brewers Contrary to suggestions from Zhang, Barbe, and Baird (2015) that the craft beer market has now become saturated in the UK, our brewers suggest that there is still room for the sector to grow in terms of enterprise numbers. There is a celebration of others entering the market and joining the community of independent but interconnected craft brewers. The celebratory tone is explained through many seeing the appearance of new brewers as evidence of a burgeoning market, and this, in turn, affirms the choice made by existing brewers and validates their own passion for the scene. This community appears to be manifest in a sharing of both resources and opportunities (Kraus et al., 2019). The clearest example of sharing comes through the sharing of the brewers’ latest product. There is a keenness to show other brewers the latest brew – for example, with guest beers in taprooms – accompanied by freely offered advice. This sharing should not be framed as altruism, but instead as reciprocal in nature. Similar to the benefits of being embedded in the local community, our brewers also find themselves embedded in a network of contemporaries. The following excerpt details how the sharing of ideas and resources can happen simultaneously through a transaction which benefits both brewers: So, now we just tend to just make it, divvy it up between ourselves and divvy it up between people that are brewing round about here, we give some to George and Alastair at [Brewer 11] and Kristof because they’ve helped me as well …. They give us their bottles as well, which really help. Because they don’t reuse their bottles …. Because they’re concerned that if there’s a chip on the glass

88    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser or something that they don’t notice, it could affect what they are selling so they use brand new bottles every time …. So basically, I put a bucket down to [Brewer 11] and they fill the bucket of used bottles and then I take them up the road, take the labels off, sterilize them and re-use them. So, it saves me a heap of money in bottles. They would just be going to recycling anyway …. (Brewer 7) From our thematic findings (Fig. 2), we speculate that such openness to competitors is made comfortable for our brewers due to the perceived uniqueness of the product offer. In particular, the distinctive connection to place affords our brewers protection from others encroaching on their market space. This also explains why the brewers encourage others to enter the market, so as to better represent the breadth of the broader locale (Drakopoulou Dodd

Example data

Axial coding

Core Theme

There are only a handful of players in the North East, definitely less than 20 and there is certainly enough population to support that. (Brewer 1) There is still lots of room for growth on this side of the pond, the U.K. market is still some way off saturation (Brewer 2)

Room for more

It’s been great. As I was saying, you know, it’s becoming something that’s really popular, especially up here with em, you know loads of breweries popping up and em, giving it their own go… (Brewer 11)

It is important to have fellow brewers to call for advice or if we’re stuck, I compare it to fishing vessels, there are a lot of fish for everyone and we all need to make a living but you don’t need to be nasty and if someone needs something then give them it as you might need the favour returned someday. (Brewer 4) Everybody collaborates, although everyone is trying to well in their own right, em I don’t think there’s anyone that would leave you out on a limb if you were struggling with something or were needing some advice to do something. (Brewer 7) We’re working you know, we’re obviously in touch with them, [two other brewers in the region] you know and some of us are saying you know if you’re needing bottles or whatever you know, because we’re ordering in bigger bulk than you and we can add to the order. So, there is support and cooperation. (Brewer 8)

Fig. 2.  Community of Brewers – Data Structure.

Sharing or resources and opportunity

Community of brewers

We have a taproom on site, guest beers are on tap for consumers to enjoy as well as the brewery’s own beers, supporting both fellow brewers in the industry as well as offering consumers a wider choice and potentially encouraging them to spend more time at the taproom (Brewer 2)

Collaborative Resistance    89 et al., 2018). The following brewer reflects on why other brewers should be encouraged: I think it’s also about cultural heritage or whatever, and I think it’s also about tourism, you know that people are coming here and they want to try things from the area and em experience, you know … I mean obviously you know, brewing beer with the water we have here will be very different to you know like further up the hill …. Or you know, even compared to Banchory or whatever. So, that obviously will affect the flavours and that as well. (Brewer 8) This theme therefore compliments findings on the commitment to local by showing that networked communities exist for our brewers on at least two levels of context: the spatial connections with place, and the sectoral connections between peers – in relation to peer business forms. While others have termed this coopetition (Kraus et al., 2019), we see this as a broader and more diverse inclusion within a community agenda which the brewers wish to fulfil. Our findings suggest that this community approach to brewing between companies supports newcomers who add new products to the craft beer market. This strengthens the collective alliance through a sharing of localised resources and knowledge to ultimately develop a more attractive craft-based product than that of commoditised brewing.

Differentiation within the Market In support of Cunningham and Barclay (2020), our brewers point to a collective desire to bring more knowledgeable custom into the craft beer market (Fig. 3). Much of this desire to ‘educate’ a latent customer base is rooted in a dissatisfaction with mainstream brewers. The starting point appears to be to wean beer drinkers away from the common lagers they have been ‘brought up in drinking’ (Brewer 12), and to ‘open people’s eyes’ (Brewer 11) to what they see as higher quality alternatives. Part of this is a defensive reinforcement of the indie credibility of craft beer. The differentiation of craft brewers, therefore, does not only appear in the taste and marketing of the final product (Clemons et al., 2006), but also in the very business structures of the enterprises. While Poelmans and Swinnen (2011) suggest that it is legacy roots in hobbyist business which anchor craft brewers to issues of taste and quality over commercialised growth, our data imply a more demand orientated reason for this preoccupation. An assumption is made that beer drinkers are discerning for differentiated beers of ‘quality’ and ‘taste’. Our findings suggest that craft brewers see it as their responsibility to nurture this in the mind of the consumer, developing an appreciation of beer as an artistic production. This implies that, as opposed to being limited by capabilities, the brewers see themselves as stewards of a scene, gatekeepers to a world of variety, and curators of what should be considered craft. As with other artistic sectors, economic rationale is

90    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser Example data A lot of the craft breweries in America in particular are being bought out by AB InBev which is Budweiser… And that’s turning huge legions of followers against their beers because they’ve sold out… So, there’s a lot of different craft breweries that people wouldn’t now buy their beers because they are no longer considered craft… (Brewer 7)

Core Theme

Indie credibility

Sales are generally good, but since installing a taproom on site at the brewery, consumers are trying beers they may not have chosen to buy otherwise. (Brewer 2) Craft beer has really taken off, and I think there is a whole new slice of the beer market who are more discerning, happy to spend more on quality and sacrifice the volume they drink. (Brewer 6)

Differentiation in the market

It’s not the case of everybody is scrabbling for the same market space, there is space. Yes and no, they [big brewers] are competitors in the way that you have to wean customers off of them… And they are so dominant… (Brewer 8)

Axial coding

Variety and quality

We’re finding that we’re really trying to open people’s eyes just to trying different beers… As long as people come in and they’re willing to at least give the beers a try, we’re happy. (Brewer 11)

Fig. 3.  Education of the Market – Data Structure. removed from this rationalisation of the craft brewer identity (Cunningham & Tolonen, 2019). While the place-informed elements of the product provide individuality and distinction, this is embraced across the sector as a duty to expose customers to the potential of beer, through varied influences, taste innovations, and styles. I think everyone brews beers that they want to drink at the end of the day …. There’s definitely that. I know that we certainly do. But it’s nice that it’s done locally because everyone’s bringing something different, like we’re bring the more European, Belgian styles, [Brewer 9] with the American styles and [Brewer 12] with their sort of like left-field like more different ingredients, you know like quite a lot of chillies, a lot of random stuff but like they’re bringing a lot of experimental styles and what not. (Brewer 10) We argue that the closeness of the craft brewers to customers allows for an interesting and varied offering. Small brewers celebrate and support the collective of small companies producing a full range of interesting products, with which they can collectively compete against the large producers. Variety of differentiation is seen as the key selling point in the market, it is therefore embraced as a capability of the scene which may be lacking in the mainstream market.

Collaborative Resistance    91 Smallness The final theme to emerge from the data focusses on the importance assigned by brewers to identifying as a small business and maintaining their ‘craft’ roots (Fig. 4). Brewers argued for the importance of maintaining their original ‘craft’ ethos, and presented a strong view that the creation and maintenance of the best product was a strong priority. There was a strong feeling that the small and local nature of these brewers is central to their identity and that output from a larger number of smaller brewers led to a greater a variety of beers on the market. Although these small brewers compete for custom, they exhibit a collaborative and almost symbiotic relationship – allowing these brewers to operate like a ‘super brewer’, working together to compete against the uniform offering provided by the meta brewers. Although these brewers act in a highly co-operative manner, the interactions are complex – they are content to share the market but are seen to boldly defend the distinctiveness of their individual product. Smaller brewers were seen to unite in their drive to take market share from larger producers, by working together as a collection of smaller units. This collaborative approach allows these producers to maintain their craft ethos and identity and addresses the concern that business growth leads to a loss of identity and uniformity of output. Example data

Axial coding

Core Theme

[Brewer 9] done a fantastic job, where they’re at today, but what they’re doing doesn’t really impact what we’re doing, we want to do our own thing… (Brewer 11) Place marketing is stronger amongst smaller breweries with an identity, it becomes lost when a brewery grows to the size of Brewer 9, that local identity seems to disappear as they try and satisfy all corners of the market. (Brewer 5)

It’s like David and Goliath type stuff. If big companies feel threatened, to the extent that they feel the need to have to buy out companies… (Brewer 7)

David and Goliath

I guess quite a small, fairly small operations at the brewery and it just allows John to be quite close to the operations but also allows us to like a level of freedom as well. (Brewer 10) We like to think we will be around for a while as we haven’t over reached in terms of business loans and that we put quality first before clever hipster marketing. (Brewer 6) And I know it sounds really fluffy to say that, but I think there’s a real genuine desire for people who are true to the ethos of craft brewing. (Brewer 9)

Fig. 4.  Smallness – Data Structure.

Artisan Values

Smallness

Commercial breweries like [Brewer 9] who dictate the market, and have the upper hand in supermarkets, or the global giants masquerading as ‘craft’ beer companies. (Brewer 4)

Differentiation

92    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser Small brewers thrive on their identification with an underdog status and strive to protect the craft image and ethos in a market dominated by meta producers (Garavaglia & Swinnen, 2017). Reference was made to the fact that increasingly, large corporate brewers have attempted to buy smaller operators to reduce the threat of these small competitors and that the large companies are aligning their branding activity with the craft approach and masquerading as craft. This is suggested by the following brewer: There’s this kind of idea as well that some of the bigger breweries are then kind of buying out some of the smaller ones … there’s a lot of that or you’ll go into the supermarket and see something that looks really craft but then you won’t have heard of it and you’ll look it up and it’s actually owned by like Budweiser. So, there’s a lot of masquerading going on. (Brewer 10) Data suggest that the brewers were keen to maintain their artisanal credibility and were comfortable being close to the business as a small and manageable entity (Danson et al., 2015). There was a feeling that there was a closeness to the process of making a good product and that continuing to produce the best product would ensure business sustainability and success, while those producing low quality products would fail. These suggestions are in agreement with work by Anderson and Ullah (2014) who rationalise that the reason some small firms do not grow is a combination of owner attitude and resource constraints such as a lack of experience and lack of time. The one brewery who had experienced rapid growth argued that maintaining their small ethos has been difficult, but that flat management structures had been kept to maintain the fluid and agile benefits enjoyed by smaller entrepreneurial businesses. You go from being that small, independent business where the rules don’t apply, to suddenly, there’s a lot more at stake as you grow …. That sometimes has levelled us, that we’re becoming too corporate. The reality is that we’re still an independent business … and we’re still the same business that wants to be scrappy and grow the same as we did 10 years ago. (Brewer 9) It can be suggested that collectively these small brewers are meeting the customer demands for a craft approach through staying small and unique. Artisan values and independence are feverously defended, with being small and nimble in product development a key part of this. Working as one unit, the community of small brewers have a collective resistance to large brewers through product differentiation and a local identity – overcoming the individual liabilities of smallness to collectively threaten the dominance of mainstream production.

Conclusions and Future Research This collection of small but connected enterprises forms a type of alliance, looking to build the collective strength to challenge the dominance of the traditional

Collaborative Resistance    93 large-scale brewers. The key uniting principle is the contrast to what they see as the commoditised and oppressive behaviours of mainstream brewing. However, while the narrative of resisting blandness is useful for our brewers, this does not go so far as to challenge the industry directly, but helps in establishing their own corner of the market. Operationally, sharing resources and knowledge allows our brewers to overcome the liabilities of smallness, while fervently defending the artisan values of their most beloved trade. The brewers appear genuine in their desire to further the ‘craft’ agenda, even at the expense of commercial growth. Fig. 5 summarises the main conceptual linkages uncovered through our analysis. While we have looked to broaden our understanding with a more rounded view of the craft brewer in situ, we now focus on the areas we suggest are worthy of further investigation. As a starting point for our investigation, we explored aspects of collaboration in explaining the nature of how resistance to mainstream brewers is built. But the relationships our brewers demonstrate are broader and more varied than those relating only to competition in the marketplace. A holistic approach to understanding brewers in their environment allows us to more fully comprehend how context informs the behaviours of this entrepreneurial group. We find a myriad of relationships, with customers, suppliers, and even direct competitors (Flanagan, Lepisto, & Ofstein, 2018; Kraus et al., 2019). Resources and knowledge are shared among our brewers, while the coming together of craft enterprises reduces a risk associated with individual decision making, building a collective approach among our craft beer entrepreneurs. Furthermore, we find that the various contexts of the brewer interact in a productive manner to help sustain the craft beer scene. For instance, the collaborative nature of the brewers interacts with their individual commitment to place, while growing an informed and discerning customer base. Connection to a very specific spatial context seems to soften concern against competitive risk. An acknowledgement that customers demand such community connection and look for variance between brewers allows competing brewers to work together without fear of losing out. This challenges views of competitive danger in market saturation (Ellis & Bosworth, 2015), with our brewers suggesting a hospitable landscape for newcomers. We suggest that while there is a range of beer styles produced and new routes to market are realised, brewers will continue to collaborate, however, as they begin to reach maturation we notice an element of competitive secrecy is retained. While brewers were content to share resources and information relating to processes, our data suggest that there was little sharing of knowledge with respect to innovation in product development, which aligns with findings presented by Flanagan et al. (2018) on the nature of collaboration between competitors. It is suggested that future research explores the competitive nature of small firms as the dynamics of capital accumulation change, and individual enterprises reach maturity. Through a community approach, these small firms were shown to act together in order to wean custom away from larger producers, who are seen to create a uniform and commoditised product – the antithesis to craft. The larger brewers

94    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser Timely and patient supply

Informed custom

Differentiation in the market

Sustainable and varied support

Sharing of risk Connection to place / community

Community of brewers

Brewer

Resources / knowledge

Market creation

Variety to maintain interest

Introduce, ‘educated’ market

Testing of product

Commitment to local Collective resistance against large brewers Customer demands craft approach

Lifestyle and capacity

Maintain artisan values

Smallness

Fig. 5.  Conceptual Relationships.

are seen to react, for example, through ‘masquerading’ as craft, and this sought only to strengthen the resolve of our craft brewers to differentiate further. While our brewers support each other in this fight, there is some reluctance for individual enterprises to grow, for fear of losing the artisanal routes that

Collaborative Resistance    95 make them so unique. The smaller brewers were content to see one of the local brewers grow rapidly, but stated that this was not what they wanted to see in their business. Many are choosing to remain small for reasons of time and resource and to address the needs of the local community, rather than to invest in growth and lose their local identity. Further investigation may seek to enlighten this seemingly inverse relationship between community embeddedness, both spatial and social, and growth ambition – a paradox which is surely repeated across the wider artisanal sphere. The findings of this chapter indicate that the behaviours and attitudes of craft brewers are complex, where liabilities of smallness are overcome with purposeful embeddedness in various contextual dimensions. We have advanced the broader literature of craft brewer collaboration, by looking beyond relationships with competitors, and extending our understanding to how our self-defined artisan entrepreneurs engage with their local community, their customer base, and even their provenance. The grand narrative of resistance, seemingly creating a bond between the various stakeholders of craft beer collaboration against the oppressive competitive forces of large-scale brewing, only takes us so far. More informative to our brewers is the embedded nature of their enterprise. The norms and expectations of the locale and the broader craft beer scene have many implications for entrepreneurial behaviour, from the building of artisan credibility, to an agenda of education for the wider beer drinking public. It may be that our brewers turn to embedded community relations as a way of coping with challenging market structures, designed to make their existence more difficult. This provides an additional dynamic in the explanation of craft brewer behaviours and is worthy of future investigation. To highlight the main limitation of this study, we have achieved our understanding by looking at a very specific area in the North East of Scotland. Though this area is often credited as the birthplace of the UK craft beer sector, we cannot presume that the same findings would appear elsewhere. We are, however, confident that economic explanations do little to explain the changing nature of the brewing sector. Instead, we see a more compelling picture of different business activities by looking to the social connectedness of the enterprises in various contexts, a picture which privileges place over scale and difference over uniformity.

References Alonso, A. D., Bressan, A., & Sakellarios, N. (2016). A resource based approach in the context of the emerging craft brewing industry. European Business Review, 28(5), 560–582. Anderson, A. R., & Ullah, F. (2014). The condition of smallness: How what it means to be small deters firms from getting bigger. Management Decision, 52(2), 326–349. Argent, N. (2018). Heading down to the local? Australian rural development and the evolving spatiality of the craft beer sector. Journal of Rural Studies, 61, 84–99. Bastian, C. T., Oakley-Simpson, D. M., McLeod, D. M., Menkhaus, D. J., Alsup, D., Ogden, J., & Whipple, G. D. (1999). Niche market potential: The case of the US craft brewing industry. Review of Agricultural Economics, 21(2), 552–562.

