Normally I don’t repost people’s comments, but our friend Brad (the self-proclaimed Unrepentant Individual) has done gone and made a great point – which happens to back up my position:

One more way the internet is changing the world.

Beer used to be dominated by the guys who could make fancy commercials and put them on during the Super Bowl. Why? Well, because the way for beer lovers to communicate was largely limited to beer industry insiders and homebrew clubs. There was no real way for people to get a different perspective than what BMC [Budweiser, Miller, Coors] was offering, because the cost was prohibitive.

There were people who desired better beer, and people who knew about the little breweries, but there was no way for them to talk. Enter the internet, a way for people across vast distances to discuss brewing and the craft beer world. All of a sudden, people like me can look up reviews of bars that offer good beer selections when I’m traveling. I can find out before I go somewhere what bars or liquor stores offer the local craft beers I want to try. And as people like me are able to do such a thing, it increases the market demand for small craft breweries that wouldn’t ever have succeeded otherwise.

And when the major breweries produce the tasteless watered-down swill that we’ve grown accustomed to, people are willing to try new beers that they never knew existed. “The long tail” has now started wagging the dog.

Yes Brad, the Internet has truly made it easier to get the word out about good beer. It’s also been integral to us. We are, as you know, in the process of launching a brewery. We view the internet as our primary mode of “getting the word out.” We’ve actually had people find us online somehow, email us, and then show up to brew with us. It’s been really cool. This new medium truly is a powerful one, and it allows the little guys (us in this case) a platform to communicate and connect with those who support what we are doing.

This entry was posted Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Friends with benefits, Industry. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.