250: Breakside’s Ben Edmunds, Great Notion’s James Dugan, and Von Ebert’s Sam Pecoraro Dissect Trendy Beers and Innovation

How do you as a brewer identify trends, evaluate their potential resonance with your customers, then develop and deploy your own beers in response? This panel discussion with leading Portland brewers Ben Edmunds of Breakside, James Dugan of Great Notion, and Sam Pecoraro of Von Ebert—recorded at Great Notion as part of our most recent New Brewery Accelerator workshop—explores that very question.

Along the way, they discuss:

• separating the signal from the noise in feedback data
• maintaining a brewery identity despite changing trends
• considering the consumer and leading with enthusiasm
• technical processes around developing and testing new ideas
• developing a palate and means of understanding and deconstructing other beers
• the arc of imitation and adaptation
• TTB challenges in using atypical ingredients
• staff and consumer feedback processes
• the importance of great front of house staff to explain and promote trendy beers

And more.

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