96    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Brewers Association. (2017). 2017 craft beer in review [Online]. Retrieved from https:// www.brewersassociation.org/press-releases/2017-craft-beer-review/. Accessed on October 10, 2020. British Beer & Pubs Association. (2016). Statistical handbook – A compilation of drinks industry statistics. London: Brewers Hall. Burnett, K. A., & Danson, M. (2004). Adding or subtracting value?. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 10(6), 384–403. Cabras, I. (2018). Beer on! The evolution of micro- and craft brewing in the UK. In C. Garavaglia & J. Swinnen (Eds.), Economic perspectives on craft beer (pp. 373–396). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Cabras, I., & Bamforth, C. (2016). From reviving tradition to fostering innovation and changing marketing: The evolution of micro-brewing in the UK and US, 1980–2012. Business History, 58(5), 625–646. Cabras, I., Canduela, J., & Raeside, R. (2011). An analysis of the small and micro-brewing sector in the United Kingdom: A simple niche market or a potential gold mine?. In Proceedings of the 2nd beeronomics conference, The economics of beer and brewing, Kardinal Doepfner House Freising, Germany. Cannatelli, B., Pedrini, M., & Grumo, M. (2017). The effect of brand management and product quality on firm performance: The Italian craft brewing sector. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 23(3), 303–325. Carroll, G. R., & Swaminathan, A. (2000). Why the microbrewery movement? Organizational dynamics of resource partitioning in the US brewing industry. American Journal of Sociology, 106(3), 715–762. Clemons, E. K., Gao, G. G., & Hitt, L. M. (2006). When online reviews meet hyperdifferentiation: A study of the craft beer industry. Journal of Management Information Systems, 23(2), 149–171. Cunningham, J., & Barclay, S. (2020). Craft beer sector collaboration in North East Scotland: The role of individual success. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 21(4), 263–274. Cunningham, J., & Tolonen, K. M. (2019). Maintaining the scene: entrepreneurship in Berlin’s artistic sectors. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 37(4), 492–512. Danson, M., Galloway, L., Cabras, I., & Beatty, T. (2015). Microbrewing and entrepreneurship: The origins, development and integration of real ale breweries in the UK. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 16(2), 135–144. de Oliveira Dias, M., & Falconi, D. (2018). The evolution of craft beer industry in Brazil. Journal of Economics and Business, 1(4), 618–626. Drakopoulou Dodd, S., Wilson, J., Bhaird, C. M. A., & Bisignano, A. P. (2018). Habitus emerging: The development of hybrid logics and collaborative business models in the Irish craft beer sector. International Small Business Journal, 36(6), 637–661. Eberts, D. (2014). Neolocalism and the branding and marketing of place by Canadian microbreweries. In In M. W. Patterson & N. H. Pullen (Eds.), The geography of beer (pp. 189–199). Dordrecht: Springer. Ellis, V., & Bosworth, G. (2015). Supporting rural entrepreneurship in the UK microbrewery sector. British Food Journal, 117(11), 2724–2738. Elzinga, K. G., Tremblay, C. H., & Tremblay, V. J. (2018). Craft beer in the USA: Strategic connections to macro- and European brewers. In C. Garavaglia & J. Swinnen (Eds.), Economic perspectives on craft beer (pp. 55–88). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Collaborative Resistance    97 Everett, S., & Aitchison, C. (2008). The role of food tourism in sustaining regional identity: A case study of Cornwall, South West England. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 16(2), 150–167. Fastigi, M., & Cavanaugh, J. R. (2017). Turning passion into profession: A history of craft beer in Italy. Gastronomica, 17(2), 39–50. Flanagan, D. J., Lepisto, D. A., & Ofstein, L. F. (2018). Coopetition among nascent craft breweries: A value chain analysis. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 25(1), 2–16. Galloway, L., Sanders, J., & Deakins, D. (2011). Rural small firms’ use of the internet: From global to local. Journal of Rural Studies, 27(3), 254–262. Garavaglia, C., & Swinnen, J. (2017). The craft beer revolution: An international perspective. Choices, 32(3), 1–8. Gatrell, J., Reid, N., & Steiger, T. L. (2018). Branding spaces: Place, region, sustainability and the American craft beer industry. Applied Geography, 90, 360–370. Gómez-Corona, C., Lelievre-Desmas, M., Buendía, H. B. E., Chollet, S., & Valentin, D. (2016). Craft beer representation amongst men in two different cultures. Food Quality and Preference, 53, 19–28. Graefe, D., Mowen, A., & Graefe, A. (2018). Craft beer enthusiasts’ support for neolocalism and environmental causes. In S. L. Slocum, C. Kline & C. T. Cavaliere (Eds.), Craft beverages and tourism (Vol. 2, pp. 27–47). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510. Holt, R., & Macpherson, A. (2010). Sensemaking, rhetoric and the socially competent entrepreneur. International Small Business Journal, 28(1), 20–42. Ilbery, B., & Maye, D. (2011). Clustering and the spatial distribution of organic farming in England and Wales. Area, 43(1), 31–41. Karataş-Özkan, M. (2011). Understanding relational qualities of entrepreneurial learning: Towards a multi-layered approach. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 23(9–10), 877–906. Kesmodel, D. (2009). In lean times, a stout dream. Wall Street Journal, March 18. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123733628873664181.html Accessed on August 8, 2019. Kraus, S., Klimas, P., Gast, J., & Stephan, T. (2019). Sleeping with competitors. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 25(1), 50–66. Lee, Y. S. (2017). Entrepreneurship, small businesses and economic growth in cities. Journal of Economic Geography, 17(2), 311–343. Lewis, C. (2001). The future of British brewing: Strategies for survival. Strategic Change, 10(3), 151–161. Lounsbury, M., Gehman, J., & Ann Glynn, M. (2019). Beyond homo entrepreneurs: Judgment and the theory of cultural entrepreneurship. Journal of Management Studies, 56(6), 1214–1236. Markantoni, M., Strijker, D., & Koster, S. (2013). Growth expectations for side activities in rural areas. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 20(3), 584–602. Mason, C. M., & McNally, K. N. (1997). Market change, distribution, and new firm formation and growth: The case of real-ale breweries in the United Kingdom. Environment and Planning A, 29(3), 405–417. Mathias, B. D., Huyghe, A., Frid, C. J., & Galloway, T. L. (2018). An identity perspective on coopetition in the craft beer industry. Strategic Management Journal, 39(12), 3086–3115. Maye, D. (2012). Real ale microbrewing and relations of trust: A commodity chain perspective. Tijdschrift Voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 103(4), 473–486.

98    James Cunningham and Simon S. Fraser McGrath, H., & O’Toole, T. (2013). Enablers and inhibitors of the development of network capability in entrepreneurial firms: A study of the Irish micro-brewing network. Industrial Marketing Management, 42(7), 1141–1153. Murray, A., & Kline, C. (2015). Rural tourism and the craft beer experience: Factors influencing brand loyalty in rural North Carolina, USA. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(8–9), 1198–1216. Murray, D. W., & O’Neill, M. A. (2012). Craft beer: Penetrating a niche market. British Food Journal, 114(7), 899–909. Poelmans, E., & Swinnen, J. F. (2011). From monasteries to multinationals (and back): A historical review of the beer economy. Journal of Wine Economics, 6(2), 196–216. Pret, T., Shaw, E., & Drakopoulou Dodd, S. (2016). Painting the full picture: The conversion of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. International Small Business Journal, 34(8), 1004–1027. Rogerson, C. M., & Collins, K. J. E. (2019). Entrepreneurs in craft beer and tourism: Perspectives from South Africa. GeoJournal of Tourism and Geosites, 27(4), 1158–1172. Schroeder, S. (2020). Crafting new lifestyles and urban places: The craft beer scene of Berlin. Papers in Applied Geography, 6(3), 204–221. Sjölander-Lindqvist, A., Skoglund, W., & Laven, D. (2019). Craft beer–building social terroir through connecting people, place and business. Journal of Place Management and Development, 13(2), 149–162. Thurnell-Read, T. (2016). ‘Real ale’ enthusiasts, serious leisure and the costs of getting ‘too serious’ about beer. Leisure Sciences, 38(1), 68–84. Valdaliso, J., Elola, A., Aranguren, M., & Lopez, S. (2011). Social capital, internationalization and absorptive capacity: The electronics and ICT cluster of the Basque country. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 23(9–10), 707–733. van Dijk, M., Kroezen, J., & Slob, B. (2018). From Pilsner Desert to Craft Beer Oasis: The rise of craft brewing in the Netherlands. In C. Garavaglia & J. Swinnen (Eds.), Economic perspectives on craft beer (pp. 259–293). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Woolverton, A. E., & Parcell, J. L. (2008). Can niche agriculturalists take notes from the craft beer industry?. Journal of Food Distribution Research, 39, 50–65. Wyld, J., Pugh, G., & Tyrall, D. (2010). Evaluating the impact of progressive beer duty on small breweries: A case study of tax breaks to promote SMEs. Environment and Planning C, 28, 225–240. Zhang, C. Y., Barbe, F. G. T., & Baird, T. M. (2015). Competitiveness in a saturated market. A case study of the Scottish craft beer industry. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 6(8), 28–46.

Chapter 7

The Promise and Perils of Taking Craft Beer International Pavlina Jasovska Abstract The revival of the modern craft beer industry has been attributed to people rediscovering their tastes for authentic and hand-crafted products from small, local and independent firms – notable in many sectors ranging from food and alcohol products to textile and furniture. While one of the grounding principles of the craft beer sector has been serving the local community, some brewers started to explore growth opportunities beyond their national borders. Some did so by pure excitement and prestige of sending their beers overseas; others sensed that their domestic markets were becoming flooded by other craft beer brands or ‘craft-washed’ beers from large beer companies. This chapter explores two sides of this going-international story – its promise and perils. The promise of international growth represents the fulfilment of the entrepreneurial mission, the opportunity to collaborate on a global level or the result of positive country reputation. While the perils of crossborder venturing are formed by country-level differences (rules, values and culture), the author brings to the fore that the socially constructed and fluid definition of craft beer forms unique constraints. The author particularly explores how the sector’s cultural boundaries and competition for authenticity with large beer companies act as liabilities during internationalisation. This chapter contributes to the extant literature on firm internationalisation by focussing on a unique dataset of internationalising craft breweries from four small open economies (Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the Czech Republic). In that sense, it also provides valuable insights to practitioners and the general public. Keywords: Craft beer industry; internationalisation; small open economies; foreignness; authenticity; peripheral industry

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 99–115 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211007

100    Pavlina Jasovska

Introduction The modern craft beer industry has experienced unprecedented growth during the past three decades. Starting with the US microbrewing revolution in the 1980s, new craft breweries are now popping up daily in almost every corner of the world. Modern craft breweries created a cultural innovation by bringing the pre-existing industry logic back, such as the traditional handmade brewing methods, focus on the local community and artisan values (Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000; Rao, Morrill, & Zald, 2000). They succeeded by telling stories about real craft beer to reaffirm the ideal or authentic image of beer, which was abandoned by large-scale brewing. Craft breweries have challenged the existing field occupied by large beer corporations and their focus on mass production, profit maximisation and global sales. Growth of the craft beer industry has been associated with an increased number of craft breweries – for example, in Australia, the number of craft breweries grew from 159 to 526 in the past eight years (IBISWorld, 2020a) and in the USA currently operate 10,000 craft breweries (IBISWorld, 2020b). Yet, recent years have also witnessed a rapid increase in size, sales and geographic scope of individual breweries. Driven by their niche character, domestic market saturation and global fascination with foreign products from smaller firms, some craft breweries started tapping into opportunities beyond their local markets. For example, British craft brewery, BrewDog, and the US brewery, Sierra Nevada, not only succeeded by operating in their local regions but also by expanding internationally and competing with large multinational beer companies (Cabras & Bamforth, 2015). While it is very common these days to walk into a local bottle shop and take it almost for granted that we can purchase craft beer brands imported from all over the world, craft beer growth has a darker side as well. As I will argue, dynamics of internationalisation with its promise and perils are, to a great extent, a result of the hierarchical structure of the beer industry – a few large mass-producers occupying the mainstream field and small producers scattered in the periphery (Rao et al., 2000). Hence, in this chapter, I explore two sides of the going-international story. I present its promise, which encompasses entrepreneurial spirit, exploration and prestige; but I also outline perils, such as competition with large corporations, carrying the baggage of negative country reputation or questioning identity drift from being local to international. In this chapter, I refer to craft breweries (or microbreweries) by borrowing the definition of the US Brewers Association (2021) and adapting it to the context of four studied countries (Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the Czech Republic): A craft brewery is a small and independent brewery, which uses traditional or innovative beer production methods. The craft brewery is independent when at least 75 per cent is owned by the brewery and is traditional in their use of authentic and anti-mass production methods. Small operations are considered either to

Taking Craft Beer International    101 have production of less than 200,000 hl or to be employing fewer than 250 people in the Czech Republic and Denmark (EC, 2012), fewer than 200 people in Australia (APH, 2015) and fewer than 19 people in New Zealand (MBIE, 2011). Yet, technical characteristics of craft breweries, such as size, ownership or brewing processes are accompanied by rhetorical images of beer, which convey maintenance of historical traditions, passion for craftsmanship, use of quality ingredients, beer being ‘handcrafted’ and rejection of automated production (Beverland, 2005). These authenticity myths are cultivated to build the status of the industry through the selling of premium products. Hence, the craft beer industry represents a cultural sector in which knowledge about the industry is socially constructed and cultural portrayals of ‘craft authenticity’ or ideal type of craft beer are generated by individual interpretation rather than technical rationale (Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000; Carroll & Wheaton, 2009). I build my findings on qualitative data collected across four countries: Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the Czech Republic.1 These countries were selected deliberately as they are all open economies characterised by high levels of participation in international trade, and limited opportunities in the domestic market as compared to their trading partners (Benito, Larimo, Narula, & Pedersen, 2002; Maitland & Nicholas, 2002). In the following section, I present the applied methods. This is followed by presenting the promise of internationalisation and its elements by focussing on the unique industry conditions of four studied countries. Then, I proceed with the three sources of perils during international growth and, unlike the previous section, I highlight cross-country differences and similarities. Finally, I offer implications for research and practice.

Methods As the focus of this research embarks from an exploratory base, I use a multiple case study design (Stake, 2013) to provide an in-depth understanding of the internationalisation of the craft beer industry from four small open economies (Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the Czech Republic). In this research, I applied two data collection techniques, with the prime attention given to interviews and secondary attention to documents. These diverse but interconnected and complementary databanks provided rich information on the researched phenomenon. Interviews, as a primary method of this research, were undertaken in the period from May 2015 to June 2016. Two key informant categories were used in this process. The final list of key informants is outlined in Table 1. The first group included craft beer managers and owners because of their hands-on experience with the brewing processes and internationalisation decisions and their familiarity

1

To remain identity of the interview key informants unidentifiable, I use country codes (AU, NZ, DK and CZ).

102    Pavlina Jasovska Table 1.  List of Informants. Australia New Zealand Denmark

Czech Republic

Domestic breweries

2

2

2

1

International intention

1

1

1

2 (1 brewery)

Early internationals

3

4

8

7

Late internationals

4

4

3

7 (5 breweries)

International withdrawal

1

1

1

1

Craft brewery informants

11

12

15

Expert – association

1

2

1

2

Expert – journalist

1

–

–

1

Expert – distributor

1

1

1

–

Expert – brewpub manager

–

–

1

–

Expert – beer industry experience

2

2

3

–

Industry experts Key informants – total

18 (15 breweries)

Total

56

5

5

6

3

19

16

17

21

21

75

with the firm’s foundations and growth. The second group of key informants involved industry experts. The purpose was to gain a better picture of internationalisation of the craft beer industry, and of industry and country contexts. I applied a semi-structured interview technique by identifying key topics and issues, which needed to be covered and organised them into questions (Kvale, 2007). The interview questions were framed around the internationalisation process and the role of the country and industry context at home and abroad. To uncover the unexpected and unique findings, the questions were formed by using ‘what, who, where, why, when and how’ (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, 2001, p. 700). The participants were mostly interviewed face-to-face, and the interviews ranged from forty minutes to two hours, with an average length of approximately one hour. In total, I interviewed 75 key informants; 56 being owners and/or managers across 53 breweries, and 19 were industry experts. To analyse the data, I used multiple iterations between the data, literature and emerging concepts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The analysis commenced with importing the interview transcripts and other written text into NVivo software and then coding of interviews and documents. By integrating the open codes into

Taking Craft Beer International    103 more abstract categories, I developed three major perils of cross-border growth: tapping into the peripheral field, template stickiness and identity dissonance. In the next section, I provide more details about craft beer internationalisation in the four country cases.

The Promise of Cross-border Growth – The Case of Four Small Open Economies The Steady Growth of Australian Breweries The Australian craft beer industry is characterised by slow initial industry uptake and internationalisation. The majority of the Australian brewers interviewed reported that they did not consider exporting to be important and saw it only as an ‘interesting’ and ‘exciting’ part of their business, or an opportunity to travel. In fact, interviewed managers and owners reported that they perceive the domestic market as being unsaturated and that there is lacking international awareness about Australian craft beer. The closest similar country is New Zealand, which is small, and their craft beer industry is more developed (mentioned by interviewees in both countries). Other geographically close countries in Asia are culturally distant. Despite these challenges, Asia represents an unsaturated market with many export opportunities facilitated by Free Trade Agreements (Abernethy, 2017; IBISWorld, 2020a). Indeed, the industry experts interviewed recommended Asia as a ‘future market for Australian craft breweries’ (AU7). Internationalisation of craft beer to Asia has been supported by industry bodies as well. Government organisation, Austrade, has been arranging several roadshows in Asia where craft breweries presented their products to foreign distributors and retailers (Austrade, 2017). There is an anticipated increase in craft beer exports of 20 per cent in the next five years (IBISWorld, 2020a). However, there is also a prediction of substantial competition, as one Australian brewer, interviewed by Abernethy (2017), commented: Because of our production costs, there is no way we can compete with Tsingtao or Snow [Chinese industrial breweries] on their home turf …. But we can offer a premium, high-quality beer, from a country that is known for clean produce. (General Manager of Moon Dog Brewing)

Microbrewery Revolution in the Czech Conditions The Czech craft beer industry is characterised by its own Czech craft beer revolution with a focus on traditional lager methods and regular international activities to European countries. Czech beers were being exported during the communist regime primarily to other countries of the Eastern bloc (Kratochvíle, 2005). In the modern era, Czech craft breweries internationalise mainly to historically similar countries (such as Slovakia, Poland and Germany), where consumers

104    Pavlina Jasovska are quite conservative and value the tradition of lager beer production. In some instances, when breweries are located near country borders, internationalisation is often considered a less challenging option than domestic distribution. Many craft brewers interviewed saw Asia as a potential market but are still oriented towards opportunities in Europe. Czech craft breweries rarely mentioned government support, and if they did, they complained that it was expensive and geared towards large companies. Internationalisation had two primary forms: beer or the brewing profession.2 The first one refers to classical beer export. The brewing profession has quite a traditional grounding in the Czech Republic as the legal requirement for establishing a brewery is the formal involvement of an internal or external (consulting) brewer. Hence, many brewers are not brewery employees, but provide recipes and act not only as consulting bodies domestically but also in foreign markets. This industry role is instrumental in disseminating the traditional lager reputation internationally. The following quote illustrates this internationalisation of the profession: I am involved in a large range of activities … I used to work for 12 years at the Research Institute of Brewing and Malting doing research projects, and currently, I am still involved in some of them … then I do lecturing, training, consulting, tasting events, judging … however, my main activity is consulting newly established breweries … in total, I have worked with 150 breweries from 30 countries, and at the moment I am working at three to five craft breweries on a continuous basis as an external brewer. (Czech craft brewery manager, CZ6)

Danish Breweries Aiming for Global Recognition The Danish craft beer industry is the most progressive compared to the other three cases, with rapidly internationalising members. Internationalisation of Danish craft breweries has been mainly directed towards Nordic or Scandinavian countries. Craft breweries can benefit from the local awareness of common symbols and culture and also from selling to high-income consumers. Even though data analysis has not revealed any direct government support to internationalise, focus on regional countries is facilitated by free trade within the European Union. As well as their popularity in Scandinavia, Danish craft beer is very well sought after in the USA because of the general popularity of everything that comes from the Old World (Conick, 2016). And because Danish craft breweries are mainly using American hops, they often take the opportunity to brew their beers in the USA or to collaborate with the US brewers. In the USA, they can

2

There is also a third distantly related form which refers to export of microbrewery equipment designed specifically to brew Czech beer, however, this form is not performed by craft breweries but equipment producers.

Taking Craft Beer International    105 leverage their positive region-of-origin image (Scandinavia) – one Danish brewer described (Danish craft brewery owner, DK12). Moreover, the data showed that some breweries started to internationalise soon after inception and ended up selling 70–90 per cent of their production to foreign markets. As compared to the remaining three countries, Danish breweries have been expanding quite rapidly. This was not only driven by the fact that Denmark is a very small country. As reported by three interviewed Danish craft brewery owners and managers (DK2, DK14 and DK20), it was the international craft beer community at festivals and ratebeer.com which helped them build a reputation already prior to starting commercial production. Based on this early awareness, their beers were positively evaluated and caught the attention of the US importers seeking Danish beers for their portfolios. Hence, consumer evaluations became a legitimate source of quality, which Danish breweries were able to build upon in the early stages of operations.

