Craft Breweries Are Simplifying to Broaden Interest

New York City’s dynamic nightlife satisfies most every subculture and hedonistic impulse. Korean karaoke parlors serve 3 a.m. soju, elevated cocktail bars roost in skyscrapers, and bands blare everything from Afrobeat to zydeco. But to Sarah Hallonquist and Loretta Andro Chung, one category was lacking: lesbian bars, of which just three existed as recently as 2022.

In 2017, Andro Chung co-founded Dyke Bar Takeover to bring pop-up queer parties and LGBTQ+ artists to straight bars and spaces. Hallonquist volunteered at events. They bonded over their love of beer, lamenting that few mainstream beer brands catered to the queer community outside of Pride Month. “That’s what we call ‘rainbow capitalism,’” Hallonquist says. “Our community deserved better.”

When nightlife darkened during the pandemic, Hallonquist and Chung, who respectively work for pharmaceutical and marketing companies, brainstormed turning Dyke Bar Takeover into a full-time job. Bars were closed but people still drank beer, and cans could be another conduit for communicating their mission. In early 2021, they debuted Dyke Beer, working with Brooklyn’s Wild East Brewing to create an approachable saison, the label featuring a dog and cat playing pool. “Every old-school dyke bar tends to have a pool table,” says Hallonquist. Dyke Beer now offers five inclusively named beers like Out Stout and Tall Girl gose, sold at LGBTQ+ bars in NYC and the Northeast. “I feel like any dyke in New York can now tell you what a gose is,” Hallonquist says.

Craft brewing is known for maximal flavors and naming conventions—sometimes quirky, sometimes cringe. Beer’d Brewing’s Check Out My Trapper Keeper IPA and Against the Grain’s Citra Ass Down double IPA exist in the same beverage universe. “It was easy to be cute or obtuse with names or fanciful styles when the industry was still maturing,” says Adam Bankovich, the CEO of Rhinegeist Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio. But now that the industry is stagnating, “the only way to grow as an industry is to reach more people.”

To expand audiences, breweries are streamlining beer names and recipes, clearly telegraphing occasions and intended audience to cut through the clutter of cans, a chaotic wall of visual and linguistic noise. Last year, Pelican Brewing in Pacific City, Oregon, dropped the style descriptor from its flagship Kiwanda Cream Ale, which was based on a pre-Prohibition recipe. Walking down a grocery aisle, people “just weren’t getting it,” says Darron Welch, co-owner and brewmaster. Now Kiwanda is labeled as crisp, clean, and amazing. “We felt that we’d be better off to focus on Kiwanda as the brand and double down on getting it in people’s hands.”

Sometime in the 2010s, consuming craft beer turned into a personality trait. Acquiring, drinking, and discussing beer in granular detail became an all-consuming hobby. But the die-hards that care about yeast strains and hop varieties are a very vocal minority. Most people just want a beer that meets their moment, nothing complicated to comprehend before cracking a can.

“We refer to it as beer. We just choose not to blather on and on. There’s nothing snooty about it.”—Darron Welch

This spring, Pelican will release the plainly named Beach Beer that ties into the brewery’s oceanfront location. The sales pitch is simple: Sip Beach Beer on the sand, or while dreaming of a seaside vacation wherever you are—Corona-like escapism, courtesy of the craggy Oregon coastline. Pelican deemphasizes the easy-drinking, low-alcohol beer’s style parameters. “We refer to it as beer,” Welch says, adding that it’s an all-malt recipe. “We just choose not to blather on and on. There’s nothing snooty about it.”

Since 1997, SweetWater Brewing in Atlanta, Georgia, has leaned into cannabis culture with beers like 420 Extra Pale (420 is slang for smoking pot) and IPAs that mimic the aromatics of cannabis strains. Wink-wink weed speak and scents cultivate a fun-loving image and following, but most American drinkers like lager and not pungent IPAs. Last year, SweetWater released the 4.5 percent ABV American Lager with a red, white, and blue label. “One of the easiest ways to recruit new consumers [of legal drinking age] into beer is lager,” says Ty Gilmore, the U.S. beer division president of Tilray Beer, a subsidiary of SweetWater owner Tilray Brands.

Making and selling lager is a volume game, and craft breweries can’t match multinational breweries’ vast economies of scale. But a lager, made with quality malt and a smattering of hops, can be the most affordable option in a craft brewery’s lineup. Last year, Resident Culture Brewing in Charlotte, North Carolina, released Right Time, an American light lager that sells for about $6 a pint. The beer’s tagline is “probably America’s most premium lager.” Injecting levity into America’s occasionally self-serious beer scene was important.

