In response to Matt Curtis Total Ales. He didn’t ask the question but his piece:
http://www.totalales.co.uk/blog/2016/4/3/liquid-culture-modern-british-beer-cultures-venn-diagram got me thinking, what does Modern Irish Beer Culture look like?
We don’t have the same history that they have across the Irish Sea and I think it’s fair to say that the ‘old guard’ here are the Guinness (or Smithwicks) drinkers. The folks who swear that you can’t beat a good pint of Arthur’s finest.
Then you have a similarly large group who are happy enough supping lager, they aren’t averse to ‘craft beer ‘ and will try it for the craic but won’t go out of their way to find something different.
We have our own relatively young consumer organisation here: Beoir, and many Craft Beer Geeks are part of or at least aware of this organisation which tries to promote Irish Craft Beer.
Matt reckons that the place where the three circles intersect is where breweries and pubs should consider to be their ideal target market. I am not sure we could say the same here. I don’t think the demographic that would be happy in any of the three categories here is that big. The three tribes stand largely apart. What do you think? ( please bear in mind that I am being very general here!) Sláinte!
I don’t think there’s any merging of the three. The aul Guinness/Smithwicks drinkers are the settled in their ways Types, much the same speaking for the light lager folks. I find it hard enough to find either of the above open to trying “that new shite” which it has been so often labelled to me. I do feel like there are more and more ‘converting’ so to speak to craft beer and trying their local breweries but it’s a drop in the ocean. I don’t think there’s an ‘ideal market’ for the breweries to aim for hoping to reach all 3 demographics. I don’t think it’s necessary to find such a market when each demographic is loyal to their own.
Hi Ross,
I thought I had replied to this a long while ago, it mustn’t have processed! I would like to think you are wrong, but I somehow suspect, that, for large parts of the population you could be on the money… there may be some discussion on this topic on #irishbeerchat on Twitter tonight, getting ready for that is how I copped your original comment.