Blogging Integrity

I'm not going to be at the Beer Bloggers Conference that is happening this weekend. But Alex Routledge is.

We've just bottled, well actually, still bottling, a very special prototype beer. It night be about 12.5% but we're not sure. You see, we dropped in loads of glucose during fermentation and so have not got an original gravity. We also used three different yeast strains. We have a calculated guess at what we think it is, but there are too many variables to know.

It's been in a conditioning tank for about a month along with a couple of special, secret ingredients. I think it tastes great.

I talked in my last post about integrity of awards. This post concerns the integrity of Beer Bloggers. I know some bloggers take the activity very seriously and are mostly concerned with making a good job of writing about beer. Other bloggers, it seems to me, are much more interested in getting free beer than becoming great beer writers.

We don't generally give away beer to bloggers. This is partly because you guys are a significant part of our customer base. It's not a great business strategy to give away products willy nilly.

The other reason why we don't give away beer is because we have a firm conviction that if you want to write about our beer, then we don't want you biased by the fact you got it for free. Free beer always tastes better.

But, if I tried to pretend that I didn't think that some of you occasionally deserved a free beer off me I'd be lying. So, perhaps it's time to give some away, but you'll have to prove you deserve it.

The beer we are bottling is, like all our beers, bottle conditioned, so isn't ready to be drunk yet. It needs time to condition. However, if you are going to the European Beer Bloggers Conference this coming weekend, you could get a pre-release bottle to take home and wait for us to give the word that it's ready, and then we'll have a big inaugural opening with which you can join in.

I shall now introduce you to the ways in which you can win one of these bottles.

It's simple. Alex will take 24 bottles to the Conference. Between now and when Alex gets there you have to write something, on twitter, on your own blog, or in the comments on this blog, which will convince me you deserve a bottle. If you do write on twitter, please mention @Hardknott so we can find you. If on your own blog then either tweet the URL at me or post a link in the comments on this blog.

What do you have to write? Basically, a response to this post. It might be giving a reason why you like Hardknott, it might be a reason why you don't, but that is perhaps a more risky strategy. You might like to explain how you deal with getting free beer from breweries and then writing an honest blog without biting the hand that gave you the beer. It might be an example of your work, be it written, photography or video that you think especially shows off Hardknott beer. It might be some other response to this post, I'll leave it up to you.

Final word; my decision is final and I'll be making my mind up after Alex has left for Leeds. Talking nicely to Alex, bribing him or getting him completely drunk will not help you. However, do be nice to the chap, he's a good 'un. I may decide not to give away all 24 bottles if I don't think there are enough good entries and I may give more than one bottle to an entry who I think is exceptional.

And, if you do win, this beer should not be opened until we say it's ready to go. For a start, we're going to send it off to the lab so we can get the exact ABV. We also want everyone to open their bottles and tweet, blog or whatever on the same day, once we're sure it's got enough fizz.

Meanwhile, I hope you all enjoy your piss-up conference, and I'm really sorry I'm not going to be there.

My talk at the Beer Bloggers Conference

My name is Dave Bailey, I run Hardknott Brewery, write a beer blog and sell my beer mostly via Twitter.

I feel a little bit of a fraud stood here before you all today; this has all happened a little bit by accident. We used to run a pub, in a remote Lakeland valley called Eskdale. As part of our attempt to provide a unique selling proposition for our customers, and so hopefully increase footfall, we started to brew beer. This worked fairly well, but not quite enough to ensure a viable business. A local business advisor suggested, as part of our strategy, and as an easy way to update information about our pub, that we should start a blog. Very quickly I realised that my writing touched on subjects much further than our own pub, so I started my own Woolpack Dave’s blog and the rest, as they say, is history.

We’ve sold the pub now, as you probably know, and concentrate on brewing and selling beer. What is important for me to highlight is that without social networking via blogging and twitter our business would be very different. We have effectively built, off the back of social networking, and with the help of people like yourselves, one of the smallest National beer brands in the Country. At Hardknott we’re passionate about great beer and I know you all are too; none of use would be here if we weren’t. The Internet is shaping many things in the world from entertainment to politics and beer is no different in this respect.

From a brewers perspective, at least from the perspective of a brewer who is looking at more selective, discerning and intelligent market, call it the Craft Beer sector if you like, social networking is a powerful and important tool to creating a market for our product. The interaction between us and the communication medium provided by valuable people like you is key to making this work. I’d like to explore how this interaction works and how this important partnership can be nurtured for the overall promotion of great beer.

Firstly I shall describe what we do and why I think we are reasonably successful in promoting our business via social networking. Many businesses in many different sectors attempt to engage with potential markets through this medium with various degrees of success. The most important thing to consider is how the target audience is engaged. It does not achieve very much by simply sending friend requests on Facebook or following lots of people on twitter. Equally, simply writing a blog that states what you are brewing today is unlikely to attract much attention.

I believe it is important to include content that might be a little bit of a tangent to the core activities. In blogs, the ones that work best are the ones that provoke thought, perhaps are amusing or are informing of information about real earth shattering beer revelations. Engaging in comments encourages the reader that the blog author is interested in the views of the reader.

Twitter works best when there is interaction between users. Discussions can sometimes be lively and even controversial. Not withstanding a recent heated intellectual discussion Tandleman and I had on twitter, I think people become more engaged when there is plenty of interaction with other users.