Distant and Rapidly Emerging New Zealand Breweries The New Zealand craft beer industry shows that although being distant to other countries, it has managed not only to catch up but also surpass many craft beer markets in the developed world. Like Australia, New Zealand is an isolated country; however, the New Zealand craft breweries are quite active in foreign markets, with almost 40 per cent of New Zealand craft breweries being internationalised (ANZ, 2017). Their primary markets are Australia and China. New Zealand government bodies provide support which is directly targeted to enhance export and collaboration (NZTE, 2015). The quality of New Zealand hops drives its international reputation as a nation renowned for its craft beer. New Zealand hops are sought globally, and they are regarded as being unique and rare (ANZ, 2017). By using their hops, New Zealand craft breweries have terroir advantage, which also enhances the authenticity of New Zealand beer. They can support their uniqueness with a backstory about local ingredients and a small isolated country with a clean and green environment. While international opportunities help overcome the smallness of the domestic market, New Zealand breweries have to incorporate incurred costs into the price, which comes as a disadvantage when competing with craft breweries from other countries. For instance, a New Zealand brewer noted that it creates a challenge when craft breweries internationalise. They meet with European and US breweries which are bigger and can sell their beers for lower prices: In terms of competition, some of the challenges that we see in some of these Asian markets are that they get a lot of European and U.S. beer, and their beer is a lot cheaper compared to us. The U.S. producers are bigger than our mass producers here in New Zealand. They are huge breweries. So, we often get pushback on the price of our beer. (New Zealand craft brewery owner, NZ17)

106    Pavlina Jasovska

The Perils of Cross-border Growth – Competition, Foreignness and Paradox of International Growth Tapping into the Peripheral Field Tapping into the peripheral field signifies the attempts of large multinationals, as powerful incumbents of the beer industry, to enter the peripheries of the craft beer segment and to imitate niche products. Such competition leads to market saturation and erodes the integrity of the craft beer industry. While this phenomenon is happening also domestically potentially motivating craft breweries to escape the unfavourable domestic conditions and enter foreign markets, I focus on how ‘tapping into the peripheral field’ can be detrimental during internationalisation. At the beginning of the craft beer revolution, the competition between small and large breweries was almost non-existent. When the craft beer industry was in its early emergent stage, this niche segment was not attractive to the global beer companies. Corporations were busy directly competing with other big oligopolies (Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000). However, the continued growth of the craft beer sector eventually drew their attention. Craft breweries started to take the market share away from large breweries and also challenged the status quo about the quality and authentic beer. Once the craft beer industry gained acknowledgement and began growing rapidly, the large breweries started to act more competitively against the small players. In the words of some craft brewery owners and managers interviewed, ‘the big guys [started] entering the scene’ (AU10) by promoting ‘fake’, ‘undercover’, ‘craft-washed’, ‘phantom’ or ‘faux’ craft beers. Whatever label I heard during the interviews or read throughout the document search, the characteristic feature was that these beers appeared to be craft beers produced by small independent breweries, but in reality, they were brewed and financed by large multinationals. These include large multinational breweries selling craft beer both locally and internationally. The voices against this practice often claim that industrial breweries cannot produce real craft beers in the same way as McDonald’s cannot sell ‘artisan grilled chicken’; people are just buying ‘crafty marketing’ (Wilson, 2015). Large beer companies invested huge amounts of money in looking like craft breweries, and most of the time it was not clear to consumers which beer was craft and which one was only pretending to be premium (Williams & Ferguson, 2014). Whether obvious or hidden, the involvement of multinationals in craft beer brewing was deteriorating the identity of the craft beer segment. A Czech craft brewery manager noted this in the following quote: There is nothing against Anheuser Busch [A.B. InBev] doing a good beer, but it is not craft. And Anheuser Busch is saying that: ‘We are not saying we are craft’. Well yes, you are, because why don’t you put Anheuser Busch on the can, so people are not confused, be proud of making your beer. (Czech craft brewery manager, CZ20)

Taking Craft Beer International    107 The fact that large breweries produced beers which they labelled ‘craft’ was weakening the real craft beer integrity. I identified three forms of ‘tapping’ depending on the amount of control large breweries possessed over craft beer production. Large breweries can maintain complete control by creating the craft beer brands themselves. They can also have substantial power by buying out existing craft breweries (e.g., Japanese Asahi acquiring Australian Mountain Goat). And finally, large breweries can be involved in craft brewing by at least operating as production premises for existing craft beer brands. The implications of these tactics in the context of internationalisation were twofold. First, the ‘craft-washed beers’ were undercutting prices to craft breweries as they were sold as small-batch producers. And second, large breweries were blocking access to bars and restaurants with their non-authentic beers. To start with, craft beers from large breweries pushed down the premium price of craft beer and created difficulties for small producers to compete with the cost structure and economies of scale of large breweries: ‘There is a couple of big guys who are sold as sort of craft, but they are very cheap beer, you can’t compete with that’ (New Zealand craft brewery owner, NZ3). When the craft beer was produced at premises of industrial breweries or financed from corporate budgets, they could afford to lower the price and destabilise the market entry to internationalising small actors. The following statement from one Czech craft brewery manager demonstrates the struggles the craft brewery had to deal with during internationalisation: Some large breweries are dumping the prices with their specialty brands. Their beers are cheaper than ours, but our costs are higher. We are really struggling with that because their beer is also lower quality, which creates a bad name for the Czech microbreweries. This is really a huge fight. (Czech craft brewery manager, CZ16) Hence, tapping into the peripheral field caused confusion and deceived consumers because large breweries produced their specialty brands and called them craft beers. This meant that large players were still able to reap premium prices for specialty products, while their production costs were significantly lower than those for craft breweries. The issue was also illustrated in two quotes from Danish and Australian interviewees: It is cheating the consumers because they buy bottles like this and this bottle gives you a signal that this is a craft beer. (Danish craft brewer, DK10) Big players who are trying to give the perception that they are doing craft beer and the consumers do not know the difference. (Australian craft brewery owner, AU10) The second implication of large breweries infiltrating the craft beer industry is that they block the access of craft breweries into pubs, bars and restaurants, also

108    Pavlina Jasovska labelled as ‘tap contacts’. Corporations applied tactics such as paying ‘motivation money’ or ‘incentives’ to bar and pub owners to have ‘tied taps’. These are also known as exclusive tap rights, and they dictate contract conditions, such as serving only industrial beers. The tap contracts made it harder and more costly for the craft breweries to enter foreign beer venues because the ‘fake craft beer’ had already taken a certain craft beer tap. The reason behind this was that large breweries were able to provide a full range of beers (including craft beer) to distributors and publicans: ‘They can offer the bars the whole package including the craft beer’ (Czech craft brewery owner, CZ7); ‘The bar owners can’t serve necessarily what they would like to serve’ (New Zealand craft brewery owner, NZ15); and ‘They [large breweries] lock our taps with their craft beer brands, so that hurts people like us’ (Australian craft brewery owner, AU4). Overall, the fact that large breweries started to produce craft beers formed direct competition between smaller craft breweries and large multinationals. It created an illusion that they belonged to the same market category. Importantly, it resonated in the data, how isolated cases of craft beer production by large multinationals had a negative impact on the whole industry.

Template Stickiness Template stickiness is characterised by foreign market audiences using various ‘templates’ such as country-of-origin or reputation as cues to categorise firms and evaluate their desirability. The craft beer industry emerged in opposition to industrial beer. However, as perceived by interviewed craft beer managers and owners, the foreign market audiences tended to use the country-of-origin image to compensate for lack of knowledge about the foreign country’s craft beer industry or a specific craft producer. Similarly, Kostova and Zaheer (1999) used an example of the UK company, Cargill, in India. The country-of-origin link between Cargill and British colonial oppression was perceived negatively by Indian stakeholders. Indeed, the interviewed key informants claimed that the audience judged beers by connecting their existing knowledge about firms from the same country. It means that when craft breweries went abroad, they were compared to other breweries (both craft and industrial) from the respective state and evaluated based on the pre-existing judgement of the audience. Predictably, a negative reputation was harmful and a positive reputation was beneficial. Taken together, the legitimacy of craft breweries was formed not only by their membership in the craft beer category but also by their association to the country category. Hence, craft breweries were labelled as ‘Australian breweries’ or ‘Danish breweries’. The country reputation of the industry or another company stuck with the internationalising craft brewery influenced its evaluation in foreign markets. A good example is the case of Australian breweries. As compared to Denmark, whose industrial brewery, Carlsberg, had a positive reputation internationally (as mentioned by key informants), Australian beers were regarded as a cheaper option with lower quality. The major Australian beer traded globally is Fosters. The brand is owned by the most prominent global beer company, A.B. InBev, and

Taking Craft Beer International    109 is internationally regarded as an ‘iconic Australian brand’ and licenced all over the world (Ritson, 2013). Being once a leading Australian beer, poor positioning in international markets completely has deteriorated its appeal. Australian craft brewers reported in the interviews that even though Fosters is an industrial brewery, in foreign markets, they were considered simply as ‘Australian breweries’. Thus, their quality was evaluated by using the country template. A plausible explanation is that the Australian craft beer scene did not build a sufficient international presence at that time. This caused foreign audiences to use other cues for evaluation, for example, the Australian industrial beer brands. A slightly different pattern was evident in the case of the Czech Republic. As brewers reported, the country was generally perceived as a traditional beer nation mainly because of the popularity of the industrial beers Pilsner Urquell, Czech Budweiser and Staropramen. These beers have been exported globally for decades (Brewers of Europe, 2018). Moreover, the Czech Republic is home to renowned Pilsen lager beer, and the country has a strong history of brewing. Despite this positive influence, the Czech Republic is also a Central and Eastern European and transitioning country. As shown in the data, offerings from Czech breweries were often considered as being of lower quality, and as some Czech craft brewery owners and managers said: ‘The products from Eastern Europe are still considered as inferior’ (CZ13); ‘They don’t trust our product’ (CZ8); and ‘There is still a problem of looking at our [Czech] beer as a cheap product’ (CZ15). Of relevance is the fact that several Danish key informants interviewed automatically localised cheap beer as beer brewed in Eastern Europe (DK4, DK11, DK16 and DK19). Hence, the existent positive industry evaluation often did not ‘stick’ entirely with the Czech craft breweries. To relate the presented issues to craft beer authenticity, I link this concept to the issue of ‘tapping into the peripheral field’, presented earlier. Apart from being associated with certain beer brands (such as in the case of Australia), or being connected to a lower quality perception of a country’s products (as Czech breweries do), the fact that large breweries were producing craft beers was also problematic for the reputation of the national craft beer industry. To explain this further, issues of template stickiness were not only about large beer brands creating a negative reputation for the country or certain beer types. It also referred to large breweries acting as craft beer producers and disseminating a bad name for the whole industry, which stuck with the country category. By drinking craft beer from large breweries, with less flavour, lower prices and being sold in discount supermarkets, foreign audiences updated their perception about the craft beer industry from that respective country. It generated an amended country-of-origin template according to which audience judged the craftiness as the more crippled one. The following quote illustrates the problem of large breweries making craft beer and selling it internationally: ‘They [consumers] drink something which is not really a good product. The whole New Zealand craft beer industry gets a bad name’ (New Zealand craft brewery owner, NZ11). Overall, template stickiness was observed across all countries, with variability of its impact. However, it was slightly more prevalent for Australian and Czech breweries because of ingrained, pre-existing, negative perceptions. For Australian

110    Pavlina Jasovska breweries, it was the combination of slower expansion of craft breweries into international markets, lack of awareness in foreign audiences, and the strong, unfavourable reputation of Fosters beer. While Czech craft breweries did not suffer from a negative reputation of the Czech industrial brands, they were considered as transitioning country producers making inferior products.

Identity Dissonance Identity dissonance refers to a danger that growth activities of craft breweries, such as internationalisation, could move their identity towards a mainstream category. Interviewed brewers and managers perceived that the audience (e.g., consumers) identified that some attributes of the craft brewery contradicted the whole ideology of craft beer. Hence, the primary goal of the internationalising craft breweries was to expand abroad while staying craft. In general, organisational growth and public awareness of an industry lead to increased knowledge and credibility of an emerging industry (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2009; Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002). However, as demonstrated by the findings, this was not the case for the craft beer industry (Solomon & Mathias, 2020). Internationalisation often required higher production volumes and involvement of largescale brewing equipment with a certain amount of automation. On that account, for the craft beer industry, international growth was problematic. As some key informants reported, it went against the essence of craft beer authenticity by drawing it away from the artisan and boutique, towards a profit-oriented category. I observed in the data that the craft beer ideology emphasised the passion of the brewer over the commercial orientation of a corporation; the face of the brewer over face-less corporations; small batch production over mass production; personal, hands-on approach over automation and local community over global distribution. Considering the growth as a liability suggested that signalling smallness and localness were defining success factors of the craft beer industry. Larger craft breweries with an international presence – even though still considered craft producers – ended up in the position of being questioned for their membership in the craft category and some received penalties harming their existence. Growth made craft breweries more visible and available, which was not ‘cool’ anymore (Eisenberg, 2015) because their identity ‘moved beyond bearded hipsters’ (Evans, 2017). Hence, expansion, even a small one, was detrimental to craft beer authenticity as it made the craft producers more similar to large breweries. I explain two main attributes which during internationalisation became dissonant from the craft beer philosophy: localness and traditional small-batch production. The first problem with international growth was the question of localness. Some brewers mentioned that connection to the local community made craft beer different from the large multinationals. The extreme cases were brewpubs because their production was immediately consumed on the premises. For the remaining breweries, so-called ‘production craft breweries’, being local meant distributing beer in the same town or region. Even though craft breweries distributing nationally had to expand to sustain the demand, it was the internationalisation that induced questioning of the craft beer authenticity.

Taking Craft Beer International    111 Second, internationalisation also indirectly contributed to the violation of the craft beer definition by pursuing internal changes that allowed them to raise volumes. Some internationalising breweries were required to increase their capacity, lost their independence through external shareholder funding or contract brewed to reach the demanded production amounts. Additionally, brewers reported that international distributors usually expected taste consistency and regular supplies. Yet, small batch production could not guarantee it without automation and larger equipment. In other words, the quality was considered from the perspective of being able to brew the same taste, and hence required more computerised production. As expected, this went against the ‘soul of craft beer’ that stresses ‘playfulness’, ‘handmade’ and ‘small amounts’. The fact that every batch is a little bit different also symbolises opposing values to industrial beers. I link the findings just presented to the previous section on large breweries ‘tapping into the peripheral field’. In particular, the grey area of internationalising craft breweries started to create an opportunity for large breweries to sneak more easily into the craft industry, because the boundaries became ill-defined and in flux. The blurriness left space for powerful outsiders to enter the periphery field, as they could play around with the definition. Of course, they could also use the strength of their marketing resources to facilitate this process. Craft brewers themselves were often confused. In the interviews, the discussion about what craft beer is and what it is not often ended up with a list of craft breweries that were not authentic anymore, because they were too big, too international, too commercial, being everywhere or too hands-off. To sharpen the fuzzy line between craft and mainstream, some brewers attempted to provide a list of non-craft breweries. However, the explanations often varied. For example, one Australian craft brewery manager said: For me, Little Creatures is no longer a craft brewery, Mountain Goat is no longer a craft brewery, James Squire, Matilda Bay; these guys are not craft breweries. 4 Pines to me is still craft brewery, but their borderline is becoming commercial, Stones in the U.S. is commercial, so is the Sierra Nevada. Danish Mikkeller started off as a craft but now is so big, that he is commercially exporting everywhere. (Australian craft brewery manager, AU13) The main question here was why craft breweries needed to grow if it would harm their authenticity. The answer is a combination of factors, and their discussion would go beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, as interviewed brewers pointed out, large breweries tapping into the craft beer industry in domestic market and causing saturation was certainly a contributing aspect. This is shown by the following quote from an Australian craft brewery owner: There is not so much shelf space available, so there is certainly a competition and not only because the big boys are bringing craft beers, but they buy fridge space the same way as they buy tap space. Yenda [non-independent craft beer] is the classic example,

112    Pavlina Jasovska owned by Coca-Cola, the biggest soft drink company. They are going to put some Yenda in the fridge next to Coca-Cola. So, it is basically extortion. And that happens, so there is not much we can do about that other than just get to other markets. (Australian craft brewery owner, AU4) Notably in Australia, as shown in the industry data, more than 50 per cent of the craft beer market is owned by multinational organisations (IBISWorld, 2020a), who brew craft beer on a large scale as opposed to small-batch brewing. Hence, the ‘craft beer bubble’ (Mitchel, 2015) – as often labelled by popular press – is somewhat more driven by craft beers from large multinationals than by a growing number of small producers. Overall, identity dissonance was present in all country cases studied. However, I found subtle differences in the extent to which their social context enabled it. Internationalisation meant something different to Czech and Danish craft breweries as compared to their Australian and New Zealand peers. For the former group, some foreign locations were often geographically closer than places in their own countries, such as for Czech breweries located close to German borders or breweries operating in Copenhagen and exporting to Sweden. One assumption could be that Czech and Danish breweries did not emphasise localness as extensively as their Australian and New Zealand counterparts did. This would suggest that only international growth represented by significant distances and volumes was visible enough to raise concerns about craft beer identity.

Discussion and Conclusion The craft beer industry is a segment known specifically for its small volumes, high costs of production, tight regulations (such as high excise tax along with other alcohol-related laws) and the current pressures from large beer companies. The re-emergence of the craft beer sector evolved from being purely local to a stage of tapping foreign markets as a response to global demands for specialist products. This chapter explored the internationalisation pathways of craft breweries from four small open economies (Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the Czech Republic) and introduced the accompanying tensions the internationalising craft breweries face. Internationalising firms need to achieve legitimacy by conforming to prescribed rules, norms and beliefs in the host country – traditionally measured by country-level institutional distance (Kostova, 1997; Xu & Shenkar, 2002). However, in this study of smaller peripheral firms, the constraints were anchored in the industry or market category level. Thereby, the findings revealed that the danger of illegitimacy or inauthenticity was generated not only by nonconformity with the country-institutional environment, but primarily by competition for legitimacy among industry sub-groups (here craft vs industrial beer producers). The three proposed perils of cross-border growth can act in isolation, but they also reinforce each other to weaken the authenticity of craft breweries in foreign markets, as depicted in Fig. 1. These forces create a system where ‘tapping into the

Taking Craft Beer International    113

Fig. 1.  Three Perils of Cross-border Growth. peripheral field’ relates to industry actors, ‘template stickiness’ rests at the country level and ‘identity dissonance’ explains the controversy of a firm’s activities in regard to internal growth. Together, they can deteriorate the positive value and clear meaning of the industry members – craft breweries. Yet, these three perils do not only form pressures during internationalisation, they might potentially precipitate the chances of smaller firms engaging in strategic responses to succeed and survive in foreign markets. Exploring such strategies – an area for future research – could involve, for example, storytelling, framing and construction of authentic identities (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001; Navis & Glynn, 2011; Solomon & Mathias, 2020). The aim of this chapter is also to equip practitioners with an understanding that internationalising craft breweries operate in a complex environment forcing firms to orchestrate various types of strategies to succeed and survive. In general, smaller businesses are often advised to work towards the point-of-difference to their industry peers to gain competitive advantages in foreign markets. Yet, these innovations should align with a sharp industry identity to accentuate its competitive strength and eliminate imitators. In other words, smaller firms should work towards constructing and recombining cultural stories (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001), which would collectively buffer the attacks from competitors.

