Most craft beer fans have a brewery that they are particular to. Often it’s to their local brewery, a or a brewery that was local to the place

Festivals like the World Beer Festival in Durham, NC are commonly used by small craft brewers trying to get their beer in front of more people. Photo by Kelly L. Fowler

that the beer consumer once lived. Many of the craft breweries out there have not only developed loyal local followings, they actually strive for regional associations.

Harpoon, for example, owns the Boston market; Ommegang – upstate New York; Anchor in San Francisco. The list goes on.

When Flying Dog moved from Denver to Frederick , MD, the then director of marketing, Neal Stewart, said that part of the company’s mandate was to own Maryland in the same way that those other beers owned their home markets. The company wanted people that thought “Maryland craft beer” to think “Flying Dog” first.

Without the advertising budget of your big boys like Budweiser, Coors, or even Sam Adams, the question remained – how does a small brewery with a fraction of the marketing budget of the larger breweries go about building that local brand loyalty?

The first principle that I think the vast majority of craft brewers understand is that they need to understand their audience. Craft beer drinkers tend to possess a strong understanding of the product, and there is, I think, an understanding that these are people that will seek out quality products. Which brings me to an associated point. most craft brewers understand that they need to make a quality product, or they’ll be dead in the water – it’s something I think has been forgotten in other industries.

Which still leaves the question of how do these breweries get word out to the masses.

Stewart liked to engage in what he called “viral word of mouth” advertising. Basically, you hire someone to get out there to bar and liquor stores and talk to bartenders, managers, and potential customers about the beers. If you’re wondering how it works, it runs of the basic principle behind the old shampoo commercial, “and she told two friends, and so on, and so on…”

It’s not unlike what larger breweries do with their tee-shirt give-aways. Recently, Flying Dog held a series of tweet-up events in Denver, Washington DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland in order to promote the beers. We’ll come back to that.

Erin Biles (l) chats up Flying Dog beer at the January Tweet-up. Photo by Kevin Smith

Previous to the recent use of social media the promotion of the craft brews out there happened at festivals, and in-bar promotional events. The Internet, however, has become a cheap tool for craft brewers to access the masses. Facebook, Twitter, and blogs are more and more the norm , allowing these small breweries to not only reach new customers in new markets, but to put a definitive stamp on one’s home market.

It’s now commonplace for me to have news of not only what Flying Dog is doing (the brewery is a short 20 minute drive from where I live), but also of what Stone (CA), Flying Fish (NJ), Goose Island (IL), and Widmer Brothers (OR) are doing as well. Currently, I have  Facebook and Twitter feeds from well over 100 craft brewers from around the United States and Canada.

While reaching the people free and easy through the Internet is all well and good, the breweries still need to get their beer out to the people. The Internet is just a tool to let the people know where the beer is going to be.

Last week Frederick, MD’s Flying Dog hosted the aforementioned Tweeet-up, a get-together organized through Twitter. The Maryland Tweet-up, held at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Urbana was attended by new marketing “mutt” Erin Biles and capital division sales manager Matt Crow. The two worked the crowd, chatting up Flying Dog beer.

While these events are about Flying Dog to the likes of Biles and Crow, and the same attitude is in place for reps from Flying Fish who are likely to be at Thursday’s Flying Fish beer dinner  at Chifa in Philly, or the one on the 20′t at the Iron Abbey in Horsham, PA, it’s still about the bottom line to the bar owner.

Chris Mabe, the bar manager of TBonz in Ellicott City, MD, said that TBonz would be having what they’re calling “Pints and Pancakes,” on Sunday, January 31 from 10:00 AM until 2:00 PM. For a $5.00 cover per person, people get all the pancakes they can eat and live music. Beer will be served a-la carte.

“There’s no football that Sunday” between the last game of the playoffs and the Super Bowl, said Mabe, explaining that this was designed as a way to get people in the door on what would otherwise be a quiet Sunday for the restaurant. Mabe also said that there was a lot of thought put into the beers that will be available that day. “They’re all breakfast beers,” he explained. “We’ll have the Flying Dog Coffee Stout [a small batch beer], and Abita’s purple Haze on tap, but [some of the other beers include] Well’s Banana Bread Beer, Pub Dog’s Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, and both Lancaster’s Strawberry Wheat and their Oatmeal Stout.”