Word on the Street: The 5-Pack of Disappointment
A monster lurks inside of every 6-pack…
In honor of Halloween, I’m going to tell you a beer horror story. This isn’t about exploding bottles, contaminated tanks, or even Duffman’s impending rampage, but something more common. We’re going to learn about the 6-pack boogieman, a creature I call “The 5-Pack of Disappointment” (5-POD). This monster haunts a consumer’s mind, and their fridge. Often you need a hero to rescue you from this monster. I’m talking about the 5 beers you’re left with if you bought the wrong 6-pack.
How a 5-POD is born
Yesterday, while leading a tasting, one of my guests asked how to navigate buying beer. She knows what she’s enjoyed in the past, but not hot to find what she’ll enjoy in the future. Moreover, the scary 5-POD was actively preventing her from exploring or buying 6-packs. In keeping with the Halloween theme, let’s look at the 5-POD’s origin story.
A 5-POD is born out of three main factors: uncertainty, unfamiliarity, and high costs.
Uncertainty
Put yourself in the mind of a consumer. You’re looking for a beer and something catches your eye. It’s a beautiful off-white can with a psychedelic swirl and a bunch of body parts. Wow that looks cool, but what is it? What does it taste like? Most importantly, will I like it?
This isn’t a knock on minimalist packaging, which can be quite effective if done properly. These issues can persist on more detailed packages too. Florida Cracker, one of my favorite witbiers, has a fairly good description on their packaging and an even more detailed description on their website. Even this good description (below) doesn’t address how sweet the beer is, the yeast forward notes, the fact that it contains wheat and coriander, or other dimensions that may be important to a consumer. While many of these issues are resolved with beer/style education or trial, a 5-POD can easily be born from this fantastic beer.
“Citrus aromas of oranges and lime leaves mingle with bubblegum and dried flowers on the nose of this hazy and refreshing Belgian-style White Ale. High carbonation and herbaceous bitterness quench the thirst while lemon-lime esters and flavors of Valencia orange add unique depth of flavor and complexity.”
Beer is a highly experiential product. While some consumers can describe specifically why they like a beer (i.e. deeply roasted malt, dry body, astringent bitterness linger reminiscent of coffee, and a killer aroma featuring notes of chocolate), my research shows many consumers simply use a thumbs up/down system. When looking at 6-pack, they’re trying to figure out “will I like this?”
If they don’t like it, a 5-POD is born.
Unfamiliarity
Again, jump into the mind of a consumer. Do you know what a ‘kettle sour’ is? How about a ‘barrel sour?’ Why are coolship beers so expensive? Are they made on a ship? How can a ‘Belgian’ beer be made in in the US?
There’s a lot of complexity in beer, and while that’s part of makes beer so amazing, it can also be daunting to consumers. Compound unfamiliarity with minimalist packaging, hundreds of options, and time pressure and daunting can become overwhelming. In my research, I’ve heard from consumers who have strolled the aisles, looking for something new, only to flee to the safety of something they’ve had before. Simply put, consumers might not know much about their beer, they may not be familiar with the terms brewers or marketers use, and even if the information is “right on the packaging,” a consumer may not see it, or the information may not be as clear as the marketer thinks. Unfamiliarity can result in surprises and disappointment.
“We thought the wonderful sweet, jam-like, berry flavors of raspberries could only benefit in the light, tart backbone of a slightly salty gose. We chose dried raspberries and made sure the gose extracted all the berry goodness it could before packaging. Pucker up to this refreshing gose that finishes with a nice raspberry touch.”
As an example, the ‘Gose’ style is defined by the BJCP as “a highly-carbonated, tart and fruity wheat ale with a restrained coriander and salt character and low bitterness.” Angel City Raspberry Gose’s description mentions sourness once (“tart backbone”) and sweetness or berries 7 times in the description. A consumer can read this is lightly tart or as light and also tart and without familiarity with the style a consumer could be surprised by this beer, creating a 5-POD.
Cost
Multi-packs in LA cost about $10-15+. It will come at no surprise that this is more than a single beer at a bar, which can be found for as little as $3 with a typical beer clocking in around $5-8. While the unit economics of off-premise beers are much more favorable than on-premise consumption ($1-3/beer), the total cost is higher. More than the actual dollar costs is the perceived cost that looms large in all the other decision factors: disposal. If a 5-POD is a ‘monster’ then the disposal cost is what makes the monster so scary!
