Crafting Beer, Crafting Community: An exploration into the portrayal of craft beer

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2015
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
In this thesis I argue that the way in which craft beer has positioned itself within the beer industry largely parallels the principles that Annalee Saxenian attributes to Silicon Valley’s success. Craft breweries style themselves as a collaborative group that is fundamentally different than their macrobrewery counterparts. Craft beer is often associated with the collaboration that happens between breweries as they function via a “we all float together” mentality. It is this set up of craft beer as a uniting brand that has allowed for the smaller breweries to be successful. This relationship is what is portrayed to the consumer, but it is more complex than that. Not everyone in the industry is friends and there is still the element of competition present, just as it is in Silicon Valley. I argue that craft beer can also attribute aspects of its success in carving out a space in the beer market – one that is actually viewed as threatening to macrobeer – by establishing itself as a meta-organization. By focusing on community and collaboration, craft beer allows for its consumers to participate in “performative branding.” The target audience is able to create their identity with the product, which in turn creates this image of craft beer that then is reaffirmed by the individual breweries through the organizational field. The unifying label of craft beer helps to draw in consumers and establish industry practices, but it also creates expectations of difference that individual craft brews and the meta-organization do not always live up to.
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