References Abernethy, M. (2017). Asia developing a taste for Australian craft beer. Australian Financial Review. March 21, p. 6. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/news/specialreports/export-and-trade/chinese-developing-a-taste-for-australian-craft-beer20170319-gv1cug ANZ. (2017). New Zealand craft beer: Industry insights (4th ed.). Melbourne: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. Retrieved from https://comms.anz.co.nz/businsights/ article/report.html?industry=Craft%20Beer

114    Pavlina Jasovska APH. (2015). Definitions and data sources for small business in Australia. Canberra: Australian Parliament House. Retrieved from http://www.aph.gov.au/About_ Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/ Quick_Guides/Data Austrade. (2017). Craft beer, spirits and beverage roadshow 2017. Melbourne: Australian Trade and Investment Commission. Retrieved from https://www.austrade.gov. au/EventViewBookingDetails.aspx?Bck=Y&EventID=24823&m=0|0#/event?_ k=cki1n5 Benito, G. R. G., Larimo, J., Narula, R., & Pedersen, T. (2002). Multinational enterprises from small economies: Internationalization patterns of large companies from Denmark, Finland, and Norway. International Studies of Management & Organization, 32(1), 57–78. doi:10.1080/00208825.2002.11043654 Beverland, M. B. (2005). Crafting brand authenticity: The case of luxury wines. Journal of Management Studies, 42(5), 1003–1029. Brewers Association. (2021). Craft beer definition. Boulder, CO: Brewers Association. Retrieved from https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/craft-brewerdefinition/ Brewers of Europe. (2018). Beer industry in the Czech Republic: Brussels. Retrieved from https://brewersofeurope.org/site/countries/figures.php?doc_id=672 Cabras, I., & Bamforth, C. (2015). From reviving tradition to fostering innovation and changing marketing: The evolution of micro-brewing in the U.K. and U.S., 1980–2012. Business History, 57(5), 625–646. doi:10.1080/00076791.2015.1027692 Carroll, G. R., & Swaminathan, A. (2000). Why the microbrewery movement?: Organizational dynamics of resource partitioning in the U.S. brewing industry. American Journal of Sociology, 106(3), 715–762. doi:10.1086/318962 Carroll, G. R., & Wheaton, D. R. (2009). The organizational construction of authenticity: An examination of contemporary food and dining in the U.S. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 255–282. doi:10.1016/j.riob.2009.06.003 Conick, H. (2016). How do local breweries market globally?. Marketing News, July 25, p. 13. Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/publications/marketingnews/pages/howlocal-breweries-market-globally.aspx Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. EC. (2012). Evaluation of the SME definition. Executive summary: European Commission. Kent: Centre for Strategy & Evaluation Services. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/ growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/sme-definition_en Eisenberg, D. (2015). Press clips: Is craft outgrowing Jim Koch and Boston Beer. Brewbound, January 7, p. 3. Retrieved from https://www.brewbound.com/news/press-clips-craftoutgrowing-jim-koch-boston-beer Evans, S. (2017). Craft beer has moved beyond bearded hipsters but it is getting very crowded. Australian Financial Review, April 12, p. 6. Retrieved from http://www.afr. com/business/retail/fmcg/craft-beer-has-moved-beyond-bearded-hipsters-but-it-isgetting-very-crowded-20170409-gvhf92 IBISWorld. (2020a). Craft beer production in Australia. Industry Report OD5071. Retrieved from www.ibisworld.com IBISWorld. (2020b). Craft beer production industry in the U.S. Market Research Report. Retrieved from www.ibisworld.com Kostova, T. (1997). Country institutional profiles: Concept and measurement. Academy of Management. Best Paper Proceedings, 2(2), 180–184. Kostova, T., & Zaheer, S. (1999). Organizational legitimacy under conditions of complexity: The case of the multinational enterprise. Academy of Management Review, 24(1), 64–81. doi:10.2307/259037

Taking Craft Beer International    115 Kratochvíle, A. (2005). Pivovarství Českých Zemí v Proměnách 20. Století [Czech breweries in the 20th century]. Prague: Výzkumný Ústav Pivovarský a Sladařský (VUPS). Kvale, S. (2007). Doing interviews. London: SAGE Publications. Lounsbury, M., & Glynn, M. A. (2001). Cultural entrepreneurship: Stories, legitimacy, and the acquisition of resources. Strategic Management Journal, 22(6–7), 545–564. doi:10.1002/smj.188 Maitland, E., & Nicholas, S. (2002). Modeling multinationals from small, open economies. International Studies of Management & Organization, 32(1), 3–15. doi:10.1080/0020 8825.2002.11043653 MBIE. (2011). SMEs in New Zealand: Structure and dynamics 2011. Retrieved from https://www.interest.co.nz/sites/default/files/SMEs%20in%20NZ.pdf Mitchel, S. (2015). Gage roads eyes exports as local craft beer market bubbles. The Sydney Morning Herald, April 14. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/action/ printArticle?id=98385491 Navis, C., & Glynn, M. A. (2011). Legitimate distinctiveness and the entrepreneurial identity: Influence on investor judgments of new venture plausibility. Academy of Management Review, 36(3), 479–499. doi:10.5465/AMR.2011.61031809 NZTE. (2015). Annual report: 2014/2015: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Auckland. Retrieved from https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-nz/51DBHOH_PAP67859_ 1/25095f72287f6b0798dad115b856006487f59bb5 Pettigrew, A. M., Woodman, R. W., & Cameron, K. S. (2001). Studying organizational change and development: Challenges for future research. Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 697–713. Rao, H., Morrill, C., & Zald, M. N. (2000). Power plays: How social movements and collective action create new organizational forms. In B. M. Staw & R. I. Sutton (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 237–281). London: JAI Press. Ritson, M. (2013). The Foster’s brand revival: We’ll drink to that. Australian Financial Review, June 20, p. 5. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/business/media-andmarketing/the-fosters-brand-revival-well-drink-to-that-20130619-jymcz Santos, F. M., & Eisenhardt, K. M. (2009). Constructing markets and shaping boundaries: Entrepreneurial power in nascent fields. Academy of Management Journal, 52(4), 643–671. doi:10.2307/40390310 Solomon, S. J., & Mathias, B. D. (2020). The artisans’ dilemma: Artisan entrepreneurship and the challenge of firm growth. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(5), 106044. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106044 Stake, R. E. (2013). Multiple case study analysis. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Williams, R., & Ferguson, A. (2014). ‘Craftwashing’: What makes a real craft beer. Sydney Morning Herald, May 31, p. 6. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/business/ craftwashing-what-makes-a-real-craft-beer-20140530-399sd.html Wilson, K. (2015). When ‘hand crafted’ is really just crafty marketing. The Conversation, September 21, p. 4. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/when-hand-craftedis-really-just-crafty-marketing-47749 Xu, D., & Shenkar, O. (2002). Institutional distance and the multinational enterprise. Academy of Management Review, 27(4), 608–618. doi:10.5465/AMR.2002.7566108 Zimmerman, M. A., & Zeitz, G. J. (2002). Beyond survival: Achieving new venture growth by building legitimacy. Academy of Management Review, 27(3), 414–431. doi:10.2307/4134387

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 8

Talking Equity, Taking Action: A Conversation with Jess Griego of Bosque Brewing Eli Revelle Yano Wilson Abstract This chapter explores the recent successes and lingering challenges of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the US craft beer industry. It is structured around a conversation with an industry leader – Jess Griego of Bosque Brewing – who has gained national recognition for championing these causes. The chapter is organised around three primary themes: (1) DEI initiatives at Bosque brewery, (2) the pushback the brewery has received for engaging in these types of initiatives, and (3) Ms Griego’s vision for social change within the industry. Keywords: Diversity; workplace; race; equity; craft beer; community

Craft beer has long been celebrated for its distinctive qualities of authenticity, entrepreneurialism, and collaboration. These qualities set it apart from corporate and mass-produced alternatives. Yet, recently, observers have begun to take a more critical lens on the craft beer industry and its consumer culture (Chapman & Brunsma, 2020). Alongside their draft lists, craft breweries offer a moral worldview with racialised and gendered undertones from which other liquid alternatives – or different relationships to beer – are looked down upon (Boyce, 2020). Critics now call into question one of craft beer’s oft-repeated slogans, that the industry is ‘99% Asshole free’ (Infante, 2021). Demographic reports from the US-based Brewer’s Association (BA) have provided some clues as to where the problem lies: nearly four out of five industry

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 117–125 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211008

118    Eli Revelle Yano Wilson workers are white and male. Craft beer consumers fall along similar lines.1 While this may have elicited the occasional chuckle about the ‘bearded white dude’ stereotype during the early aughts, flattened sales following a year of pandemicrelated closures have changed this narrative. The social homogeneity of craft beer presents both a business problem and a social problem wrapped into one. Craft beer is only appealing to a narrow market; small breweries are fighting over a tiny slice of consumers. And many women and people of colour (still) don’t feel craft beer is for them. Over the past few years, new voices from the industry have emerged with a fresh new sense of craft beer’s purpose. Championing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, these individuals and their breweries offer a vision for the future of the industry – by thinking beyond beer. Dozens of DEI initiatives are now underway, such as the Wayfinder program, run by UK-based Cloudcraft Brewing, the Michael James Jackson Foundation, founded by Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing, and Crafted for All, run by J. Nickol Beckham, the BA’s diversity and inclusion ambassador. One of these distinctive voices is Jess Griego, the Chief Experience Officer for Bosque Brewing, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ms Griego, along with the co-founders of Bosque Brewing, helps oversee five taproom locations in addition to their flagship brewery. Bosque (for short) has also launched several DEI initiatives, such as the Represent New Mexico Scholarship, which provides brewing education scholarships for individuals from disenfranchised groups, the Spacelion Fund, which helps promote suicide awareness, and Restoration Pizza, an establishment that focusses on employment opportunities for differently abled individuals through partnerships with local occupational support agencies. What follows is a transcript of my conversation with Ms Griego, which took place on 9 April 2021 at Restoration Pizza.2 It is organised around three primary themes: (1) Bosque’s DEI initiatives, (2) the pushback the brewery has received for engaging in these types of initiatives, and (3) Ms Griego’s vision for social change within the industry. I provide brief commentary after each of these sections to connect key points of the conversation to larger conceptual frameworks.

Brewing Inclusivity Eli Wilson (EW): Let’s talk about some of your equity and inclusion initiatives at Bosque Brewing. Jess Griego (JG): We have quite a few different initiatives. Spacelion is actually focussed on suicide awareness and prevention, mental health awareness. We had, unfortunately, a co-worker commit suicide in Las Cruces [New Mexico] three years ago. He was an artist and brilliant person and just really a big staple in the Las Cruces community. His dad was really talking to everyone – it was an enormous

1

See BA reports on consumers from 2018 and industry workers from 2019 (brewersassocation.org). 2 This conversation has been cut and edited for clarity.

Talking Equity, Taking Action    119 funeral, and there were a lot of people there – about the importance of educating and talking to each other and having these conversations. So I reached out to him and said, ‘What can we do? How can we help?’ Las Cruces didn’t have any suicide prevention. We partnered with NMSU [New Mexico State University] because we already had that relationship through Pistol Pete’s 1888 Ale, which is our licenced beer with them. We partnered with them, and asked, ‘How can we help? What do you need?’ They said they really just need training and support in the Human and Health Services Department. So we made a beer and did a lot of fundraising and since then have been able to get three fully trained suicide prevention and awareness advocates on site in Las Cruces. EW: I’m really struck when you talk about all these partnerships. You do a great job transcending the boundaries of just the brewery or even the beer industry. Is that an important thing to Bosque Brewing? JG: Our mission statement is to enhance the New Mexico story by providing genuine experiences. A lot of that is through craft beverages and food but also through community-building. We’re really community-minded, and I think that can be cliché in a lot of ways, saying, ‘Oh, we’re doing these things for the community’. But for us, it’s like, ‘Put your money where your mouth is. What are you actually doing for the community?’ We have, in each location, relationships that are established unique to that location. NMSU in Las Cruces is important. Here at Restoration Pizza, if you look up at the wall, we have a dozen community partners who all provide job coaching and a pipeline of employees that are disabled or have disabilities that are either cognitive or visible. So that’s my mindset every time we move into a new neighbourhood: how do we branch outside of ourselves and really build relationships with specific organisations that are unique to those locations? I think it’s important to make relationships and cast a wider net because I do think sometimes, whether it’s breweries or any industry, you can get stuck in your own bubble and not utilise the resources right around you to make an impact and enhance the story of our state. EW: But why equity and inclusion initiatives in craft beer, specifically? And why now? There’s this entire groundswell of energy I didn’t see even five years ago. What’s your take on that? JG: I think that we’ve been an industry that’s been growing for so long and maturing as it relates to products and locations and business structures. It’s unfortunate, but I think a lot of the focus gets put there as an industry and not on bringing other people along with you as you’re building. Across the country, we’re all being held accountable now, like: hey, there’s this whole other part of being a responsible business and community partner that we’ve all been neglecting. But as a woman in the industry, even in the last five years, I’ve felt odd being one of 100 in a room at CBC [Craft Brewer’s Conference]. It’s all the same demographic of men. So that’s been an issue in our industry for a while. For me, being a woman, that was what I immediately saw. But it was also important for me to see it’s not just that. There is an entire group of people that are either not aware of the industry or don’t feel like they would be included or exist in this world. I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to go back and do the work we should’ve been doing at the beginning and across the country.

120    Eli Revelle Yano Wilson EW: Do you see equity and inclusion integrated in the entire Bosque brand? JG: Yeah. I mean, I think so. But it’s also a little bit harder to … there’s a difference between trying and being. I think we’re in this phase of, we’re working on it and it’s a place we want to get to. But at some point, I would like it to just be what it is. Right now, our HR department is doing a survey of: what does the pay look like across the company? Are there any areas that we’re not seeing? There’s a lot of data, too, that we’re constantly trying to find. Are there blind spots? You can’t see what you can’t see, so again, just trying to do better. I think it’s a balance. But I think, at some point, you’ll be able to just walk in and feel it. It’ll be a feeling of being welcome. There are places, whether it be breweries or just companies, where I walk in, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t feel like I belong here’, or, ‘I’m going to be locked out if I ask what the difference between this beer and that beer is’. I think that’s a huge issue in the brewing industry. I really want Bosque to be as far away from that as possible. EW: I love the distinction between trying and being. Can you give me an example of what is a deliberate decision that you feel like Bosque has made to make people feel that sense of inclusion? JG: Here at Restoration Pizza, there’s interactions with people you may not have ever interacted with before. Because – and we’ve talked about this in a lot of our staff trainings – we’ve been institutionalised to be separated from people with disabilities. We’re in a different school. We have different recesses. We have different classrooms. You don’t get to be in the same environment. So that’s really important here, just making those interactions seem normal. I think it’s probably not the right word but – EW: What do you think from the perspective of your employees? How do you feel like they might feel their place of employment captures that inclusivity? JG: That’s something that we’re always working on. For our Represent New Mexico scholarship, everyone who’s on that committee is a co-worker. We don’t have any owners or executives on the committee. We want the people who are selected for these scholarships to be selected by a diverse group of individuals that work at Bosque’. Being intentional about that, giving power to those individuals or even just the opportunity to make a difference. Ms Griego strives to normalise practices of inclusive practices and highlight the value of diversity at her brewery. She, along with other brewery leadership, has been intentional about their decisions to highlight diversity and inclusivity; they strive to integrate this goal into the company fabric and not just as a superficial branding angle. DEI programmes within organisations have had mixed success. Many fail to live up to their stated goals (Kalev, Dobbin, & Kelly, 2006), or reproduce existing racial and gender hierarchies (Mayorga-Gallo, 2019). Others may provide marginal benefits to underprivileged groups while failing to reduce manager’s biases towards these individuals (Williams, Kilanski, & Muller, 2014). However, the DEI initiatives most likely to succeed are integrated into an organisation’s main values and supported by its leadership team (Dobbin, Schrage, & Kalev, 2015). This is what Ms Griego is ‘trying’ – to use her word – to achieve within her brewery.

Talking Equity, Taking Action    121 Moreover, Bosque’s various partnerships beyond the beer industry help to give new voices a seat at the table that are focussed on a range of community issues from suicide awareness to racial justice. However, pursuing these types of aims has also opened up the brewery to criticism.

Facing Pitfalls and Pushback EW: Do you feel like these DEI goals at Bosque, are they part of your brand that customers, or just people in the community who don’t know Bosque, would be able to know about your brewery? JG: Restoration Pizza is a huge initiative, and people were like, ‘You’re crazy. What are you doing?’ I think that putting our money where our mouth is. But there’s constantly a filter of, okay, we’re doing this, but what does this look like as performative action? Is this going to come off in a way that we’re not intending? Sometimes, you try to do your best and you still get criticised. There’s a line where you just have to do what you know is right. I think that there’s a lot of people who still don’t really know us at all. And then there’s a lot of people who we worked with deeply and made a lot of progress. EW: You make me think of that mantra of having your actions speak louder than your words … JG: Yeah, totally. It kind of defeats the purpose if you’re like, ‘Hey, we did this thing’, or, ‘We wrote this check’. I understand that there’s balance. But there’s things that we do that people don’t know about because that’s not why we’re doing it. We do get called out sometimes like, ‘Why aren’t you doing this about this?’ And we’re like, ‘We are, but we didn’t post about it to social media because that’s not the purpose’. EW: In your mind, what seems to be the resistance to equity initiatives that’s maybe less obvious? JG: Fear. I think a lot of fear. EW: Fear of what? JG: Failing. Criticism. I might feel this way because I’m biased because I see all the things come in, but we get so much criticism for these initiatives. For example, the Represent New Mexico Scholarship became this huge issue, which, to me, seems like, ‘Why is this a problem?’ But we have a wider net in terms of audience sometimes. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Man, I could just walk away from this and not be treated this way, and it would be fine’ The hard stuff, it’s easy to … It’s hard. There’s a lot of criticism. This past summer, we were put through the wringer of, ‘Just make beer, and don’t share your politics with us’. Lots of that, lots of, ‘It’s not your place to decide who gets opportunities and who doesn’t. Hard workers should get opportunities’ … reverse racism and that sort of stuff. I think that it takes a lot of money and energy that people just don’t have the bandwidth to give. That’s unfortunate, and I think sometimes I probably take that too far and should have a little better personal boundaries when it comes to that stuff. But I do think that taking on anything like this, you see, ‘Oh, we made this beer, and we partnered, and we wrote this check’. I’m like, ‘That’s cool, but what did that do?’ And I think going beyond that standard ‘make the beer, write a check’ is really, really emotionally, physically, and financially difficult.

122    Eli Revelle Yano Wilson EW: I wonder, within the industry, what has the response been? Has there been pushback that you’re aware of ? JG: I don’t think so. We’re all in our own silos right now. It’s just been really weird timing with the pandemic because the collaboration and the communication and the working alongside each other has really gone away. So those conversations don’t really happen as often as they used to. I don’t see the brewery owners I used to see regularly at Brewers Guild socials or at different meetings or conferences. So I haven’t heard anything. But it does feel like we put a target on our backs a little bit, which is also part of why, going back to why people don’t do this, because you’re risking, you’re putting yourself out there to be criticised. Everything we do is seen under a microscope, even when it comes to beer: having more inclusive beers, doing a glitter beer, having a pickle beer. There’s this, like, ‘Ugh, you’re a traitor! Or, you’re not appreciating the craft and you’re ruining the industry!’ I get a lot of that feedback. Ms Griego describes the pressures Bosque has encountered from customers to stick to beer and stay out of politics. The brewery’s response must necessarily walk a tightrope: as a business with a presence in political diverse neighbourhoods, Ms Griego recognises that alienating a sizable portion of her customer base would be damaging to the brewery – and the DEI initiatives it champions. Today, companies offer nodding support for DEI, which appeals to a general sense of liberalism and does not evoke partisan controversy. Yet, as Ms Griego notes, supporting these kinds of DEI initiatives too vigorously, or by offering material support to those from underprivileged groups, elicits pushback. Why can’t we just treat everyone the same, judge them on their skills and merits? Plus, talking about race only makes things worse, goes the familiar retort (see BonillaSilva, 2015). This perspective, which race scholars refer to as colour-blind racism, ignores historical and structural inequities that have allowed members of privileged social groups, particularly white men, to accrue advantages that translate directly into better jobs and other opportunities. Any threat to the established hierarchy of social groups in society can elicit a heightened sense of backlash from members of the majority group (Blumer, 1958). So how do organisations committed to DEI push on in their efforts to craft a more inclusive future?

