Food, beer pairings tap into new opportunities

Craft beers are back in a big way, challenging food retailers to discover how best to merchandise a varied and broad assortment of brews. Taking a local approach is one way to address the challenge.

With hundreds of craft brewers in the United States, and thousands of craft beers, food retailers with limited space have to make hard choices. Some have opted to go large with beverages. In its newer, bigger supermarkets and Marketplace stores, Kroger has blown out the space devoted to beverages, in some cases devoting more than 10% of the store to drinks, wine, spirits and beer.

Wegmans, too, has devoted a significant portion of its larger stores to beverages. Its emphasis has leaned more toward wine, although it does devote a relatively large space to beer, and generally features a New York state favorite, Saranac, as a prime part of its offering.

An advantage of offering local craft beers comes from the enthusiasm of their brewers. Just last month, New York City’s famous South Street Seaport hosted the New York Brewfest. The event featured 300 craft brews, mostly from in-state breweries, although this year a limited number of out-of-staters joined the festivities, including Spanish Peaks, which brews Black Dog ales, a line that has won a strong following in Gotham.

Building on local success is almost as important with craft brews as is supporting area brewers. After all, local distributors are often determined to introduce brews that will draw the best response from area quaffers. Craft brew consumers develop affinities, often through what they sample on premise, that retailers can use to guide their assortments.

Black Dog was at the Brewfest to connect with customers in an embracing environment. “It’s simply the best sort of advertising we can do for the brand,” said Justin Fisch, vp of marketing for USB, which owns Black Dog ales. “We can get the consumer to taste the product and it allows us to have one-to-one interaction. The interaction really helps with all our consumers, who are becoming more and more interested and dedicated to learning about beers.”

The desire to learn more about beer distinguishes craft brew fans even from import aficionados. Tastings are a big draw to craft beer fans, with those that pair food and brew gaining in popularity, a trend restaurants are exploring. While retailers can’t always grant samples, they have the opportunity to pair beer and food in the aisles, as some do food and wine. The opportunity to merchandise beer and food can be especially important in New York and other states where most food retailers can’t sell wine.

Beer and wine pairing has even led to the publishing of books designed to help consumers match flavors. The trend is potent enough that Anheuser-Busch, in January, is publishing the “Great Food, Great Beer, the Anheuser-Busch Cookbook: 185 Recipes for Pairing Beer with Food.”

“They’ve wanted to do this for some time,” said Trina Kaye, a spokeswoman for the publisher, Sunset Books. “The fact is that they wanted to educate people about beer pairing.”