Are You Sure that Beer is from a Craft Brewery?

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I call it camouflage marketing.

I fell victim to  this  ploy a few weeks ago. For my Year in Beer challenge I am always on the lookout for beers that I have not had before. I try to stay away from the mega brewers offerings as much as possible. While browsing the beer aisle at a local grocery store I spotted Wild Blue, brewed by Blue Dawg Brewing. It is labeled as a blueberry lager with an 8% ABV.  The ABV  certainly looks like something you would see on a craft beer. So I bought it. Later, after some research,  I found that I had in fact just put my beer money into the coffers of a mega brewer.

Lets examine how Blue Dawg Brewing the mega brewer got my money.

The Six Pack Carton. The first thing that grabs the eye in the beer section.

Everything looks crafty here. Catchy name and artwork.  Although I’m not sure if the dog is merely kicking the blueberry or, uh, expelling the blueberry (or kicking the expelled blueberry).   I’ve never seen the beer advertised on television so thats a good sign that it might be a craft beer.  Heck, its even a Gold Medal winner.

If you call the phone number listed on the bottom it is answered as Blue Dawg Brewing.

The Beer Label:

Again we have the crap, er blueberry kicking blue dawg (dog).  Nothing is screaming mega brewer yet.

The label is still claiming Blue Dawg Brewing.

Lets look at the bottle cap:

Our familiar blue crap kicking dog is once again visible. And  Blue Dawg Brewing Inc is printed on the cap. And Twist Off. Our first real clue (that  I didn’t notice until later).

All of the markings of a craft beer. Almost.

Looking back, I see two warning signs  The first is the city that Blue Dawg Brewing is located in. Baldwinsville, NY, (which is near  Syracuse). Guess what else is located in Baldwinsville, NY? That’s right, an Anheuser-Busch brewery.

And the other red flag, is the bottle cap. A twist off bottle cap. I can not remember another craft beer with a twist off cap. Craft brewers tend to stay away from twist offs due to the fact that the  bottling equipment for a twist off cap is more expensive than the bottling equipment for a pry off cap.  Additionally (and this might actually be the primary reason craft brewers stay away) there is evidence that pry off caps offer a better seal and thus better protection for the beer.

So does Blue Dawg Brewing exist? I’m sure in the legal sense it exists. But  it is actually a small department inside Anheuser-Busch. That’s it. A few people sharing some cubicles inside  a multi-national beer company.  I wonder if other ‘craft’ beers are being drawn up in the corporate boardrooms of the beer giants.

And how does  Wild Blue taste?. Try to imagine what  carbonated blueberry pancake syrup with an 8% kick would taste like and you will be close. Virtually no hop taste  at all. I think non beer drinkers will like it.