We’ve all bought something we thought would be cool, but didn’t live up to the hype. If you search for “kitchen gadget” on Amazon, you can get some (possibly) useful items for the cost of a 6-pack including 5 bladed scissors, a grumpy looking fridge deodorizer, a ravioli maker press, an “onion holder,” or even an egg separator that looks like an egg/bird hybrid (which is worth a look). Any of these items can be an amazing or regrettable purchase, but if it falls into the latter category, it languishes in a drawer to be forgotten about. The key difference between 5 bladed scissors and a 5-POD is the beer sits in your fridge taunting you. You’re reminded of your poor decision every time you grab the milk, every time you have a snack, every time you have a (different) beer, and every time you play ‘fridge Tetris’ to fit all the groceries. You have lots of options to banish the 5-POD from your fridge, but nearly all are perceived costs.
Fighting the 5-POD
The hero your fridge needs
The best case scenario is that you’ve picked up a good beer that doesn’t suit your taste. If this is the case, you may have a friend you can call in to help. This friend likes these sorts of beers, and is happy to ride to your rescue, no judgement, no questions, just happy to help you out and drink some free beer! Everyone wins!
The other way this can play out is your friend isn’t so noble and chides you for your purchase or is suspicious of this beer. They want to know what’s wrong with the beer that you want to get rid of it; why they’re the person you’re pawning off sub-par beer to; what does that say about me; and, seriously, what’s wrong with it?
While most people are happy to have free beer, the anxiety of this scenario is real and the 5-POD feasts off of it. So why don’t I just dump the beer?
Why you don’t ‘just dump the beer’
If we were all perfectly rational people, we’d try to find someone who wanted the beer, or just get rid of it. Beer you don’t want is a ‘bad’ (an item with negative value), and just as rational individuals want more ‘goods,’ rational individual want fewer ‘bads.’ Dumping the beer down the sink takes 2 minutes, you can recycle the bottles/cans, and the problem goes away. Or does it?
I was brought up in a family where we were expected to eat all of the food on our plates; to take care of the things we had, and not to be wasteful. I’ve only had the one upbringing, but I feel this was a pretty normal childhood. I also had friends who were much more frugal (some by extreme necessity), so the idea of literally pouring beer or anything down the drain grates my soul. Each time you crack a can, you’re reminded that you’re pouring money down the drain. Examining this behavior demonstrates the strong power these customs and social norms (frugality and not being wasteful) and how that overcomes the rational decision to dispose of a ‘bad.'
Can you return it?
Sometimes, if the beer is uncharacteristically bad, you can return the beer to the store or inform the brewery. If you’ve identified a quality issue in the beer, you will probably get a full refund and maybe even some SWAG or credit as a gesture of good will. But in all likelihood, you’ll have to explain to a store why you’re returning 5/6th of a 6-pack. While many grocery or liquor stores don’t want to deal with an argument or lose a customer, this is not a conversation most consumers look forward to, and for $10-15, who wants to go through the hassle?
How most 5-PODs are slain
So what happens to these 5-PODs? Just like the ghost stories that inspired this one, 5-PODs have thousands of unique endings that all feel basically the same. We’ve detailed a few of the happier endings above, but another ending is the 5-POD lingers in a fridge until they fade into memory. Some consumers drink the beer begrudgingly, which can result in negative brand perceptions since that beer/brewery caused this negative experience. Other times, a consumer brings the beer to a party where the 5-POD is released into the communal cooler (and may end up in the host’s fridge to languish). The beer may be past its prime by this point, further impacting the perception of the beer. The guest may avoid the question about what they brought because they’re embarrassed to be using their friends to dispose of something they didn’t like. By this point, the consumer is just happy to not be the consumer of the beer, not the happy ending a brewery had in mind.
The monster’s weakness
Looking back to the 5-POD’s origin gives us clues on how to resolve the 5-POD problem. Uncertainty and unfamiliarity are combated with description, experiencing the beer, and general beer education. The simplest way to defeat the 5-POD is to buy single beers, either a la carte, or in a ‘mixed 6-pack.’ Another opportunity is through a curated purchasing experience, led by a store employee, a friend, or crowd sourced. Additional weapons in the 5-POD fighting arsenal include in-store samples, on-premise consumption (i.e. on draft at a bar), a detailed description of the beer, richer advertising that includes reaction/tasting videos, or targeted marketing that suggests a beer to someone likely to enjoy it based on past purchases.
Addressing the psychological costs can be trickier, but looking at other industries provides some useful approaches. When car companies want to project quality, they offer a warranty; if they stand behind their vehicles for 10 years, they must be high quality. In the world of food and beverage, the ‘warranty’ takes the form of a “100% satisfaction guarantee” (example 1; example 2). Breweries have done product recalls or bar/retail buybacks for quality concerns, and could possibly do a product swap for consumers (I’ve emailed Boston Beer Co. to see if they do product swaps).
Do you know of any interesting/innovative ways breweries are addressing this? Send me a note!