First, who are they. Crafty Beggars are, in their own words
A rogue society of 9 brewers, who agreed that someone needed to make a craft beer you can actually drink. So that’s exactly what we did.
The reality is, Crafty Beggars are the development of a design firm with a hand from marketing firm, with Lion paying the bills. Even though they have just brought one of the older craft brewers, plus spent good dollars on Little Creatures in Australia, they agreed to a marketing campaign insulting craft brewers, and then bring out the ol' charm "tongue in cheek" when the expected complaints roll in. Great marketing guys.
Others have commented on the drama include Phil Cook, Booze Bros, as well as a few comments in NBR, Herald and general stuff on other news sites.
Free beer campaign
So in February, CB announced on Facebook (they are down with the kids, their main internet site is a facebook page) a new idea, free beer to settle an argument between two of their unnamed brewers. Marketing at its finest, give a sample of the product to interested consumers to create brand awareness and hopefully a positive impression leading to future sales. So, rubbish Flash based form filling later, lots of people await their free beer. Most seem to get it, but some did not (including me), and some just didn't survive NZ post (who had the bright idea of sending glass bottles in the normal post system?). Don't worry, Lion/Marketers had a plan for this. Beer Insurance. Sure you have to fill in another retarded Flash based form, come up with a garbage claim or let their stupid system fill its own in, and then they rank those who spam the social networks higher. Then what?
Nothing.
Complain.
Fill in form again.
Nothing.
Complain.
Finally, write a long post harassing Lion about the failure of their marketing practices, to which they deleted from their page.
The same day, this beer arrived in my mailbox, blocking out other packages that required me to drive across town to collect from the mail centre.
Thanks. I suppose.
So what do we have. A generic glass bottle available in any other Lion bottled beer, wrapped in a different wrapper. Its called Pale and Interesting,
They claim its a "new, smoother take on Pale Ale". What does that really mean? Marketing drivel? "Brandwank"?
Well, you crack the bottle. It smells like a beer. Pour it out into a nice cold glass. It looks like a beer. Golden, bubbly, smells relatively inoffensive.
Drink. Mild hop notes, slightly bitter. Low malt notes. Well, its a NZ lager with a few more hops. Not really interesting, certainly not as lovely as the Sprig and Fern Tasman Reserve Lager.
I will leave it to untapped user sam B for the final word
That's pale but definitely not interesting. I suggest a re-brand. Pale and shit with no head.
