Nowadays, most US breweries (e.g. Monkish, Trillium, Tree House) follow the trend of exclusively selling four-packs of their beers, a trend that is being slowly (and wrongly!) followed in Europe by breweries like Fuerst Wiacek (Germany) and Verdant (UK). The latter goes even further and only offers 6-packs, total insanity!
If you represent or work for a brewery and are interested in increasing your customer’s hoppiness (pun intended), please continue reading. It may sound like a big rant, but I promise it is well articulated.
If you’re a customer like me, and agree with my request, please sign the petition!.
What is wrong with 4-packs?
There is nothing wrong with them! If you really enjoy a beer, you’ll more likely go back to your favorite brewery and purchase one or more 4-packs, which may come with a discount.
The issue arises when breweries are constantly releasing new beers, and you as an avid taster, would like to have one of each. If the brewery only offers 4-packs, you’re forced to over spend, or try to find people alike to share the costs of purchasing multiple packs on a weekly basis.
Furthermore, lots of people go on holidays abroad and would love to try as much as they can of the brewery’s offering, but if it’s limited to only 4-packs, well… I guarantee most customers will be disappointed and won’t be making any purchases.
Moreover, by only offering 4-packs, breweries implicitly enable street sellers who usually break up these packs and are then resold at higher prices, either per unit or as a mixed pack. So why not do it right from the beginning instead?
And let’s be honest, some beers may not be worth buying even as a single can, so making it a 4-pack from the start may be seen as over-reaching ;)
How about mixed packs?
Mixed packs represent a tiny step forward, but there’s not much flexibility in them when it is being built by the brewery.
Allowing your customers to build their own would be much better, and some breweries already do that, which is great!
The brewery perspective
The Verdant folks were kind enough to get back to me on the topic to offer their point of view on why this is happening.
First of all, they pointed out they offer something called Build A Box, with a minimum order of 3 cans. In a sense, it resembles what would be a custom mixed pack, except customers can only pick from a very limited selection (e.g. all the new collabs with Finback and Fuerst Wiacek are not available), so this is a bummer.
The point I totally comprehend — and which I believe could be the reason why many breweries don’t sell individual cans or mixed packs — is the amount of human work it requires to process many custom orders, including selecting, packing, shipping, and even process returns and damages! With many breweries being such a small team, it gets really hard to increase their offering.
I think that’s a very valid point, so fair enough to them for pointing this out. That said, other bigger breweries will have to come up with other valid reasons why this is not in their offering. It seems to me it’s just not their priority and they prefer to sell in bulks instead.
Petition to breweries
Please, do not exclusively sell 4-packs.
Allow your customers to build their own mixed packs or even better, to purchase individual cans. Follow the example of great breweries like Fidens and Polly’s.
If you also think this could be an improvement, please sign the petition.
I, for once, would be extremely grateful if more breweries start listening to its customers. Thanks for reading!
Contact me
What are your thoughts? Do you have any more suggestions for breweries? Reach out to my Instagram or Twitter to let me know!
Cheers.