Crafting an Inclusive Future for the Industry EW: Now that your current DEI initiatives are underway, I assume there’s a little different calibration of like, ‘What’s next?’ and, ‘Where do we need to be throwing more weight than somewhere else?’ JG: I think it was [co-owner] that said the other day, ‘If you care about everything, you care about nothing’. I think we sometimes fall into that, where we’re getting requests like, ‘Do this and this and this’. And we’re like, ‘Yes, yes, yes’, but then it’s like, ‘Is that moving the needle?’ It is so hard because you want to do everything. But we’re also running a business, and we need to be taking care of our co-workers. There’s an immediate need there, too. I think a lot of it is about bandwidth and strategising. What can we take on? And what do we have to say no to right now? One day we want to say yes to

Talking Equity, Taking Action    123 everything, but we don’t have the resources. So those conversations can be difficult, but it’s kind of my area in the company. I generally have the final say, which is nice for me. But I think we’re all very like-minded but have different areas that we want to see progress more than other … I think it’s the nature of being a human. I’m very into women’s rights because that’s what I’ve experienced. How do I not get stuck on that? Because there’s other things, too. EW: Which do you think is going to be the most difficult equity issue to make headway [on]? JG: When it comes to race, which is, I think, the biggest conversation we’re having right now in the country, that one has been harder for me to wrap my brain around. Especially because we live in a state that has very few Black people. So how do you hire … Part of what we’re trying to do with the Represent New Mexico, the whole point of that is to attract people who wouldn’t have been interested in the industry in the first place. But how do we become aware and accessible to African Americans and Asian Americans, the groups right now that are really suffering? Some of it is where we exist in the country, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try … With Restoration, we have all these partners. There’s a pipeline of people that want to work and who want to make a pizza or drop off a beer or ring in an order. EW: I’m struck with this realisation that, in an industry that is still predominantly white and male and relatively privileged, we are going to see some of that culture manifest in sometimes negative ways. JG: Absolutely. Because that, again, going back to those are the people who got us to where we are and who supported us and who were fanatically excited when we released certain styles. That’s great, and we appreciate that. But now it feels like this shift. Now those people are unhappy with us because we’re doing these other things that are more accessible to other people. How do you – You just can’t win. It’s hard, and it’s hard not to take it personally. Especially the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling like, man, there’s this group of frat-guy sort of mentality that’s just constantly ragging on us. Down to whether the hop profile’s the same. I’m just like, ‘This is the last thing we need to be worried about. Let’s just focus on all this [DEI] stuff over here’. EW: Thinking about how things have changed, what is the experience that you’re trying to cultivate these days at the brewery? Has that changed over the years? JG: I think so. I think that it’s become much more community-minded, relationshipbuilding, whether that’s co-workers with each other internally, co-workers and customers, community partners and co-workers… I think that has broadened quite a bit. Before, it was like, ‘What does our logo look like?’ and, ‘How do our cans look?’ Those are all important, and they all feed into this monster that is Bosque. But now it’s a lot more relational. There’s this personal sense of: how can we all be Bosque? I want everyone who’s involved in any way to be adding to that story. Storytelling and story-building is also at the forefront of my mind, too, and making sure that we’re highlighting the people who work here and not just the beer and amazing opportunities in the community to find out more about New Mexico. I think storytelling almost being, I don’t know, a space for learning, for hard conversations.

124    Eli Revelle Yano Wilson EW: How will you know that you’ve succeeded on this front? What would that look like to you? JG: That’s a great question. I feel like we’re at this turning point right now where we probably need to identify this. I think there need to be some goals and even just doing, like I said, our pay audit right now and making sure. On the surface, it’s like, ‘Yeah, but do we need to go deeper and cross that off of our list of, yes, we’re good?’ I think it’s going to be a feeling. But I think, as someone who’s constantly trying to be better, I don’t know if that’ll ever end. But I do want to see – I want to feel like the culture, the customer experience, and the co-worker experience at the brewery are all aligned. Sometimes it feels like one is getting more attention than the other, and then we have to switch so it feels there’s balance or they may be more in harmony with each other. *** Industry leaders like Jess Griego see beer as a vehicle for change, not an end in itself. Their companies are rethinking key aspects of how they do business, including how they can provide more inclusive opportunities for their employees, their patrons, and their local communities. This requires constant reassessing of priorities and possible blind spots within the company. Ms Griego is also cleareyed about the challenges that confront her vision on a daily basis. Her brewery is one of the few that is willing to proactively pursue DEI initiatives instead of symbolic gestures or one-off events that generate buzz, if not necessarily lasting change. What the future will hold for the growing number of DEI initiatives like the ones that Jess Griego and Bosque Brewing have launched remains unclear. One lingering question will be whether the craft beer industry will be able to reconcile the values that undergird these initiatives with other consecrated values such as authenticity, entrepreneurialism, passion for craft, and collaboration. In spaces that frequently blend craftsmanship with whiteness and masculinity (Ocejo, 2017), these values may not be a natural fit. But the momentum behind DEI initiatives in craft beer also holds the door to achieving greater equity within the workplace firmly open. *** As beer writer Kate Bernot (2020) muses, ‘who do breweries talk about when they talk about ‘community’?’ When we talk about craft beer culture, or craft beer jobs, are these things that only some people should be able to enjoy while everyone else either conforms or moves on? Jess Griego, for her part, describes success as a feeling. A feeling that everyone is truly welcome in the spaces created by the breweries of tomorrow. Here’s to hoping Bosque and others can package and distribute this vision widely.

Talking Equity, Taking Action    125

References Bernot, K. (2020). Say it out loud – Who do breweries talk about when they talk about ‘community’?”. Good Beer Hunting. Retrieved from https://www.goodbeerhunting. com/sightlines/2020/6/5/who-do-breweries-talk-about-when-they-talk-aboutcommunity. Accessed on May 04, 2021. Blumer, H. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1(1), 3–7. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2015). The structure of racism in color-blind, ‘Post-Racial’ America. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(11), 1358–1376. Boyce, T. (2020). The time is now, part two – Why beer’s culture and workplace practices must change. Good Beer Hunting. Retrieved from https://www.goodbeerhunting. com/blog/2020/8/10/the-time-is-now-part-two-why-beers-culture-and-workplacepractices-must-change. Accessed on May 04, 2021. Chapman, N., & Brunsma, D. (2020). Beer and racism: How beer became white, why it matters, and the movements to change it. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Dobbin, F., Schrage, D., & Kalev, A. (2015). Rage against the iron cage: The varied effects of bureaucratic personnel reforms on diversity. American Sociological Review, 80(5), 1014–1044. Infante, D. (2021). Craft beer’s ‘99% asshole-free’ myth. Fingers. Retrieved from https:// fingers.substack.com/p/craft-beers-99-asshole-free-myth. Accessed on May 04, 2021. Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. (2006). Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71(4), 589–617. Mayorga-Gallo, S. (2019). The white-centering logic of diversity ideology. American Behavioral Scientist, 63(13), 1789–1809. Ocejo, R. (2017). Masters of craft: Old jobs in the new urban economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Williams, C., Kilanski, K., & Muller, C. (2014). Corporate diversity programs and gender inequality in the oil and gas industry. Work and Occupations, 41(4), 440–476.

This page intentionally left blank

Part III

Serving Craft Beer

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 9

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer: Style Guides and Taste Descriptions in Beer Judging Practice Steven Wright Abstract This chapter explores how quality is assessed in craft beer through describing tastes and aromas in relationship to categories of beer style. Drawing on documentary sources, it explores the development and formalisation of definitions of beer styles, and the development of the contemporary language used to describe and assess taste. It then ethnographically explores how these are combined in the practice of craft beer judging at a competition through a novel assemblage of different methods. The empirical work contributes novel methods for exploring tasting practices, detailed ethnographic description of beer judging and an exploration of how the organisation of style guides and taste descriptions have contributed to defining and assessing quality in craft beer. Keywords: Beer style; tasting; beer judging; actor-network theory; conversation analysis; cultural history of taste

Introduction: Assembling and Defining Quality in Craft Beer This book focusses on craft brewing and its product: craft beer. There are existing definitions of craft breweries from the Brewers Association (2020) in the USA and the Society of Independent Brewers in the UK (SIBA, 2020). These definitions are based in economics – defining craft breweries as relatively small, independent

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 129–147 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211009

130    Steven Wright from multinational beverage companies and primarily producing beer. SIBA’s definition further adds that craft breweries create ‘quality beer’. Such a definition itself poses a question: how is quality defined and assessed in craft beer? Exploring how such assessments are constructed is the focus of this chapter. The chapter explores how the concepts of beer style, together with descriptions of taste are assembled to assess quality through empirical research on the training, accreditation and practices of judging craft and home brewed beer. The initial sections explore the historical organisation of beer style definitions and the historical contingencies that created the contemporary language of taste description. It then turns to explore in detail the use of these style guides and language in contemporary beer judging practices. By exploring how judgments are assembled it seeks to explicate how the concept of quality in ‘craft beer’ is constructed. It also contributes to the call from Shapin (2012a, p. 177) for ‘ethnographies … of how taste judgments come to be formed, discussed, and sometimes shared’ in the context of craft beer.

Methods, Methodology and Research Questions This research drew on the work of Teil and Hennion (2004) exploring the attachments of ‘great amateurs’– from rock climbers through drug users to wine connoisseurs – and how they engaged in situated appreciation and judgement about their particular practices. These investigations drew on Actor-Network Theory and Material Semiotics (Law, 2009) – a set of methodological sensibilities that seek to symmetrically account for the distribution of agency between both human and non-human entities as they construct ‘the social’. Rather than using the often problematic term network,1 Hennion (2007) proposes a conceptualisation of attachment to both embody and de-centre the human amateur and place their agency as being reciprocal with the agency of the tasted object. In tasting practices, this opens up the tasted object’s ‘right to respond, [and] their capacity to co-produce “what is happening”’ (Hennion, 2007, p. 101). Hennion (2007) proposes a framework wherein multiple elements are reflexively mobilised through ‘the community of amateurs, the devices and conditions of tasting, the body that experiences, and the tasted object’ (p. 136). Drawing on this framework, the research questions for this project were as follows: (1) How are bodies, objects, devices and conditions of tasting constructed, aligned and arranged to enact the assessment of craft beer?

1

The concept of attachment advanced by Hennion has also been taken up as one that helps challenge some of the misconceptions that arise from using the metaphor of ‘network’ in actor-network theory. For example, ideas that this suggests a technical, computing or physical network instead of a scale-free and non-hierarchical metaphor that sought to challenging micro-/macro-dichotomies and the frequent focus on hierarchies of class or bureaucracy in sociology (Latour & Stark, 1999).

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer    131 (2) How is the information infrastructure of a style guide assembled? (3) How is it the information infrastructure used as a resource in the sensory evaluation of craft beer? These questions required ‘the creative invention of a unique approach to the problems of gaining access to the phenomena of interest and ways to render them accessible to others’ (ten Have, 2004, p. 171) that would enable free exploration at different scales in diverse settings. Research drew on documents to explore the historical contingencies and constructions of language and thought by drawing on Foucauldian approaches (Kendall & Wickham, 1999). It drew on the detailed study of co-ordinating speaking turns, tasting actions and category construction by drawing on conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorisation analysis (MCA) from the work of Sacks (1992) and Schegloff (2007). However, this was also with a recognition of their lack of engagement with material objects and embodied practices in their original forms (cf. Latour, 1986) thus drawing on the broader scope of ethnomethodological ethnographic enquiries into categorisation work (e.g. Goodwin, 1997). These diverse methodological traditions are the intellectual antecedents of actor-network theory which provided the sensibilities to combine them into a coherent methods assemblage (Law, 2004). The empirical work was undertaken as part of research for a PhD thesis at Lancaster University, complying with institutional ethical frameworks for social research as well as the practical and situated ethical judgements of the researcher with regard to participant anonymity and informed consent. Data were collected through multiple methods. Tracing taste descriptions involved exploration of archival resources and brewing texts back to the eighteenth century. The practices of beer evaluation were explored through ethnographic participant-observation of a beer judging course, exam and judging at a UK national homebrewing competition.

The Origins of Craft Beer Styles Describing and naming beers based on their properties (e.g. Bitter), geographic origin (e.g. Kölsch) or primary customers (e.g. Porters) has a long history – however, the organisation of these into formalised structures is much more recent. The late Michael Jackson’s guides to world beers are central to that project. His bestselling books and TV series grouped beers into families, types and styles, with Jackson (1988) asserting that ‘there is a classic style of beer for every mood and moment. Each can be judged only according to the characteristics of its style’ (p. 12). Jackson’s writing was more transportable, durable and widely distributed than many of the beers he wrote about. Furthermore, the publication of his first World Beer Guide (Jackson, 1977) coincided with legal changes around small-scale brewing. In the UK, the 1880 act requiring a brewing licence was repealed in 1963 for domestic consumption, while in the USA, prohibition-era legislation that banned home brewing was finally repealed in 1978. Following these legal changes, there

132    Steven Wright was an explosion of interest in, and practice of small-scale brewing accompanied by the publication of numerous books, guides and recipes. The beers Jackson wrote about and classified could now be plausibly, and legally, reproduced and serve as inspiration for beers made far from their origins. Groups and clubs were formed among enthusiasts to share practice and compare produce, with a competitive element often present. In the UK, this was regional and disparate; in the USA, a national organisation – the American Home-brewers Association (AHA) – was founded within weeks of the legal change. Fred Eckhardt (1989) further formalised Jackson’s classifications to include quantitative measures of colour, gravity and alcohol content along with indicative ingredients – informing the brewing of an emerging group of both home and commercial micro-brewers. This served as the basis for the AHA to develop a comprehensive guide for categorising and judging different styles through the formation of the Beer Judge Certification Programme (BJCP). The resulting ‘BJCP Style Guides’ have been hugely influential on craft beer – serving as the basis for multiple publications on brewing specific beer styles. The guides extend further as webpages, in smartphone apps and as extensible markup language (XML) code. Through such encoding they have been incorporated directly into the production of craft beer through inclusion in the software used for recipe formulation and managing the processes of brewing the beers. To understand how this influence has developed, a closer look at the origins, practices and assumptions through which it is assembled helps to reveal the historical contingencies, ontological shifts and regulating practices that have become naturalised and normalised in contemporary definitions of quality in craft beer.

Styles under Examination The BJCP style guides translate beers into words and numbers, constructing categories through contrast and continuity: beers are no longer sensed fluids but examples of a type or class of fluid. Properties are further broken down into aroma, appearance, flavour, mouthfeel and synthesised into an overall impression. This organisation and categorisation work thereby creates the possibility of further translation into multiple-choice examination questions to assess mastery of the guides – the first stage in the certification of a BJCP judge. The following item from the BJCP exam question bank exemplifies key aspects of categorisation work: Check all that apply. A Dry Stout and a Foreign Extra Stout have what similar malt aroma characteristics? A) Coffee like B) Toffee C) Roasted malt D) Chocolate like E) Biscuity

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer    133 The list above is predicated on the use of a specific way of sub-dividing styles and the use of a vocabulary for describing aroma – through referencing other objects (coffee, toffee, chocolate and biscuits). This referential vocabulary has become expected and naturalised in the contemporary ways taste is described. However, it is predicated on a particular set of assumptions, concepts and contingencies about our engagement with and description of the senses. Historically, the way brewing and beer were described was very different. These ways of describing taste are embedded within ‘networks of expectations and understandings about how things should taste … [and] …the available vocabularies for talking about them and describing them to others’ (Shapin, 2011, pp. 7–8, my parentheses). However, the networks of expectations and available vocabularies have seen radical shifts. From antiquity, right through the early modern period and up to the mideighteenth century, the Galenic paradigm framed the way tasting was understood. This paradigm was based on the work of Galen in the second century ce drawing on classical work by Hippocrates. In Galenic thought, the distinct sensed qualities of imbibed objects such as food, beer, wine, etc. were described in terms that were associated with the four humours: blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Each humour was associated with one of the four temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic or phlegmatic) as well as one of the four Aristotelian elements (air, fire, earth or water). Food and drink were thus categorised in terms of associated, and directly sensed, combinations of these properties: wetness and dryness, hotness and coldness. The language of both the professional medic and the lay subject were shared and closely aligned. It is perhaps astonishing to see just how stable and sparse taste descriptions were from antiquity through to the early modern era. Through tracing the descriptions of the taste of wine Shapin (2012b) notes the strong continuity between the limited vocabulary of used in the first century ce where: Pliny referred to wine tastes as ‘tart’, ‘sharp’, ‘harsh’, ‘hard’, ‘rough’, ‘luscious’, and ‘unripe’, and tasting too much of wood – all bad things – and, for evidently good tastes, he deployed a more restricted and less referential repertoire, notably including ‘pretty’, ‘pleasant’, and, of course, ‘sweet’. (p. 54) This approach continues right through into the mid-eighteenth century where ‘repertoires for describing the smells and tastes of food were neither extensive nor very discriminating. Little had changed from Antiquity’ (Shapin, 2011, pp. 13–14). Documentary analysis for this project traced the same patterns in early writing on brewing. A book on brewing practices by Michael Combrune (1762) only uses a very restricted vocabulary: consideration of taste occupies only the final 6 pages out of 350. The vocabulary is shown in a table which sets out combinations of only six terms: ‘acid, sweet, bitter, aromatic, austere and nauseous’ (p. 345). A similarly sparse vocabulary is found in other books on brewing continuing beyond this era. For example, Booth (1829) continues to articulate the Galenic concept of ‘agreement’ or ‘agreeable’ with only three new terms ‘vinous’ (p. 28), ‘old’ (p. 52) and ‘mawkish’ (p. 55) compared to Combrune’s.