When the on-line interaction turns into real life sociable drinking with a nice mix of bloggers and brewing industry people this can forge extremely useful links, which I hope is beneficial in both directions. Twissup being a wonderful invention, and I’d like to relate some stories to you, but my best anecdote, apparently, is not to be mentioned.

Our social media interaction is exactly what it says; social interaction. I can’t claim that what we do is a deliberate plan, hence my statement about feeling like a fraud, but what I have described seems to work for us.

It is important to note that the small community of online bloggers and tweeters is in no way big enough to support even a small part of the beer industry. Beer is a multimillion pound industry that is wide and diverse. Much of that volume might well be in the form that most of the people in this room would see as unworthy of consideration. However, without that important bulk foundation to our industry beer would be nothing, and moreover, this conference would not have achieved sufficient funding to ensure it happened.

At my end of the market, without the economies of scale enjoyed by bigger players, margins are tight and every penny counts. I’m not likely to get rich at this job, although beer enriches my life in ways that money just can’t, so this is in no way a complaint. What I’m doing here is trying to excuse myself if you think I don’t give away enough beer to bloggers; I’m not tight really, just skint.

I want explore the relationship between active social media beer enthusiasts and brewers. How you guys help promote my wares and where often you are doing so completely unpaid and often even after you have paid for the very product you are promoting. How can we make this a fair exchange and retain credibility for your impartial and important online critique?

I’ve noticed conversations on Twitter regarding the relationship between brewers and bloggers. Melissa also mentioned this yesterday. It seems that there are two main areas of concern;

The first is the fact that some bloggers are a little more forward than others about asking for free beer in return for an online review. My thoughts on this are fairly simple. It’s like any transaction, if the brewer feels that the blogger can provide, what I believe is known as a good return on investment, then what is wrong with blatant self promotion of your blog or twitter account?

A far more important question is how can the relationship between the brewer and blogger can be made to have value? This comes down to credibility and fairness, which to some extent contradict each other a little. If a blogger has been sent free beer is there a compulsion for the blogger to be kind to the beer, even if in truth the beer wasn’t to their taste?

Equally, is it fair for the blogger to go online and denigrate a beer when there might be the possibility that it was just a one off bad bottle or batch? It certainly sometimes happens to me and I worry about a single bottle or batch problem undermining my credibility. One chambermaid, as the head of the IMF will testify, can wreak your whole life’s work.

But you do have to think about how seriously you are considered. Quite clearly if you consistently praise beer just because you got it free you are likely to reduce your own credibility. Of course there is one notable blogger, who uses the pseudonym of Cooking Lager, who very successfully supports brands most of us might consider too boring to be bothered with. Of course, the satire is obvious and if you read carefully you’ll find he enjoys many forms of beer.

My point about Cookie is that we all have our own style; I don’t normally review beer at all, which means I don’t get much sent to me. Of course, I’m an industry blogger and so my focus is different. For some bloggers a supply of free beer is the reward.

Many bloggers go out, buy a beer they really want to try and write about it in a completely unbiased way. Most of the good reports of my own beer occur in this way and I’m very grateful for that. For this reason I can be sure that those bloggers have a high degree of credibility. Other bloggers might well depend on free beer being sent, and I have no way of knowing how many. You all have to consider your own style and what you want out of beer blogging and how you might like to deal with it.

Of course, if your aim of blogging is to gain some notoriety, and I’d be surprised if that isn’t the main reason most of you blog, then credibility is very important indeed. I sit on the committee of the British Guild of Beer writers and one of the reasons I put in time to that is because I believe in the Guild awards for beer writing and the corresponding impetus for the improvement in beer writing. Winning an award might not be the only way to gain notoriety, but I can confirm that it certainly helps.

What I am trying to indicate is that if we want online beer critique, be it via twitter, blogger, facebook or any other medium, I personally think that there has to be some standards. On the other-hand I also see evidence of those standards being self regulated and it is the discussions I’ve seen online, and had off-line with people that suggests this is already happening.

From a brewers perspective I’d prefer it if you only ever said my beer was great if it really is great.

However, how do we deal with beer you don’t like, or is in someway defective? If you pour it out, smell it, taste it and then pour it down the sink, do you go right on and blog that it’s rubbish or is it better to just stay schtum? Perhaps it’s better to report the fact privately to the brewer, in case it’s a faulty batch or bottle; a one off unfortunate production problem in an otherwise fantastic product.

As a brewer, I’d like to say that you should always tell me first about problems, but go ahead and slag everyone else’s beer, I need the sales.

However, when a brewer engages in on-line promotion there has to be an acceptance that there will be negative feedback. There is part of me wonders, with a fast growing Scottish brewer getting serious criticism right now, but still maintaining incredible demand, that being sociably connected as personalities will always be good, even when things are going a little off kilter.

I think, like BrewDog, being on-line and having a personality, and the fact that the personality is perhaps flawed, is what works for us.

There is no doubt that my beer is being demanded all over the country and our production, albeit a measly 10 brewers barrels a week, has hit capacity and so requiring investment we can’t currently afford. I’m very grateful to you all for your online support as I’m sure all the brewers who have provided time and money to this conference will agree.