What’s the Point?

Got a few minutes…. read this.

MyHomeBrewExperience.com combines the achievement of several goals into one blog-format website.  The inspirations for this project are my love for beer, my interest in making beer, my love for great local music and the scene around it, the process of getting local music recognized, and the wave of innovative communicating devices such as blogs and multi-media production.
In the past six months, I have developed a deep interest in the production of beer.  I have been a fan of beer and taken my fanaticism to higher levels through research and exploration of the vast variety of beers available in the US.  I have found a lot of parallels between the beer industry and the music industry that I believe should not go overlooked.

My main inspiration to be a part of both industries is the importance of each brewer or musician’s unique identity.  This identity is both personal as well as locally influenced.  When travelling around the country, one runs into not only sub-genres of music, but locally influenced breweries and beer styles as well.  Both relate to the industry as a whole while still maintaining their individual identities.

Culture can be defined as the sum of a regional identity across several sensory experiences.  As globalization continues, local cultures are being threatened.  In the United States, among other places, the gentrification of culture is in direct opposition to the small businesses this country was once run on.  Those small businesses are an essential part of local culture.  To preserve the unique identity the United States has always had and to exercise the ideals of free-market capitalism, it is crucial that the local identity is preserved.

However, since society is developing and we rely on technology as cultural indicators more so than hand made products, it is important to take an adaptive approach to preserving local identity.  It is possible to use the tools of the mass culture to stimulate activity on the local scene.  I choose the two artistic fields of beer brewing and music to preserve as contributors to local culture.  Both have the capability of incorporating many factors into the end product simultaneously, therefore making them flexible platforms to start with.  In both fields, the place of origin is of utmost importance.  Though you can buy a German beer in the US, it is just as much German as it would be in Germany.  The same goes for music on tour as well.  I believe that by using these two artistic products, I can accomplish my ideal of preserving local identity through art.

It is important to preserve local identity for the overall artistic process.  Art is, in my opinion, the highest form of communication.  Each piece of art tells a story of its time and place.  As an artist myself, I take the stance that an artist is at the height of the artistic process when being influenced by other identities and other traditions than his/her own.  Thus, touring for a band is crucial for developing a sound and an identity.  Each band’s identity gets stronger each time it encounters another identity and either holds up or breaks down.  In terms of beer, my reason for striving for wider distribution is for the sake of the other brewers and beer lovers out there to be able to further define their idea of a great brew to make or their palate as a taster.  This communication is what keeps art forms alive.  It is a privilege to live in an age of such sophisticated communication technology.  Now, the artistic process of seeking and sending is made much easier for us.

As music and beer have been extending their reach in the United States, I have developed two goals for my career.  I would like to make the message that reaches new places an authentic and creative one, whose importance I have explained above.  I would also like to revolutionize how the message gets to new places via combining the music and beer industries through business models and distribution platforms.

Both beer and music are works of art and can be treated fairly similarly when it comes to putting product in a consumer’s hand.  A brewery is similar to a record label, as it finances the brewer as an artist to create beer as the art which it can then send out through distribution deals, very similar to labels letting artists create music for their distribution deals.  Both music and beer are consumed in similar environments, being a live venue on a night out or at home in a more leisurely setting.  The two products complement each other and often go hand in hand, however there is little emphasis on this in the market.
As an avid lover and user of the two, I see room for cross branding between beer and music.  It is not my intention to try to force people to drink certain types of beer while listening to certain types of music.  However, it is my intention to create a situation in which a customer will look at a six-pack of beer I have made and immediately think about both the flavor of the brew as well as the sound of some great music that I have had a part in making, promoting, or distributing.  The same can be done by that great music making people think of the beer that I make.  The affiliation is my goal; the success depends on the authenticity of my business and product, the strength of my marketing, and the cooperation of the consumers.

I plan to do this by creating a situation, at first, in which a brewing operation invests in the production and promotion of music.  Like the beer ingredients being handpicked and custom-made, so will be the music.  Since this will be an operation of mine, I plan on focusing on music of the Jazz, Funk, Hip-Hop, and World genres.  A brewery can act as a type of record label structure, which doesn’t heavily rely on the success of the music for its survival.  This structure will allow more freedom for the musicians, less stress of the brewery acting as a label, and overall a more comfortable and natural environment in which consumers may simply check out some new music as they enjoy a new beer, for no other reason than my recommendation.  This plan takes word of mouth to the next level.  As we know, word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective marketing.  If people are already drinking my beer, we have a relationship and a very important quality in common, taste.  After this relationship is established, my recommendation of music that I put my name and money behind will be taken more seriously.

It is my belief that both the music industry and the beer industry have become too aloof.  All musicians and brewers start close to home with a strong sense of identity and the history that lead to their current success.  However, it is the forgetting of those essential elements that leads to the demise of the respectability of the art form.  I am in direct opposition to Michelob being the most common Pale Ale in the hands of Americans.  It can be argued that they are filling the gap between light beer and a craft-style beer.  However true this may be, it should be the real craft brews made by “craft breweries” that are in the hands of Americans.  The success of companies with quality as their top priority reveals the most important information of the state of that industry.  The quality of brewing industry is on the rise; I believe the inclusion of music will only strengthen this rise.

There is room for this association based on the rise of the craft beer industry as well as the fall of major record labels.  The units that create and produce music are becoming smaller.  Home studios rule and self-made bands are doing better.  No matter what, however, there comes a point in a musician’s career that the business services needed for a successful career need to be outsourced.  As a brewer needs someone to run the company for him/her, a musician needs someone else to negotiate the major deals and book the tours.  I see this to be the point at which a brewery can get involved.  It is better than a label because the brewery will not force the artist to change its identity for the sake of the brewery’s image; in my structure, the artists will only be picked if they already fit the identity of the brewery.

Secondly, breweries gain income from a completely separate stream of income.  Though if the beer industry is bad, it will effect the distribution of the music, when the beer industry is stable the musician will have support regardless of the state of the music industry.  Breweries allow artists to deepen their brands as well.  By being affiliated with another artistic product that is already widely distributed and consumed, the artist will be reaching markets they need, however have not had the opportunity to reach before.  In addition, breweries combine the agricultural, production, and retail industries into one business.  This inherently creates affiliations for the brewery that an artist will never have had the opportunity to make before.  Breweries are already known for live events on site and for gathering for annual festivals around the world.  This event circuit can act as a built in tour system for musicians.

Combining the music and beer industries at such an intimate level will start small and has the potential to take off to a much higher level of both parties.  In the future, a successful brewery could provide recording space, performance space, tour booking, marketing services, and management for musicians.  To maintain the priority of quality, I don’t see this operation being as large as any of the major labels, but the events of late have proved that structure does not work, so such a limitation is appropriate.  The beginnings are simple promotional efforts.  I have created one for myself by making this blog.