134    Steven Wright Shapin’s argument is that the shift of world view that accompanied the rise of instrumentation in science created a profound change in the relationship of the sensing body to the sensed object. This occurred initially within scientific and medical practice, then rippled out influencing broader cultural shifts and creating new cultural spaces. The new ways of understanding, and expanded opportunities for description, can be revealed through tracing how changes to the descriptions of the taste of food, and wine were documented (Shapin, 2011, 2012b). The organisation of Combrune’s text exemplifies this fundamental shift of understanding the world and demonstrates the influential place of beer within this. While wine production remained far more traditional, scientific instrumentation came to brewing early. Combrune’s text is the first documented use of the thermometer in brewing (Anderson, 2005). However, it is embedded within a Gallenic paradigm with the text organised into chapters for each of the four elements of fire, air, water and earth (p. 33). However, as the ‘first significant brewery text to recommend the thermometer’ (Sumner, 2007, p. 7) it heralded a new scientific paradigm not of sensory engagement with the qualities of the four elements but rather the intermediary role of instrumentation for engaging with underlying chemical properties (wherein water comes to be understood as a combination of hydrogen and oxygen rather than a primary, indivisible element). The impact of this paradigm shift was to have a radical effect on the education and training of chemists. Roberts (1995) explores the ‘death of the sensuous chemist’ – whose use of their mouths, tongues, noses and fingers to sense elemental qualities through the seventeenth century began to give way to the objectivity of new measuring devices such as the thermometer, or the air pump (cf. Shapin & Schaffer, 2011) which were capable of examining chemical properties no longer directly available to the sensing body. As a result, the sensing body came to be understood as an unreliable, subjective tool rather than an authentic measuring instrument. Shapin (2011) argues that this shift in the status of the body directly affected tasting such that it became: a scientific and philosophical orphan. But, at the same time, it made taste a suitable case for connoisseurship. Our modern connoisseurs display their ability to analyze, distinguish between, and assign descriptive predicates to each of the thousands of wine flavor …. The vocabulary of taste has accordingly moved from the spare to the ornate. (p. 46) This general shift from a sparse vocabulary to a multifaceted one occurs with beer as well – albeit with key differences compared to the language of wine. While wine vocabulary makes very little use of technical terms or reference to the ingredients (rare exceptions being grape varietal2 or additives), indeed such terms are 2

See https://sommelierscribbler.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/variety-vs-varietal/ for a discussion of variety versus varietal in tasting language.

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer    135 completely absent from Lehrer’s (2009) authoritative linguistic analysis of the lexicography of wine talk. The language of beer shares many structural similarities with the language of wine, primarily through articulating a referential vocabulary, yet stands in sharp contrast through the referents used. The preceding exam question made extensive reference to distinct ingredients – from the broad category of ‘roasted malt’ (of which there are many varieties), through foods (biscuits, coffee, toffee and chocolate) to unfermented beverages: coffee.

Empirical Investigations: Ethnographic Explorations of Homebrew Judging The initial explorations of this chapter introduced two of the key networks through which craft beer quality is conceptualised: (1) through the organisation of craft beers into style categories; and (2) the construction of these categories through descriptions of expected tastes and aromas which are assembled through referential vocabularies. The development of referential vocabularies arose out of the change of the relationship between the tasting body and the tasted object. Rather than sensing agreement between embodied humours and elemental properties the body was now unruly, untrustworthy and merely subjective, even hedonistic, in its judgements compared with new objective instruments capable of detecting invisible chemical properties. This orphaning of the body and tasting had a creative impact: opening up hedonic appreciation and the development of ornate descriptions. However, the tensions between the untrustworthy subjective body versus the need for objective assessment were unresolved when taste is the object of study and the body needs must be the sensing instrument. New practices and standards are assembled that seek to create ‘objective’ judgements and tame or control the subjective, hedonistic, embodied sensing act. It is in these practices where tasting intersects with the structuring of standards: to judge if something is good is to judge it against a standard of what is expected. Such intersections occurs in many of the engagements of tasting, evaluation and appreciation of craft beer – from informal tastings, through consumer reviews and ratings on websites, to quality control tasting panels in breweries and in industry and amateur competitions. The BJCP style guides are explicit about this with the rationale given for their use being: In a competition setting, the Style Guidelines provide guidance to judges so that there is a level playing field for all entrants. Judges and entrants are both using the same descriptions, so the decision on ‘which beer is best?’ is based less on personal whim of the judges and more on how well the entered beer matches world class commercial examples of the style. (BJCP, 2010)

136    Steven Wright Standardisation is asserted as a regulator, something to personal whims or capricious hedonism and to align bodies and their sensing. This is the rationale of standardisation: but is it adhered to in the actual practices of judging? And what effects does it have?

Style Guides in Practice The UK national homebrew competition had four hundred and sixty-one entries submitted to the competition. Judging was undertaken by 11 judging pairs, supported by stewards who were tasked with organising beers into ‘judging flights’ within a style category, bringing bottles to the table for judging and ensuring second bottles for category winning examples were moved up for the best in show final round. In the competition setting, the organisational power and purpose of the BJCP guides shift from a transportable, abstracted information infrastructure of words, descriptions and measurements into a powerful and highly efficient set of practices for the physical organisation, classification, movement and ranking of bottled beers. Its ability to marshal and co-ordinate people, objects, scores and make them all accountable and accounted for via software is an impressive feat. Within this broader set of practices – explored at greater length in Wright (2014) – the process of taste assessment of a beer is the central task around which the organisational effort is conducted. The primary organising device is a standardised beer judging form completed by hand. It includes tick boxes with standardised lists of words to referentially describe taste and aroma, together with 5-point Likert scales for other assessment dimensions including ‘fit to style’. A key object of enquiry was the exploration of how the categorisation work of this beer judging was done in practice: both sequentially and categorically. To explore the organisational practices of judging talk and form-filling required devising a novel method for capturing handwriting and form completion live, rather than through ‘post hoc analysis of paper-based worksheets, in which temporal order has to be guessed’ (San Diego, Aczel, Hodgson, & Scanlon, 2006, p. 17). However, live recording has often involved intrusive and cumbersome equipment such as overhead cameras. A new method using digital LiveScribe pens – designed for note-taking in meetings or lectures – was devised. The pens take the form of a slightly bulky ballpoint that writes with regular ink onto almost imperceptibly patterned paper, with pen movement digitally recorded through a tiny built-in camera along with simultaneous audio recording through the internal microphone. These pens allowed the normal pen-and-printed-form practices to continue unimpeded while also creating a synchronised video recording of the writing and accompanying audio. Additional video was captured with an iPhone to provide data on the activity occurring around the paper judging sheet. As a participant-observer the researcher also made extensive fieldnotes and took photographs. Audio was transcribed following Jeffersonian transcription notation (Jefferson, 1984) – a detailed, standardised approach that makes explicit the sequential organisation of speech through marking overlapping speech, timing of pauses

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer    137 and features of prosody and intonation. This detail supports explication of how mutual understanding is achieved and communicated in practice.3 To explore sequencing of spoken language with writing and tasting practices the video sources were synchronised with transcripts using the qualitative analysis software package ATLAS.ti to enable annotation, coding and retrieval of linked data based on key concepts for the study. These methods are detailed in Wright (2015).

Co-ordinating Evaluation and Agreeing Assessment Judging conversations are task-oriented, co-ordinated and situated with reference to the objects of judging. The initiating conversation is typically short and occurred with the introduction of the beer to be judged being passed to the judging pair by their steward. Significant work is done in talk and writing on forms to ensure co-ordination between the various information infrastructure elements: the bottle and its number, the score sheet for the flight of beers and the number on the judging sheets. Once these were all accounted for sensory assessment begins. Judging and scoring is completed individually. While it is mandated in the guidelines that this should be in silence without influencing other judges, in practice there was marked variation between judging pairs. Practices are highly sequenced: visual assessment occurs first followed by smelling aromas, then tasting the sample. Generally these judging stages proceeded in near silence. Beer glasses were held up to the light to examine colour and try to assess clarity followed by a deep nasal inhalation to smell aroma – occasionally swirling the glass.

Absent Assessments: Audible Appreciation Within the recorded conversations a notable absence were the sounds of appreciation or disgust: the ‘gustatory Mmms’ (Wiggins, 2002) and their opposites that enact the ‘social life of “eugh”’ (Wiggins, 2013) which fulfil an important place in communication of pleasant or unpleasant ingestion and appreciation. In judging, there were only very isolated examples: one an expression of disgust: Robin  uah↓ oo::h↓ I can sme↓ll it from here↑ Transcript 1:  Disgust as a Breach of Silence. And later, from the same judge for a different beer, an expression of appreciation marked by a rising intonation: Robin  Oooh↑, oooh↑, Transcript 2:  Expressing Appreciation Non-verbally. 3

Due to publication format limitations line numbering is excluded here. Full copies of the transcripts are available on request from the author for further research.

138    Steven Wright Given the frequency of positive assessments of beer in the transcripts and score sheets, it is logical to conclude that these kinds of expressions are being actively suppressed – marking judging practice as differentiated from intentionally shared appreciation in informal tastings. Across all judging pairs, whenever there were (occasional) sequences of discussion during individual parallel judging, these were prompted by the attachment to a particularly pronounced property of the object. There was a repeated conversational pattern whereby moments of sensory engagement and its labelling faltered – the literal ‘tip of the tongue’ – with interaction initiated to collaboratively search for a word, clarification or interpretation: Mark  that doesn’t taste like an English ale to me I just taste hop I mean I’m getting kind of peppery= Sam

=yeah↑=

Mark spicy

 but you know a lot of times you get peppery spicy notes from phenols like the Belgian yeasts (have) thrown out Sam

yup

Mark but this isn’t, it isn’t yeast it’s moreTranscript 3 (Audio 5):  EPA Judging – Peppery Hop Variety Search Initiation. Simultaneous with Mark speaking in line 52 the record of writing shows how this discussion shapes the feedback Sam writes on the judging sheet (Fig. 1). Sam ticks ‘spicy’ and then writes peppery where a blank space with a check box is left for adding a referential term under ‘other’. Judges for Belgian beers also engaged in extensive searches for specific terms to describe aspects of beers:

Fig. 1.  Written Feedback and Ticks on Sam’s Judging Sheet.

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer    139 Swazi |•

 |it tastes like its been barrel aged or something↑ its got like a woody character to it Graeme I wonder if that’s wha I can sme I can smell something  I thought it was like an app:le↑ smell Swazi  yes, yeah, yeah↓, something about •=

Graeme= but it’s something different, its not, its like,itsmells like freshly cut apple wood Swazi yeah, yeah thats [it cos to me Graeme



Swazi        =bu[no

[not actually not actually apple=

Graeme          [but wood

Swazi yeah, yeah, its got this kind of, its almost

like a mixture of vanilla, fruit and earth •

Graeme |•

                              |its actually quite a nice aroma

Swazi   it is↑ qui(hhh)°te°[ its not] bad [he he Graeme

[actually]

[em,  I

Transcript 4 (Audio 1):  The Creative Co-construction of Categories.

This shows the creative search procedure for an appropriate category label. There is a search for causes – a process of barrel ageing being proposed. The perceived sensory effect is ascribed to this potential process and again described as ‘character’. However, this is insufficient, it is not ticked on the judging sheet where ‘wood’ appears as a checklist item in the divisions for both ‘aroma: other’ and ‘flavour: other’. Graeme’s response acknowledges this, reflexively posing it as a question and continuing the search process now located in the smell of the beer rather than its taste. He proposes a referential term of ‘apple’ (which he ticks on the score sheet (Fig. 2). This is acknowledged and agreed by Swazi, however, the falling intonation is heard as incomplete and insufficient by Graeme who synthesises the two terms to propose that ‘it’s something different, it’s not, it’s like, it smells like freshly cut apple wood’. Swazi enthusiastically agrees with this new compound term and there is work reinforcing it through. This is then written down by Graeme in the comments as ‘APPLE-WOOD’ AROMA. Swazi agrees but then produces his own synthesis of synonymous words (fruit apple) and (vanilla vanillin associated with oak/wood) adding a strongly emphasised ‘earth’ as a final property. None of this is recorded on the sheet in tick

140    Steven Wright

Fig. 2.  Written Comments on Graeme’s Score Sheet Accounting for This Search and Creation of a Compound Referential Term.

boxes or comments: the discussion serves as a mutual seeking of definition and calibration of sensing bodies rather than accounted for as feedback. As with the previous example, there is a process of breaking silence to engage in collaborative searching for and expression of precise descriptive terms that are not recorded as feedback for the participant but are assembled by and for the judge as an account of their sensory experience. The analytic work of finding appropriate referential labels completed, there follows an evaluative practice of considering that this is ‘actually quite nice’ in Graeme’s words, with Swazi a little more circumspect in evaluating it as ‘not bad’. This is followed by a 15 second pause as judging returns to parallel silence. Swazi takes a sip (Fig. 3):

Assessing Quality in Craft Beer    141

Fig. 3.  Swazi Taking a Sip of Karl’s Beer. Then searches on the sheet for a tick box (Fig. 4):

Fig. 4.  Searching for the Tick Box. He does not actually tick a box but instigates another discussion and search procedure: Swazi |•

| is that an ester↑ or is it (0.9).h something ↓else?=

Graeme =it’s

(3.3)



|I guess that must be an ester ay=



|=its an ester, is ye- its it is↑ an ester

Swazi |• Graeme |•

Swazi  now what I’m thinking? you know the light dried fruit, that dry like tssss [and dried apricots

142    Steven Wright Graeme Swazi



Graeme

Swazi

|•

[mm, mm

as opposed to raisins or (c↓>u|z|

0.3133

0.0962

R

2

Heavy Purchasers

−0.06

−0.29

−0.06

−0.02

−0.23

0.10

−0.34

−0.11

12.91

−2.68

1.27

−1.02

[95% CI]

41.07

16.47

χ2 Obs

0.18

0.00

3.46

−0.18

0.24

0.00*

0.24

0.28

0.05

0.10

−0.02

−0.01

0.12

0.20

0.37*** 0.05

−0.03** −0.11

0.17

18.68

1.57

6.24*** 0.56

9.82

Coeff.

0.000*** 186

0.001*** 186

Sig.

0.05

0.06

0.05

0.06

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.13

0.13

0.14

0.15

SE

12

3

Parms

1.96

−0.39

−0.14

2.05

3.71

1.06

−2.31

0.08

26.17

−1.46

4.09

1.24

Z

.632

1.692

RMSE

0.050

0.694

0.891

0.041

0.000

0.289

0.021

0.935

0.000

0.144

0.000

0.216

P>|z|

0.6520

0.1080

R2

Light purchasers

Table 3.  3SLS Regression for ‘Heavy Purchasers’ and ‘Light Purchasers’ Italian Millennials.

0.00

−0.14

−0.11

0.00

0.09

−0.05

−0.21

−0.10

3.20

−0.43

0.29

−0.11

[95% CI]

348.54

20.82

χ2

0.21**

0.10

0.10

0.23**

0.31***

0.16

−0.02**

0.11

3.71

0.06

0.83***

0.47

0.000***

0.000***

Sig.

212    Sergio Rivaroli et al.

0.09

0.08

0.09

0.15

 GI

 SI

 _cons 0.21

2.46

1.62

1.40

0.16

0.26

0.014

0.105

0.163

0.874

0.794

0.04

−0.03

−0.04

−0.11

−0.13

0.37

0.32

0.22

0.13

0.17

−0.00

0.66

0.04

0.08

−0.03

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.06

−0.03

13.39

0.74

1.46

−0.45

0.974

0.000

0.457

0.143

0.653

−0.10

0.56

−0.07

−0.03

−0.14

0.10

0.75***

0.15

0.18

0.09

Significant at *p < 0.10; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.

Exogenous variables: CO = consumer’s perception of convenience (online CB’s availability); PX = CB’s low price perception; HE = consumers’ perception of a healthy beer; PLC = consumers’ perception of a beer low in calories; M = mood; SA = consumer’s sensory appeal; NAT = consumer’s perception of naturalness; PF = consumer’s perception of product familiarity; ETH = consumers’ ethical concerns; SI = self-identity; GI = global identity; LI = local identity.

Endogenous variables: H = CB online purchasing habit; ATT = attitudes towards CB.

0.07

0.06

0.01

 LI

0.07

0.02

 PX

Motivations for Online Craft Beer Buying    213

– –

The favourable disposition of consumers towards CBs, here conceived as – the individual attitude towards CBs, have a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ habit of buying CB online

High product availability has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’  habit of buying CB online

CB’s low price perception has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ – habit of buying CB online –

Product health has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

The sensory appeal that is related to the pleasure of drinking CBs for their olfactive, palatal and visual characteristics has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

CO–H

PX–H

HE–ATT

PLC–ATT Products low in calories have a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ – attitude towards CB

The positive mood has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

ATT–H

M–ATT

SA–ATT

NAT–ATT Product naturalness has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

H2

H3

H4

H5

H6

H7

H8

H9

–

–







–



–

Heavy Light Purchasers Purchasers

–

Italian Millennials have strong and homogeneous habits towards buying CB – online

H

H1

Italian Millennials

Description

Relation

Hypothesis

Table 4.  General Overview of the Findings for ‘Heavy Purchasers’ and ‘Light Purchasers’ Italian Millennials.

214    Sergio Rivaroli et al.

Product price has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

Local identity has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitudes towards CB

Global identity has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitudes – towards CB

Self-identity has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitudes towards CB

PX–ATT

LI–ATT

GI–ATT

SI–ATT

H13

H14

H15

H16

Notes:  = supported; – = Not supported.

–

Online product availability has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

CO–ATT

H12

–

–

–

–

ETH–ATT Ethical concerns related to the brand of CB have a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

–

H11

Product familiarity has a significant and positive effect on Millennials’ attitude towards CB

PF–ATT

H10



–

–

–



–

–

Motivations for Online Craft Beer Buying    215

216    Sergio Rivaroli et al. (p > 0.10); thus, the H2 was not confirmed. This result is in line with Guagnano et al. (1995), who states that when contextual factors are particularly robust and influential, they can shadow attitudes and shape habits and behaviours directly. In this light, it is worth noting that online CB availability (CO) significantly affects consumers’ habits, both for heavy purchasers (β = 3.76; p < 0.01) and light purchasers (β = 0.56; p < 0.01). Therefore, findings support the hypothesised role of the product availability on Millennials’ habit of buying CB online (H3). CB price (PX), instead, does not affect habits for either of the two Millennials groups, thus rejecting the H4. Focussing on aspects influencing consumer disposition towards CB (ATT), a striking difference was noted among heavy and light purchasers concerning the FCQ’s factors. It can be observed that for the heavy purchasers, only the mood factor (M) has a significant and positive effect on ATT (β = 0.23; p < 0.01), thus supporting H7. Surprisingly, consumer perceptions towards beer low in alcohol content (PLC; β = −0.18; p < 0.05) and ethical concerns (ETH; β = −0.14; p < 0.10), have a significant but inverse effect on ATT; thus H6 and H11 were rejected. All the remaining factors were not significant drivers for the heavy purchasers’ attitudes towards CB; hence, these hypotheses were not supported (i.e. H5, H8–H10, and H12–H16). Focussing on light purchasers, the results shown in Table 3 demonstrate that SI has a significant positive effect on ATT (β = 0.66, p < 0.01), followed by SA (β = 0.20, p < 0.01), naturalness (NAT; β = 0.12, p < 0.05) and product availability (CO; β = 0.10, p < 0.01). Therefore, findings support the related hypotheses H8, H9, H12 and H16. Similarly to the heavy purchasers, the results demonstrate the indirect relation between ATT and ‘alcohol-free’ beer (PLC; β = –0.11, p < 0.05), thus rejecting the H6. The remaining factors were not significantly related to the ATT; hence the remaining hypotheses were rejected. Table 4 schematically presents an overview of findings referred to in the research hypotheses tested in this study.

5. Discussion and Conclusions Previous work has documented the preference for beer of Millennials and their propensity to make purchases on impulse during periods of economic uncertainty (Brager & Greco, 2011), such as during the COVID-19 outbreak. Recently, scholars have found that this pandemic has significantly affected the consumer’s intention to buy online in Italy, where the share of food and groceries sold online rose to 13% (Nguyen et al., 2020; Santoro, 2020). Therefore, the COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the crucial role of e-commerce for the beverage sector, representing an exciting opportunity for craft breweries to expand their business. Although the CB sector has attracted the attention of scholars from different disciplines, there are not yet studies focussed on online CB purchasing habits of Millennials and the patterns behind them. This generational cohort represents an attractive consumer segment for craft breweries because of its potential spending power and its search for authentic, traditional and artisanal food products such as CB.