“Sometimes it’s good to just have fun,” says CEO and co-founder Amanda McLamb. Drinking Right Time is “more about the company and the activity” than overanalyzing a beer. The light lager’s clean design and name are a departure from Resident Culture’s whimsical, macabre illustrated style and philosophical names like Causal Continuum (IPA) and Quantum Wobble ( fruited sour). Being straightforward made sense for a light lager, a beer that rarely requires contemplation or special occasions. “It’s always the right time to have this kind of beer,” McLamb says.

Using accessible language can boost sales, a lesson that Fair State Brewing Cooperative CEO and co-founder Evan Sallee learned inside the brewery’s Minnesota taproom. Fair State was selling a dark lager called schwarzbier, the style’s German name. Nobody bought it. The brewery renamed it black lager, causing taproom sales to more than double the following week. “The act of selling is really just about effective communication,” Sallee says.

“You need to find clear and clean ways of letting them know what’s actually in the can and why they might like it.”—Evan Sallee

Germany’s elegant, lightly fruity kölsch resists succinct explanation. Tell customers that it’s an ale but fermented colder, like a lager, and their eyes will glaze like doughnuts. To concisely communicate the style’s strengths, Fair State created the kölsch-style Köld that’s sold in 12-packs and call it a “crisp everyday golden beer.” “The vast majority of people who walk into a liquor store probably don’t know who you are,” Sallee says. “You need to find clear and clean ways of letting them know what’s actually in the can and why they might like it.”

IPAs might be craft brewing’s most popular style, but some drinkers remain apprehensive to embrace them. A bad experience with bitter beers can linger. Rhinegeist paved a fresh semantic path with an “easy hop ale” called Beer for Humans that debuted last year. “It’s a fanciful, made-up style, but it best characterized what we were trying to do,” says Bankovich, the CEO. The aromatic ale for everyone doubles as the name for Rhinegeist’s charitable giving platform; scan a can, and you’ll find information on 300 or so organizations that the brewery supports annually. “We’re trying to make craft beer less intimidating for anybody who wants to participate in the craft beer space,” he says.

Taprooms have evolved from utilitarian spaces to buy fresh beer, first in growlers and flights and later by the four-pack and pint, into full-service bars and restaurants. A big component of running a consumer-facing establishment is decoding what customers want and adapting as needed.

In 2014, Bob Kunz turned the 500-square-foot back room at the Hermosillo, a bar in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, into Highland Park Brewery. For much of the brewery’s first half decade, Kunz worked first by himself and then with one other person to make and distribute his pilsners and IPAs. “The beer was intimate,” he says. “We didn’t make very much, and it went to a specific audience.”

Highland Park opened a second location in Chinatown in 2018, and crowds soon filled the sunny, spacious taproom’s communal tables. “There were not very many casual environments in Los Angeles where five to 20 people could come and go as they please,” Kunz says. Serving crushes of thirsty customers can be difficult, no time to hand sell each beer. Kunz, who was a creative writing major in college, solves for that by focusing on modest, evocative names like Refresh, a light pilsner, and Irresponsible, a well-hopped triple IPA.

“The idea is to draw consumers in and not alienate them,” Kunz says. Highland Park’s Chinatown taproom sits near Dodger Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, and crowds flock to the taproom before the 81 annual home games, play-offs not included. For the 2020 season, the brewery began making Baseball Lager, and “we touched on a nerve of like, ‘I want the simple decision. Baseball. Here for the Dodgers.’ Boom,” Kunz says. Highland Park calls it a “sports lager,” even though it’s really in the vein of a Japanese-style rice lager. “That would beg the question, ‘What’s a Japanese rice lager?’”Kunz says. Why complicate things? “People don’t even question it.”

With beer, the moment can matter more than the style. Last year, Chicago’s Hopewell Brewing partnered with Lone Wolf, a bar that’s part of the Heisler Hospitality group of industry-beloved dining and drinking venues, on Shift Beer, a low-ABV lager that taps the hospitality tradition of receiving a free drink after clocking out. The label features a faux receipt listing “1 OK shift, 1 real good beer” and an illustration diagramming flipping over a stool. “Communication is a big part of how we’re reimagining presenting beers,” Lee says of Shift Beer. “It’s what you want after the end of a long shift whether or not you’re working on your feet behind the bar, or you had a really long day at work.”

