Exploring place marketing by American microbreweries: neolocal expressions of ethnicity and race

ABSTRACT

The American craft brewing scene has exhibited continued growth over the past several decades fueled by the desire of many patrons to opt for unique, local brews in the place of homogenous national and international brands. Previous research reports that American microbreweries often express neolocalism in the marketing of their products: using local place names, people, events, landscape features, and icons on their labeling and in their names to establish roots with the local environment and culture. By way of qualitatively surveying 1564 microbrewery websites, this paper looks through a neolocal lens to examine microbrewery usage of ethnicity and race in their marketing efforts. Microbreweries are found to express ethnicity and race in their marketing schemes to a limited extent within which ethnicity, more so than race, is demonstrated. Specific examples include references to ethnic ties to the Scots-Irish in Appalachia, specific Native American tribes throughout the country, and Latino, specifically Mexican/Mexican-American, cultural heritage in the American southwest. In addition, findings reflect the demographics of the industry, which is dominated by whites of European descent.

KEYWORDS:

• Beer
• microbreweries
• neolocalism
• ethnicity
• race
• place
• whiteness

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the following microbreweries for allowing them to reprint their graphics: Appalachian Brewing Company, Bayern Brewing, Borderlands Brewing Company, Brass Cannon Brewing Company, Indian Joe Brewing, Justice Brewing, La Cumbre Brewing Company, Lancaster Brewing Company, Shmaltz Brewing Company, Tyranena Brewing Company, Voodoo Brewery, and Wasatch Brewing Company. This work was inspired by, prepared for, and presented in part at the seventh biennial Race, Ethnicity, and Place (REP) Conference that was held in Fort Worth, Texas during 22–24 October 2014 (Mathews and Patton 2014). The authors would like to acknowledge and thank John Frazier of Binghamton University and the Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conferences for supporting this work and encouraging our participation in the conference. The authors sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers as well as Alyson Greiner, whose comments greatly improved this work.

Notes on contributors

Adam Mathews is an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. The bulk of his research focuses on GIS and remote sensing techniques including the use of unmanned aerial systems.

Matthew Patton is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research focuses on human geography and STEM education.

ORCID

Adam J. Mathews http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5577-4308

Matthew T. Patton http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9953-582X