Motivations for Online Craft Beer Buying    217 Several theories were adopted to explain consumer attitude–behaviour relationships, and they highlighted the relevance of external factors such as price and product availability, as well as additional sociodemographic aspects of a person’s behaviour. Moreover, since buying food and drink is a repetitive action, the concept of buying habits should be explored more deeply and should be included in the behavioural model for explaining consumer behaviour. In this study, we tested a revised model of the Zepeda and Deal (2009) Alphabet Theory for investigating the motivations behind online CB purchasing habits of Italian Millennials adopting a 3SLS regression model. The survey was specifically developed to collect information for measuring nine Steptoe et al. (1995) FCQ factors and three motivational aspects such as the SI (Sparks & Shepherd, 1992) and LI and GI (Tu et al., 2012), as factors affecting Italian Millennials’ habit of purchasing CB online. The habit investigated was evaluated adopting the Wood et al. (2005) approach by considering the frequency of past CB buying behaviour and the stability of the online context in which the CB purchasing action was executed. Furthermore, Quester and Smart (1998) triadic split procedure based on habit score was selected to explore whether the Italian Millennials surveyed could be considered as a ‘monolithic’ group. We found two different profiles for Italian Millennials: the heavy purchasers, characterised by a disposition to purchase CB online, and the light purchasers, who are less inclined to buy CB online. The heavy purchasers stand out substantially for the significant presence of men and the greater availability to turn to e-commerce for buying CB because it is easier for them to find the desired product. Furthermore, their latent positive disposition towards CB (i.e. attitude towards CB) and their ‘sense of self as CBs experts’ (i.e. SI) in purchasing and consuming CB are more pronounced than in the light purchasers. Light purchasers, instead, are more concerned with the ethical aspects of the product (such as country of origin and environmentally friendly packaging) and its familiarity. Also, this Italian Millennials segment considers CB as an alcoholic beverage characterised by good value for money; thus, with a positive economic disposition to buy CB. Referring to the patterns behind online CB purchasing habits of Italian Millennials, we found that individual attitudes towards CB do not affect the habits investigated either for heavy purchasers or light purchasers. For both heavy and light purchaser, more than the value for money, the perception of the online availability positively might reinforce the habit of buying CB online. We found that for heavy purchasers, the opportunity to live a moment of pleasure, discovery and escapism is the main aspect affecting their attitude towards CB. For light purchasers, instead, attitude towards CB is more affected by signals that stimulate their SI as CB consumers. What is more, the perception of health and well-being, and the perception of a good value for money, are additional relevant aspects. The findings confirm and extend those of Calvo-Porral et al. that Millennials could not be considered as a ‘monolithic’ generational cohort since different typologies and profiles also exist in terms of online CB purchasing habits (Calvo-Porral et al., 2019). Furthermore, the results of this study confirm the critical role of situational factors (Guagnano et al., 1995; Stampa, SchipmannSchwarze, & Hamm, 2020; Zepeda & Deal, 2009), extending them to the domain

218    Sergio Rivaroli et al. of Millennials’ habit to purchase CB. The different aspects affecting Millennials’ attitudes towards CB reinforce the idea that this generational cohort is heterogeneous. The role of mood in heavy purchasers’ attitudes towards CB, here conceptualised as the opportunity to live an extraordinary purchasing and sensory experience that offers the chance to escape the tedium of mainstream beers drinking, confirms the Gómez-Corona, Escalona-Buendía, Chollet, and Valentin’s (2017) findings; and contributes to and extends recent literature on the role of escape in consumer research (Cova, Carù, & Cayla, 2018). Whereas the importance of the ‘sense of self’, naturalness and sensorial aspects on the attitude towards CB of light purchasers confirms the role of these aspects which emerged in previous studies (Rivaroli et al., 2019). Thus, our results provide compelling evidence which indicates that when external conditions are robust enough, they can shadow Millennials’ attitudes and directly shape their habit to purchase CB online. This result is consistent with what was postulated by Guagnano et al. (1995) and highlighted previously by Ajzen (1991) which acknowledges the importance of external factors on a person’s behaviour by stressing the perception of behavioural control as being of ‘greater psychological interest’ (Ajzen, 1991, p. 183). This study, therefore, indicates that despite the benefits of approaching Millennials as a heterogeneous generational cohort of CB consumers, the online buying environment may modify their traditional patterns of purchasing behaviour by neutralising the influence of attitudinal differences towards CB buying. This finding shows that the perception of abundant quantity and variety of CBs in an online store can lead to a positive feeling on consumers, and positively impact on online shoppers’ satisfaction. In doing so, it will be relevant to pay specific attention to presenting the products on the website or the mobile screen. A good presentation can enhance the perception of product availability, thus reinforcing the Millennials habit of buying CB online. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the role of the contextual and personal factors in CB online purchasing habits among Millennials adopting a revised model of the Alphabet Theory. This research provides new insights into the relationship between Millennials, the CB sector and e-commerce. The findings of this research could offer important information to predispose appropriate marketing strategies for CB products sold online. In doing so, it is important to understand the perception of CB by Millennials and their habit to purchase CB online. Millennials are an attractive segment of the population because of their purchasing power, their large number, their preference for beer among alcoholic beverages and their positive attitude towards the use of the Internet for collecting information and making online purchases. Thus, craft breweries should consider the pairing of Millennials and e-commerce as an opportunity to improve their current business, but it is also necessary to correctly understand their habits in purchasing CB online. In a situation where serious questions have been raised about the future of the CB sector due to a risk of oversupply with too many brands, this class of consumers and this distribution channel represent an opportunity which craft breweries should promptly take into account.

Motivations for Online Craft Beer Buying    219

6. Managerial Implications In considering pressing questions about when the current ‘craft beer euphoria’ will give way to a consumer reflexive phase, craft breweries should focus on new consumer segments and new trade channels. The findings of this study provide interesting marketing managerial implications. Since Millennials are frequently considered as a ‘monolithic’ group of consumers, the present study provides us with insight that this generational cohort does not have uniform online CB purchasing habits. Heavy purchasers are more favourably inclined to buy CB online than light purchasers. These groups are characterised by different aspects affecting their attitudes towards CB. What both segments have in common is the crucial role played by the perception of the convenience of buying online, specifically in terms of product availability. Web marketers should plan appropriate web marketing strategies to improve the online visibility of craft breweries, also using different social network platforms. Furthermore, web designers should assure the userfriendliness of craft brewery e-commerce websites and also bolster consumer trust. Millennials do not purchase CB online to the same degree. For better-customised web marketing strategies, companies should take into account that heavy purchasers are looking for CB that allows them to live an extraordinary moment of pleasure. In contrast, light purchasers are looking for products that will satisfy their need to bolster their self-image as CB connoisseurs, as well as for a product that combines the need for naturalness with their sensorial expectancy. In doing so, a successful web marketing strategy should be grounded in the awareness that these differences could reinforce and better stimulate the consumer’s habit to purchase CB in an online environment. The challenge for web designers will be to find and incorporate appropriate sensorial cues using augmented 3D virtual reality applications to enhance all those secondary aspects that can stimulate in the consumer mind the opportunity to live a memorable drinking experience, thus enhancing its attitudes towards CB and reinforcing personal habits of purchasing CB online.

7. Limitations and Future Research This is the first study that takes into account the relationship between Millennials, the CB sector and e-commerce, and it represents a starting point for better understanding of Millennials’ habits for purchasing CB online. This study highlights that specificities exist inside the Italian Millennial cohort and suggests that a segmentation analysis is a fundamental step for better understanding this generational cohort, customising craft brewery websites and identifying appropriate social network communication strategies. However, some limitations are worth noting. Our findings highlight the importance of contextual factors on the CB online purchasing habits of Italian Millennials; thus, future follow-up work in this field of interest should include other specific contextual elements for better explaining this dimension. The convenience sample adopted in this study does not allow us to generalise the results, because it was part of an online CB passionate community on Facebook. Thus, further research would need to extend the

220    Sergio Rivaroli et al. sample and collect more information to assure that it is truly representative and gender-balanced. What is more, future research should also take into account the Alphabet Theory model’s dimensions of knowledge and information seeking not considered in this study. Furthermore, cross-national consumer research in this field should be conducted to understand if national cultural aspects also influence the habits investigated herein.

References Ajzen, I. (1991). The Theory of Planned Behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(1), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T Aquilani, B., Laureti, T., Poponi, S., & Secondi, L. (2015). Beer choice and consumption determinants when craft beers are tasted: An exploratory study of consumer preferences. Food Quality and Preference, 41, 214–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2014.12.005 Arnett, J. J. (2002). The Psychology of Globalization. American Psychologist, 57(10), 774–783. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.57.10.774. Boulet, S. (2016). The rise of the Millennials: A key challenge for the consumption sector (Issue September). Retrieved from https://research-center.amundi.com/page/ Article/2016/10/The-rise-of-the-Millennials-a-key-challenge-for-the-consumptionsector Brager, D., & Greco, J. (2011). Millennials redefine the alcohol beverage landscape. Retrieved from https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2011/millennialsredefine-the-alcohol-beverage-landscape/ Calvo-Porral, C., & Pesqueira-Sanchez, R. (2019). Generational differences in technology behaviour: Comparing millennials and Generation X. Kybernetes, 29(11), 2755– 2772. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-09-2019-0598 Calvo-Porral, C., Pesqueira-Sanchez, R., & Faiña Medín, A. (2019). A clustered-based categorization of Millennials in their technology behavior. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 35(3), 231–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.20 18.1451429 Cannatelli, B., & Pedrini, M. (2011). Osservatorio ALTIS –UNIONBIRRAI sul segmento della birra artigianale in Italia (Rapporto 2011). Retrieved from https://altis.unicatt. it/altis-Altis_UB_2012.pdf Cova, B., Carù, A., & Cayla, J. (2018). Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research. Qualitative Market Research, 21(4), 445–464. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-012017-0030 Donadini, G., Bertuzzi, T., Kordialik-Bogacka, E., Cywińska, D., Rossi, F., Spigno, G., & Porretta, S. (2020). Investigating patterns of millennials’ interest in gluten-free beer in Poland: A question of beer price and alcohol content. Journal of Food Science, 85(1), 182–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.14985 Fastigi, M., Viganò, E., & Esposti, R. (2018). The Italian microbrewing experience: Features and perspectives. Bio-based and Applied Economics, 7(1), 59–86. https:// doi.org/10.13128/BAE-24048 Fromm, J. (2014). The Millennial consumer craves craft beer. Retrieved from http://www. millennialmarketing.com/2014/01/the-millennial-consumer-craves-craft-beer/ Fusi, L. (2018). Why Millennials are key for Europe’s health-food marketeers. Retrieved from https://www.just-food.com/comment/why-millennials-are-key-for-europeshealth-food-marketeers_id138565.aspx

Motivations for Online Craft Beer Buying    221 Garavaglia, C., & Swinnen, J. (2018). Economic perspectives on craft beers – A revolution in the global beer industry. New York, NY: Springer International Publishing. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58235-1 Gatrell, J., Reid, N., & Steiger, T. L. (2018). Branding spaces: Place, region, sustainability and the American craft beer industry. Applied Geography, 90, 360–370. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2017.02.012 Gómez-Corona, C., Escalona-Buendía, H. B., Chollet, S., & Valentin, D. (2017). The building blocks of drinking experience across men and women: A case study with craft and industrial beers. Appetite, 116, 345–356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet. 2017.05.026 Groening, C., Sarkis, J., & Zhu, Q. (2018). Green marketing consumer-level theory review: A compendium of applied theories and further research directions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172, 1848–1866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.002 Guagnano, G. A., Stern, P. C., & Dietz, T. (1995). Influences on attitude–behavior relationships. A natural experiment with curbside recycling. Environment and Behavior, 27(5), 699–718. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916595275005 Gupta, M., Brantley, A., & Jackson, V. P. (2010). Product involvement as a predictor of Generation Y consumer decision making styles. The Business Review, 14(2), 28–33. Gurǎu, C. (2012). A life-stage analysis of consumer loyalty profile: Comparing Generation X and Millennial consumers. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(2), 103–113. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761211206357 Haydon, H. M., Obst, P. L., & Lewis, I. (2018). Examining women’s alcohol consumption: The theory of planned behavior and self-identity. Substance Use and Misuse, 53(1), 128–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2017.1327972 Hershatter, A., & Epstein, M. (2010). Millennials and the world of work: An organization and management perspective. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(2), 211–223. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-010-9160-y Griffin, M. D. (2002). Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 19(3), 282–285. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2002.19.3.282.4 Howe, N., & Strauss, W. (2007). Millennials go to college: Strategies for a new generation on campus: Recruiting and admissions, campus life, and the classroom. LifeCourse Associates. Retrieved from https://books.google.it/books?id=iB64OAAACAAJ Ji, M. F., & Wood, W. (2007). Purchase and consumption habits: Not necessarily what you intend. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17(4), 261–276. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1057-7408(07)70037-2 Kasaka. (2020). Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z explained. Retrieved from https:// www.kasasa.com/articles/generations/gen-x-gen-y-gen-z Kellershohn, J. (2018). Developments in the marketing of beer. In G. G. Steward, I. Russell, & A. Anstruther (Eds.), Handbook of brewing (3rd ed., pp. 641–651). New York, NY: CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781351228336 Lally, P., Wardle, J., & Gardner, B. (2011). Experiences of habit formation: A qualitative study. Psychology, Health and Medicine, 16(4), 484–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/13 548506.2011.555774 Lancaster, L. C., & Stillman, D. (2009). When generations collide: Who they are. Why they clash. How to solve the generational puzzle at work. HarperCollins e-books. Retrieved from https://books.google.it/books?id=bn_mxJboF0IC Levenson, A. R. (2010). Millennials and the world of work: An economist’s perspective. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(2), 257–264. Retrieved from http://www. jstor.org/stable/40605784 Lyons, T. P. (2018). Craft brewing. An American Phenomenon – A trend situation that was never expected to survive. In G. G. Stewart, I. Russell, & A. Anstruther (Eds.),

222    Sergio Rivaroli et al. Handbook of brewing (3rd ed., pp. 633–640). New York, NY: CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group. McCloskey, K., & Johnson, B. T. (2019). Habits, Quick and Easy: Perceived Complexity Moderates the Associations of Contextual Stability and Rewards With Behavioral Automaticity. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(July), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2019.01556 Milano, F. (2019). «Non prodotti ma emozioni»: Così comprano i millennials. Retrieved from https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/non-prodotti-ma-emozioni-cosi-compranomillennials-ACTOcsv?refresh_ce=1 Neal, D. T., Wood, W., & Quinn, J. M. (2006). Habits – A repeat performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 198–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14678721.2006.00435.x Nguyen, H. V., Tran, H. X., Van Huy, L., Nguyen, X. N., Do, M. T., & Nguyen, N. (2020). Online book shopping in Vietnam: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Publishing Research Quarterly, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109020-09732-2 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from https:// books.google.it/books?id=XBwiAQAAIAAJ Quester, P. G., & Smart, J. (1998). The influence of consumption situation and product involvement over consumers’ use of product attribute. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 15(3), 220–238. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363769810219107 Rivaroli, S., Baldi, B., & Spadoni, R. (2020). Consumers’ perception of food product craftsmanship: A review of evidence. Food Quality and Preference, 79(May), 103796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.103796 Rivaroli, S., Kozák, V., & Spadoni, R. (2019). What motivates Czech and international “millennial-aged” university students to consume craft beers? International Journal of Wine Business Research, 31(3), 441–455. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWBR-11-2018-0067 Santisi, G., Morando, M., & Sciacca, A. (2018). Craft beer and intensity of purchase: A psychological analysis of consumer intentions. Quality – Access to Success, 19(S1), 451–457. Santoro, V. (2020). Covid19, la spinta alla trasformazione digitale passa dalla spesa al super. Retrieved from https://www.econopoly.ilsole24ore.com/2020/04/15/covid19spesa-super/?refresh_ce=1 Close, A. G. (Ed.). (2012). Online Consumer Behavior Theory and Research in Social Media, Advertising and E-tail. Routledge. Spáčil, V., & Teichmannová, A. (2016). Intergenerational analysis of consumer behaviour on the beer market. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 220(March), 487– 495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.524 Sparks, P., & Shepherd, R. (1992). Self-identity and the theory of planned behavior: Assessing the role of identification with ‘green consumerism’. Social Psychology Quarterly, 55(4), 388–399. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1415-65552000000200007 Stampa, E., Schipmann-Schwarze, C., & Hamm, U. (2020). Consumer perceptions, preferences, and behavior regarding pasture-raised livestock products: A review. Food Quality and Preference, 82, 103872. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2020.103872 Steptoe, A., Pollard, T. M., & Wardle, J. (1995). Development of a measure of the motives underlying the selection of food: The Food Choice Questionnaire. Appetite, 25(3), 267–284. https://doi.org/10.1006/appe.1995.0061 Stern, P. C., Dietz, T., Abel, T., Guagnano, G. A., & Kalof, L. (1999). A value-belief-norm theory of support for social movements: The case of environmentalism. Human Ecology Review, 6(2), 81–97. Stets, J. E., & Burke, P. J. (2010). Identity theory and social identity theory. Social Psychology, 63(3), 224–237. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X0629800

Motivations for Online Craft Beer Buying    223 Strauss, W., & Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069. Morrow. Retrieved from https://books.google.it/books?id=oOztAAAAMAAJ Stryker, S., & Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Special Millenium Issue on the State of Sociological, 63(4), 284–297. https://doi. org/10.2307/2695840 Syrett, M., & Lammiman, J. (2003). Catch them if you can. Director, 57(3), 70–76. Taylor, P., & Keeter, S. (2010). Millennials: A portrait of generation next: Confident, connected, open to change. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://books.google.it/ books?id=XYJrAQAACAAJ Thach, E. C., & Olsen, J. E. (2006). Market segment analysis to target young adult wine drinkers. Agribusiness, 22(3), 307–322. https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.20088 The Brewers of Europe. (2019). European beer trends – Statistics report/2019 edition. Retrieved from https://brewersofeurope.org/uploads/mycms-files/documents/publications/2019/european-beer-trends-2019-web.pdf Thompson, C., & Gregory, J. B. (2012). Managing Millennials: A framework for improving attraction, motivation, and retention. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 15(4), 237–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/10887156.2012.730444 Triandis, H. C. (1977). Interpersonal behavior. Brooks/Cole Pub. Co. Retrieved from https:// books.google.it/books?id=Pp9kAAAAIAAJ Tu, L., Khare, A., & Zhang, Y. (2012). A short 8-item scale for measuring consumers’ localglobal identity. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), 35–42. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2011.07.003 Twenge, J. M. (2010). A review of the empirical evidence on generational differences in work attitudes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(2), 201–210. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10869-010-9165-6 Valentine, D. B., & Powers, T. L. (2013). Generation Y values and lifestyle segments. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 30(7), 597–606. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-072013-0650 WHO. (2018). Global status report on alcohol and health 2018. In V. Poznyak & D. Rekve (Eds.), Global status report on alcohol. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000248 Wood, W. (2017). Habit in personality and social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(4), 389–403. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868317720362 Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2009). The habitual consumer. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19(4), 579–592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2009.08.003 Wood, W., Tam, L., & Witt, M. G. (2005). Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 918–933. https://doi. org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.918 Zepeda, L., & Deal, D. (2009). Organic and local food consumer behaviour: Alphabet theory. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 33(6), 697–705. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2009.00814.x