Language sets expectations that evolve overtime, forcing beers to change, too. Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, first released fruity Easy Street Wheat in 1991, and it became one of Odell’s most enduring brands, the answer to a common taproom question: What’s your lightest beer? Easy. At Odell’s trio of Colorado taprooms, Easy Street was a consistent bestseller. Nonetheless, Odell retired Easy Street from cans and bottles in 2021 to rectify a modern conundrum: The beer wasn’t always hazy enough, a problem for a wheat beer. “Haze can communicate flavor,” says technical director Eli Kolodny. Odell integrated hazy-IPA production techniques into Easy Street, which was re-released last summer with luminescent haze.

“It makes me feel really good to create a product that people love and identify with. This is a new market for craft beer.”—Sarah Hallonquist

Dyke Beer does not have an official taproom to set the stage for hanging out with a Gazy Hazy IPA. Instead, Hallonquist and Chung focus on throwing events at bars that carry their beer (there are now a half-dozen lesbian bars in NYC), with dance parties, bingo, and speed dating fueled by Dyke Beer. Tourists have even visited lesbian bars that stock Dyke Beer, such as New York City’s Cubbyhole, just to Instagram cans. “It makes me feel really good to create a product that people love and identify with,” Hallonquist says. “This is a new market for craft beer.”

For craft breweries, there’s no turning back the clock to the pre-pandemic salad days when customers queued to buy cases of beer. The easy money is mostly gone. Breweries today must work hard to identify overlooked niches and occasions, or lack thereof.

“We’re trying to find that non-occasion beer that people can stock in their fridge, reach for, and not think a ton about,” says Jeff O’Neil, the founder of Industrial Arts Brewing in Beacon, New York. Established in 2016, Industrial Arts has seen success with Wrench, its flagship hazy IPA, and assorted spinoffs. The brewery also makes Metric, a German-style pilsner, but it’s not “reaching that lawnmower occasion,” O’Neil says, adding that the premium price might hinder mainstream potential. “Not everybody can afford to buy a $16 four-pack every day.” Late last year, Industrial Arts created ANY Beer, a lager brewed with New York State corn. The uncluttered label and clean flavor, in tandem with the local connection, “fits into big beverage centers, or sports and Irish bars, in a way that maybe a hazy IPA doesn’t,” O’Neil says.

Off Color Brewing in Chicago can sell beer to most every conceivable account. The brewery’s “Beer for” series has beers designed to be enjoyed alongside tapas, bowling, cafés, pizza, burgers, brunch, golf, lounging, dealing with your family, and even hell. “The well has not gone dry yet,” says co-founder Dave Bleitner. “As long as there’s a loose connection and sense of occasion, people gravitate toward it.” The directive-driven beers have helped Off Color land big accounts. Guaranteed Rate Field, where the Chicago White Sox play, carries Beer for Ball Games, a cream ale, and Target recently stocked Beer for Tacos (lime gose) and Lounging (pale ale). “The name helps sell the beer,” says Bleitner, who has trademarked more than 15 of the Beer for names.

With tens of thousands of new beers released each year, finding a singular name to stand out is getting harder and harder. (Obvious case in point: Rhinegeist and Off Color both use Beer for.) Portland’s Baerlic is not the only brewery to make a Dad Beer, but “it’s generic enough that we should all be somewhat protected from each other from an intellectual property standpoint,” says Ben Parsons, the co-founder.

Life experience led to Dad Beer’s inception. In 2017, Parsons’ estranged father died, and he and his brother had to break down dad’s estate. On the drive back, Parsons and his brother, who also works in the beer industry, decided to collaborate on what became Dad Beer, a throwback lager brewed with flaked corn. “It comes from an honest place,” Parsons says. Dad Beer is now one of Baerlic’s core releases, a staff favorite and a huge seller around Father’s Day. “We start ramping up in May and get stacks in every grocery store beginning in June,” Parsons says, adding that people often ask if the brewery plans to make a Mom Beer. Nope. “We’re not trying to exploit the brand to sell more beer.”

Staying solvent while sticking close to your values is a tricky tightrope walk for today’s brewery owners. Rising economic pressures and shrinking sales can lead breweries to throw anything and everything into a brew kettle, but excess isn’t always the solution to boosting the bottom line. “You can’t sell a lot of beer that’s loaded with cinnamon, vanilla, and hazelnuts,” O’Neil says.

Getting back to basics, in both language and beer style, may seem contradictory to a rule-breaking craft beer industry built upon youthful bombast. Stone Brewing once sold the you’re-not-worthy vision of Arrogant Bastard Ale; now it’s betting on Delicious IPA, “an IPA that lives up to its name.” Life is complicated. Selecting a six-pack shouldn’t be. Says Kunz of Highland Park, “The majority of consumers want the easiest path to enjoyment.”