On a recent trip to Binny’s I was surprised to see what seemed like variety packs everywhere. I’m used to seeing them from a few breweries, of course, but lately it seems like more and more breweries are getting into the variety pack game.
If this is a new trend, I love it.
I mean, a guy can only drink so much beer, either on his own or bringing it to parties. When I want to try a beer, I don’t necessarily want a full 6-pack or even a 4-pack. Even if I could drink several 6 packs a week, it would get cost prohibitive pretty quickly.
Thus, lately, I’ve found myself heading to the mix and match an awful lot, taking my chances on finding some brews that maybe I wouldn’t try in a 6-pack but am more than happy to try in a single.
For these reasons, the variety pack is one of my favorite ways to go. You get 3-4 different beers for the price of maybe two 6-packs. Not a bad deal, I think.
But not everyone does it. My understanding of packaging is that you can get a machine to pack one, maybe two labels, but to make a pack of three or four still requires some manual labor, so it’s a real commitment.
But it’s so worth it from the consumer end. Revolution’s League of Heroes box, for instance, gives us access to the wide variety of hop flavors in their hero series. Guinness came out with a variety pack of recovered recipes they called their brewers series, which gave me a chance to see some of what Guinness is capable of beyond their iconic stout. Firestone Walker’s pack includes their flavorful Luponic Distortion as well as several great drinking ales.
I’ll buy pretty much any variety pack from Sierra Nevada. Their autumn box last year was really lovely–I especially enjoyed the Vienna Lager, a style you don’t see much. Saugatuck Brewing did a fun stout pack for winter.
I could go on. The point, for me, is that this seems like a great direction to go in terms of appealing to the craft drinker’s love of variety and simultaneous limitations of calories and finances.
I hope to see more great breweries exploring the possibilities of the variety pack.
