The founder of Boston Beer Company (brewers of Sam Adams) has talked about how beer drinkers now want to try one of everything and are endlessly moving from label to label, whereas in the past drinkers would settle on one brand and stick with it for years. This hurts the “small” (versus “micro”) brewers like Anchor because they’re viewed as “too corporate”.
Yes. And just like you’re implying, it has nothing to do with the beer quality itself (which might even be better now that they’re owned by Sapporo [1]) but some other criteria like “being cool”.
[1] Note that I said “might be better [quality]…” Without knowing the details of how Anchor beer is made specifically, corporate ownership can bring more resources and remove barriers, enabling “more, better” or it can exploit a trusted brand by using it to sell a lower quality product until consumers catch on. My bet would be that Sapporo is doing the former.
At some point you try enough and settle back into old predictable. Two of the right answers as always good fallbacks are Edmund Fitzgerald and Newcastle.