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 14

Instagram Versus Reality: Chatting Craft Beer Communities with Roy Herd of the Blunt Chisel Brewery Holly Patrick-Thomson Abstract This chapter takes the major themes emerging from the two academic chapters on beer communities and discusses these with a rural craft ‘nano’ brewer in Fife, Scotland. The discussion touches on the value of online communities for learning to brew and advertising to customers. However, this is tempered with a realisation of the divide between the homebrewing education community and the commercial necessities of running a small brewery, and the limited value of glossy Instagram photos to smaller brewers in selling their craft beer. This chapter reinforces the importance of localism and face to face selling for nanobrewers, and the value of establishing symbiotic relationships with other local producers and sellers. Keywords: Craft; community; peer learning; online communities; localism; micro-brewing

Community is central to craft (Needleman, 1993) and craft beer is no exception. Where these craft communities were typically local, with neighbourhoods coming together to specialise in craft production, they now often exist online (Torrey, Churchill, & McDonald, 2009). These online communities provide the opportunity for peer learning across vast distances, allowing for the specialised practices of one craft community to be reproduced in completely distinct areas around the world. As we explored in Section 2 (Values of Craft Beer Production), it is this sharing and collaborating that arguably explains both the norms and the success

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in an Evolving Sector, 225–229 Copyright © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-184-320211014

226    Holly Patrick-Thomson of the sector. One might expect these online communities to be a lifeline for small rural breweries who have few neighbour brewers to learn from. However, as my discussion with Roy Herd, Founder of The Blunt Chisel Brewery1 in Fife Scotland shows, craft brewing can still be a lonely game: How did you make the connections you needed to learn the trade and get established? I was self-taught, self-funded. I didn’t have anything to start out with. I wished I had more, as so many people do, but that’s just how I got started. There’s a guy who does videos online (HarryBrew69) and he basically built his own brewery, physically welded tanks together. He’s probably been my biggest mentor, and then it’s just books, trial and error, because I work on my own. I really wanted to get a job in a brewery part-time, but I literally didn’t have the time. I was working in theatre on tour and making beer when I wasn’t. How important is that online community to you now? It is and it isn’t. The main thing was to branch away from the homebrewing education side of things because when it’s done commercially it’s a different beast – your priorities are so different. But more has come up since I’ve been out and about meeting other brewers. I’ve had a bit of a mentorship from someone at St Andrews Brewing2 and that’s been great, I want more of it. There’s a Facebook group that is pretty good natured (UK Beer Brewing Professionals). But I have been alone, trial and error, and there’s been a lot of pain (I really mean that, it’s been really hard), you kind of just come to the point where you realise you know something now. It’s been a lonely journey. Especially being rural – there’s only a handful of breweries and everyone is really busy. There are opportunities to rub shoulders at markets occasionally. When CAMRA used to do their beer festival, that was the first time I met everyone and I’d been doing it for two years – like hammerhead sharks meeting up in the ocean we’re all sort of solitary beasts for the rest of the year. I wish there was more, but everyone is busy doing their thing. But I’ve formed links with Beath3 and I met Innerbay4 the other day for the first time, and we all try to help each other out as much as we can. There’s a real sense of camaraderie. What does that camaraderie look like? It’s usually equipment, because we are all small, sometimes one of us will want to order something and it’s uneconomic to order a whole pallet of something so we’ll split a pallet of mini kegs or bottles. I would like to see all of us at markets but that doesn’t really happen. That’s where CAMRA were good because they would encourage that. We were all supposed to be going to a bottle shop for a beer festival, but local breweries aren’t his priority anymore, so there’s quite a bit of camaraderie

1

The Blunt Chisel is an award winning nanobrewery based out of a former sawmill (later a woodworking studio) in a forest near Kelty, Fife. 2 St Andrews Brewing Co. makes beer and has bars in St Andrews and Dundee, Scotland. 3 Beath Brewing is a nanobrewery based in Cowdenbeath, Fife. 4 Inner Bay Brewery is an artisanal, family run brewery in Fife, Scotland.

Instagram Versus Reality    227 about that issue! He didn’t invite us – still sells our beers but moans about it taking up shelf space, haha. You use a lot of local ingredients, what is the thinking behind that and how do you form relationships with local farmers and suppliers? That was all farmers markets, they’re brilliant for that. The honey producer I use – Cloverlea Apriaries – they hold market stalls. They’re just lovely people and they’ve got a really interesting business, and the honey is amazing. There is added value to the product from using local supplies, but also with my hard-nosed business head on it’s really convenient when you’ve got a good relationship with people – they help you out. One of the first farmers markets I went to a farmer came up to me and told me she was a cereal grower planning on growing malt and would I be interested, and I was like ‘yeah, guess so’. Two years down the line they’ve got it up and running and they’re creating great quality malt which I’m using and the other great thing is that I don’t have to have it palleted. So if I need just a sack of something it’s just 10 minutes up the road to get fantastic quality malt or they’ll drop it off on the way past. We help each other out, and we support each other on social media, it’s quite symbiotic. We’re lucky in Fife to have a heritage of malting, and I wish more craft brewers took notice of it, because it gives you a product that no one else can make. I think some people have an inverse snobbery about it. When you tell them about the local ingredients their eyes just glaze over. I guess that’s why Carlsberg and Carling are so big, because of times people just want something cheap. When I do the more foody markets, people are really interested that I use local ingredients, but I can be doing a market somewhere else and people really couldn’t care less, it’s a shame but it’s a reality. It’s still really important to me. You go to a lot of farmers markets to sell your beer, and I wonder how important that in-person interaction is for attracting different types of customers? It’s really important, with the right people. Some people really love that you have a story, and they mention you by name and you have that dialogue. Other people, at some bigger events, they assume that you are a paid rep, they don’t appreciate that it’s you. In that situation, the personal thing doesn’t matter too much, when people come to the stall they’ve made their mind up already, you can say what you want to them but they aren’t really listening. The local delivery service, I really enjoy doing that, because it’s people who want to buy my beer, are interested in what I do. You can have a bit of chat, and that’s great. I really value the customers, people have been really supportive. That interaction is expensive in terms of your time, but it has a value in and of itself, right? Absolutely, in some areas particularly there’s a real sense of local pride. It kind of caught me off guard, people saying ‘Oh, there’s a brewery in Kelty?! I’ve got to try your beer’. They’re excited because it brings something to where they live. Because I’m so small, I kind of have to do things this way. If I was a bit bigger I probably would have been barking up the bottle shop route. [But] There’s a screen of Instagram illusion there, you’re shouting on shelves and trying to get those Untappd ratings and the influencers to like your beer. To be honest, they’re not really

228    Holly Patrick-Thomson interested in me, but the local buyers and people who’ve met me at markets or got my beer as a gift and liked it? That’s a different vibe and I like it a lot. Breweries, food producers, we all have that default local provenance thing – if I go somewhere I want to try the local beer, it’s that special added value. People around Dunfermline and Kelty, they’re really proud, not like other communities that might be more blasé. I’m really lucky here with the way that people are. You’ve got a following of almost 900 people on Facebook – how important is that online community to your craft and to the business? It is really important. Before I got my website, Facebook was my sole way to sell beer and it works. I don’t have the best social media by any means, I just push things out when I need to. I’m new on Instagram and I’m not really trying because I don’t have time. There is that whole Instagram ‘here’s a picture of my cloudy beer’ thing going on, but that doesn’t really affect me too much because my customers don’t really use that – they’re older and they use Facebook. It’s more of an information thing, like to advertise markets I’m going to. But I can’t make enough beer to sell it anyway, so I’m not going to try harder to sell beer I haven’t got! I was going to throw the towel in, in January and I got support from a business advisor. He thought it was mad but I know the scope of my brewery, I know my limitations. You get in and it’s 9 p.m. at night and you don’t want to take a picture of some pretty beer and make up some tenuous caption about it. I think, for small breweries, it can be a hindrance to try and compete online. For myself and Beath, it’s like we’re at the markets, at the coal face and we’ve got a local community. We don’t really need to do the online stuff. We just use Facebook more to get information across. If sales have been quiet one week I will put a post up saying ‘I have beer’, and I will get 6 or 7 sales come in on the back of that, so it does really work. It’s a tool, but it’s easy to be a slave to it. What other connections exist between the brewery (or the beer) and the local community? There’s a bit of an air of mystery about what I do, I think intentionally (the brewery is based next to a relative’s house and so he doesn’t advertise to visitors). Since lockdown happened, a lot of people started walking their dogs, and they’re stumbling across the brewery, peering in the doors ‘Oh, I didn’t know there was a brewery here’. I’d like to be more public facing but I can’t. I don’t have any signs up, don’t advertise where I am, don’t encourage people to come to the brewery. So there’s this strange sense of mystery about the brewery – people at the end of the road don’t know I’m there. I delivered to a lady, she must have been 85, loves German Beer just walked past the brewery and couldn’t believe I did a cloudy wheat beer, just the most random thing. You’d never get that in a bottle shop, or on Instagram. It’s that community thing of just having the doors open, and I wish I could do it more often. Herd’s account illustrates that for small volume (nano) breweries, while social media and online communities can be a useful tool to both learn and to sell beer, there are also a number of limitations to their usefulness. Craft work is tactile, and the guidance provided by online communities can only go so far in facilitating the trial and error needed to become proficient at brewing. Similarly, while Instagram and Facebook provide access to a global marketplace, it is one that is noisy and therefore it is hard to attract new customers. Even if the beer was

Instagram Versus Reality    229 to attract the attention of influencers and ‘go viral’, the production facilities of a small brewer wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand. To sustain a viable business, the local community is more important to Herd’s business; the suppliers with whom he has a symbiotic relationship and the customers who become loyal after stumbling across the brewery or chatting with him at local farmers’ markets. While not everyone he meets values the local ingredients he uses or the personal touch of the brewer, those with local pride are delighted to find out there’s beer being made in their area. The local characteristics of the ingredients add value to the beer, and the beer feeds the distinctiveness and heritage of the local area. It’s a form of gentle authenticity far removed from the glossy ‘Instagram illusion’ that Herd struggles to get involved with.

References Needleman, C. (1993). The work of craft: An inquiry in to the nature of crafts and craftsmanship. New York, NY: Kodansha International. Torrey, C., Churchill, E. F., & McDonald, D. W. (2009, April). Learning how: The search for craft knowledge on the internet. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1371–1380).

This page intentionally left blank

Index Note: Page numbers followed by “n” indicate notes. Absent assessments, 137–143 Actor-Network Theory, 130 Agile, 92 Agrarian economy, 14 Alcohol by volume (ABV), 37 Alcohol establishments Alcohol Geeks, 150–152 food and contested framing of, 159–161 food and improved public house, 152–155 Licensing Act, 155–158 on-license premises, 149–150 Alcohol Geeks, 150–152 Alcoholics, 5 Alphabet Theory, 201 American Home-brewers Association (AHA), 132 #AMunroOfStairs, 58 Annotation(s), 52–53 Application Programming Interface (API), 57 Architecturing, 68 Aristotelian elements, 133 Artisan behaviours, 82 Artisan values, 100 ATLAS. ti, 137 Attachment, 130 Audible appreciation, 137–143 Australian breweries, steady growth of, 103 Authenticity, 117 Beer, 1 (see also Craft beer (CB)) judging, 130 production, 15

Beer City, 177 Beer Judge Certification Programme (BJCP), 132, 135 Beermaking, 1 Binary approach, 17 8-Bit Brewing, 183–185 Brewer’s Association (BA), 117 Brewery table, 180–181 Brewery taps, 166 commercial contexts, 166–168 constructing community, 169–170 on-site tap rooms, 165–166 origins and definitions, 166 rooms, 166 tap room experience, 168 tapping into craft narratives, 168–169 Brewing entrepreneurs, 14 inclusivity, 118–121 industry, 14, 74 Business of brewing, 14–16 Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), 16, 80 Capercaillie brewery, 35–37 Civilisations, 1, 15 Civilised’ drinking culture, 150 Classed taste, 158 Clusters, 187–188 Co-operative strategies, 34 Co-ordinating evaluation and agreeing assessment, 137 Collaboration, 117 Collaborative resistance commitment to local, 85–87

232    Index community of brewers, 87–89 craft beer as resistance, 81–82 craft brewers, 80–81 differentiation within market, 89–90 findings, 85 force of collaboration, 82–83 methodology, 83–84 smallness, 91–92 Commitment to local, 85–87 Commodification of beer, 16 Community, 74, 223 of brewers, 87–89 community-building, 176–178, 188–190 constructing, 169–170 Connoisseurship, 168, 170 Conversation analysis (CA), 131 Covid-19, 52–53 make For craft beer, 65–67 makes consumers reassess spending habits, 63–65 makes for Febrile craft beer atmosphere, 61–63 pandemics, 3, 74–75, 166, 194 still Coviding, 68–69 Craft beer (CB), 1–2, 4, 117, 194 conceptual framework and research hypotheses, 197–200 COVID-19 pandemic, 194–195 data analysis, 208 euphoria, 194 food and licensing, 150–152 limitations and future research, 217–218 literature review and hypotheses development, 195 managerial implications, 217 measures, 201–202 methodology, 200 Millennials, 195–197 movement, 14, 16 online buying habits, 194 origins of craft beer styles, 131–132

procedures, 202–207 as resistance, 81–82 revolution, 1, 166, 177, 194 sector, 31, 80 statistical analysis, 207–208 summary statistics, 208–209 survey administration and sample, 200–201 3SLS regression analysis, 209–214 Craft Beer International craft breweries, 100–101 Danish breweries aiming for global recognition, 104–105 distant and rapidly emerging New Zealand breweries, 105–106 identity dissonance, 110–112 methods, 101–103 microbrewery revolution in Czech conditions, 103–104 promise of cross-border growth, 103, 106 steady growth of Australian breweries, 103 tapping into peripheral field, 106–108 template stickiness, 108–110 three perils of cross-border growth, 112–113 Craft breweries, 5, 18, 100–101, 129, 176, 194 business of brewing, 14–16 community-building and neolocalism, 188–190 findings, 20 Fiskars brewery, 186–187 geography and clusters, 187–188 grand narrative, 176–178 identifying entrepreneurial types, 17–18 Kera area, 183–185 Mathildedal, 185–186 methodology, 18–20 methodology and empirical materials, 178–179

234    Index Heterogeneous strategies, 35 Capercaillie brewery, 35–37 Pine Marten brewery, 41–43 Red Deer brewery, 39–41 Wildcat brewery, 37–39 Humour, 133 Identity dissonance, 110–112 Implication, 52, 67–68 In-the-moment hand crafted process, 6 Incentives, 108 Individual craft entrepreneurs, 83 Industrialisation of beer production, 15 Intègraphic approach, 52, 69 annotation(s), 53 Covid-19 make For craft beer, 65–67 Covid-19 makes consumers reassess spending habits, 63–65 Covid-19 makes for Febrile craft beer atmosphere, 61–63 Covid-19 still Coviding, 68–69 examining social media activities, 56–59 implication, 67–68 interview schedule, 70 interviewing brewers, 59–61 investigation(s), 55–56 observation, 52–53 timeline of events, 53–55 Internationalisation, 104, 111 Interpretivist approach, 83 Interviewing brewers, 59–61 Investigation(s), 52, 55–56 Italy e-commerce, 195 Jeffersonian transcription notation, 136–137 Jess Griego (JG), 118–119, 124 Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin’s test (KMO test), 207 Kera area, 183–185 Knock-on effects, 63–65

Licensing (Consolidation) Act (1910), 153 Licensing Act (2003), 150, 155–158 Licensing law, 151 Local authority licensing policies, 150 Local community, 100 Local identity (LI), 199 Localism, 5, 69, 80 Market entry strategies of new craft beer producers craft beer sector, 31–32 designing research to explore craft brewing business strategies, 34–35 heterogeneous strategies, 35–43 lessons learnt from start-up strategies of small craft breweries, 43–47 strategy and craft breweries, 33–34 strategy and small businesses, 32–33 Marketing strategies, 14, 74 Masis, 183–185 Mass consumerism, 2 Material Semiotics, 130 Mathildedalin Kyläpanimo, 185–186 Mawkish, 133 Membership categorisation analysis (MCA), 131 Mesopotamia, 15 Metsän henki, 187 Microbreweries, 31 revolution in Czech conditions, 103–104 Millennials, 194, 195–197 Modern craft beer industry, 100 breweries, 100 Monolithic generational cohort, 208 Motivation money, 108 Narrative, 176 Natural content (NAT), 198 Natural Language Toolkit, 57

Index    235 Neolocalism, 176–178, 188–190 New Zealand breweries, 105–106 Observation, 52 Olarin panimo, 179–183, 189 On-site tap rooms, 165–166 Online communities, 223–224, 226 Otaniemi, 179–183 Othering of Big Beer, 169 Owner-brewers, 20–22 Peer learning, 223 Pine Marten brewery, 41–43 Poetic juxtaposition, 68 7-point scale, 201 Policing and Crime Act, 157 Preceding gentrification, 178 Principal component analysis (PCA), 207 Production craft breweries, 110 Progressive Beer Duty, 166 Pull factors, 17 Push factors, 17 Qualities of imbibed objects, 133 Quality assessment in craft beer assembling and defining quality in craft beer, 129–130 empirical investigations, 135–136 methods, methodology and research questions, 130–131 normative standards, 143–144 origins of craft beer styles, 131–132 style guides in practice, 136–143 styles under examination, 132–135 Quality control, 82–83 Race, 122 for space, 68 Raines Law, 152 Red Deer brewery, 39–41 Referential vocabulary, 133 Research poetry, 61, 67 Researching Craft Beer, 2

Revitalisation, 5 Rising tide effect, 187–188 Rule of Six, 52 Salt Lake City, 176 Sandwich dodge, 154 Scotland Food & Drink (SFD), 55 Scottish craft beer market, 35–39 brewery, 150 Scottish microbreweries, 34 Self-identity (SI), 199 Semi-structured interview technique, 102 Sense of place, 176–178 Siege culture, 83 Simultaneous equation modelling (SEM), 207 Six-step approach, 34–35 Small businesses, strategy and, 32–33 Small open economies, 101 Smallness, 91–92 Social and community engagement, 178 Social homogeneity of craft beer, 118 Social media, 75–76 activities, 56–59 Society of Independent Brewers in UK (SIBA), 129 Standardisation, 136 Start-up strategies of craft breweries, 32 of small craft breweries, 43–47 Statistical analysis, 207–208 Stereotype, 16 Strategy and craft breweries, 33–34 and small businesses, 32–33 templates, 32 Supper hour certificate, 154 Supply–chain relationships, 83 Sustainability-oriented products, 196

236    Index Table meal, 152 Tap contacts, 108 Tap rooms, 7, 74 experience, 168 Tapping into craft narratives, 168–169 into peripheral field, 106–108 Taste assessments, 4 of beer, 136 Temperaments, 133 Temperance movements, 155 Template stickiness, 108–110 Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), 197 Thisness of writing, 53 Three-stage least squares (3SLS), 207 regression analysis, 209–214 Tier Two restrictions, 152

Tired Uncle, 183–185 Twitter, 56–57 US microbrewing revolution (1980), 100 VBN Theory, 197 Vinous, 133 Wayfinder program, 118 Wet led establishment of alcohol, 150 Wildcat brewery, 37–39 Wine tastes, 133 Word-of-mouth marketing, 167 Workplace, 124 World Health Organization (WHO), 194