Twitter inspired beer launches, featuring New Zealand hops
Brewdog’s plans to design a “democratically designed beer” sourced via Twitter has reached fruition with the launch of #MashTag, a 7.5% brown ale made with New Zealand hops and aged on hazelnuts and oak chips.
The finished product
The working title - #Mash Tag - was used to promote the idea, and has now stuck as the brew’s designated name. Drinkers were asked to vote on specific elements of the brew and encompass everything from the beer style, malt bill & ABV, to Hops & IBU.
"This project totally handed the keys to the brewery over to our fans and put them in the driving seat," said Sarah Warman of Brew Dog.
"Over the course of a week, we gave our Twitter followers, Facebook fans and blog readers the opportunity to vote to an element of the brew. This gave us an incredible platform to explain the different stages of brewing and show how your choice at that stage influences the final beer you end up with, be it determining the alcohol level, bitterness or style."
The label on the bottle was sourced from a design submitted during the process.
"This is beer for the people, by the people," Warman said.
"It takes the online voice of consumers to a new level offline. We have a lot of incredibly vocal fans on social media and they always get heavily involved with our activity."
San Franciso‘s “#TwitterBrew” and Colorado’s BlackBird beer previously undertook similar crowd sourcing approaches to developing their beers.