Houston Astros Fan Fest: Craft Beer Connection
Let’s take the CSN cluster (expletive) out of this whole thing. Ryan preached about a local connection with the fans. He mentioned that he’s making efforts to get people in the ballpark while they rebuild the franchise. One of the efforts that he mentioned, is adding a craft beer element to Minute Maid Park.
It’s no secret that there’s a large disconnection between the team and it’s fans. Would a craft beer element really help with attracting attendance to Minute Maid Park? In my opinion, yes, it would.
Houston has a ton of craft beer festivals through out the year. Starting with Houston’s newest craft beer event:
- Big Brew – Over 1,000 craft beers to sample
- Paste Untapped Festival – Music and Craft Beer Event
- Houston Press BrewFest – Craft Beer Event that’s held TWICE a year
- BrewMasters Craft Beer Festival – Held in Galveston, put on by Spec’s
- Houston Beer Festival – One of the first large craft beer festivals
- Katy BrewFest – A Katy Craft Beer Festival that benefits non-profits
- Houston Beer Week – 8 days of unique craft beer events around Houston
That’s not even naming all of the smaller craft beer festivals that are held by restaurants.
Ronnie Crocker from the chron.com wrote this last month:
An industry report last month estimated craft brewing’s impact in Texas to be more than $2 billion. In the Houston area, the number of craft breweries has exploded, to at least a dozen from just one at the beginning of 2008.
That’s some solid coin. Rassul Zarinfar, owner of Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co. once told me, “Most craft brewery owners didn’t jump into this industry, to become millionaires. In fact, there aren’t very many that are millionaires. For most of us it’s about our love for beer, and the unique traits we’re able to give a beer.”
There’s a sense of loyalty in the craft beer community. Each brewery around Houston, knows that they’re in competition with each other, but their biggest competition is, “The Big 3”. So there’s no reason to out market or slander another brewery. It’s almost like the unwritten rules of baseball. There’s just some things you don’t do.
The loyalty goes beyond the community of breweries. The names of the breweries are typically tied in with the city they’re from. To name a few; Buffalo Bayou Brewing, Fort Bend Brewing, 8th Wonder Brewery, Karbach Brewing (Fun Fact: Karbach Brewing is named after a street, that runs adjacent to a street named after my great grandfather, Pasket Ln. Yeah, I’m half Polish and half Mexican…).
No more than a mile away from Minute Maid Park, Dynamo Stadium, and Toyota Center is 8th Wonder Brewery. With new laws placed in downtown Houston, that allows beer to be drank freely in designated tailgate areas. The brewery should help close the gap between sports and craft beer.
When speaking with 8th Wonder’s brewmaster Aaron Corsi he mentioned, “We get a lot of people that walk by the brewery during Dynamo games, that stop in and have a beer. We’re looking at doing something during the Astros season as well. But we haven’t sorted it out yet. Most likely a tailgate.”
Corsi is one of those undercover smart guys, similar to the brains over at Buffalo Bayou Brewing, Rassul Zarinfar. Out of nowhere he can pop off some intellect that you didn’t even know exists.
Corsi also told me they’re going to be doing a seasonal beer when Astros baseball season starts back up, “It’s called Dome Faux’m, we started to brew it at Moon Tower down the road because they have a smaller set up. It’s not new to 8th Wonder, but we’ve never massed supplied. It will be fun to see how it moves.”
Dome Faux’m… 8th Wonder… if you haven’t figured it out by now that this team roots for your Houston Astros, we need to have a sit down and chit chat.
Co owner, Alex Vassilakidis likes to point out their wall of Houston love, “We have our wall over here, that displays all the love we have for the city and the teams. We would be nothing without this city. They’ve been good to us.”
Displayed on the wall, are jersey’s from each Houston franchise, along with old school memorabilia.
8th Wonder Brewery is still really young, they haven’t even been open for a full year. They’ve made the right moves so far. Tapping into their local roots, so the Houston community understands what their brand is all about.
Reid Ryan has the right idea, on building the Astros’ local connection. Building a loyal following through good and bad times of a franchise, starts with the community itself. With the sponsors, the marketing, the promotions, etc…
I think Ryan will make the right moves, there’s only one problem. The Budwisers of the world, are always going to have more dollars to spend on marketing. What they don’t have is connection that craft breweries have with the community. Hmm… Catch 22?
It sounds like Reid is going to need a beer to deal with this conundrum. Do yourself a favor Reid, DON’T make it a Bud Light.
Follow Marcus Chavez on Twitter – @marcusdoesurmom