BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer | Hacker News Reader

BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer

bierbier.org

49 pointsqb47 comments

This would only be truely anti-establishment, if multiple companies were doing it using the same brand without any brand protection.

Lack of branding is still a brand...

Lack of branding is still a brand

Reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Name_(brand)

and to stretch the analogy a bit further... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

Some of the profit is used to fund "Bewegung für Inhalte, Entschleunigung und Reduktion (B.I.E.R. e.V.)" (loose translation: movement for substance, deceleration [think 'Slow Movement'], and cutback [0]. One of their planned activities is to buy outdoor billboard ad space and offer it to artists for free.

[0] http://www.bierev.org/

Yeah, I was hoping for something like that.

I came here to say basically this. BIER is only going to get recognized for being the beer brand without a brand.

And then somebody else calls their beer BIER and copyright lawsuits ensue.

"One cannot not communicate." - Paul Watzlawick

"I might add: what thus seems to take place outside ideology (to be precise, in the street), in reality takes place in ideology. What really takes place in ideology seems therefore to take place outside it. That is why those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology: one of the effects of ideology is the practical denegation of the ideological character of ideology by ideology: ideology never says, ‘I am ideological’. It is necessary to be outside ideology, i.e. in scientific knowledge, to be able to say: I am in ideology (a quite exceptional case) or (the general case): I was in ideology. As is well known, the accusation of being in ideology only applies to others, never to oneself (unless one is really a Spinozist or a Marxist, which, in this matter, is to be exactly the same thing). Which amounts to saying that ideology has no outside (for itself), but at the same time that it is nothing but outside (for science and reality)."

- Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/id...

I'm surprised nobody posted this already:

https://xkcd.com/993/

real,- tried something similar: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0UxbXT_3JOI/UnEjToVqADI/AAAAAAAAAe...

Pathmark no frills products were a major feature of my childhood in the 80s and looked very much like the XKCD image: https://www.google.com/search?q=pathmark+no+frills

The product lines still exist, but sadly they got rid of the aggressively no frills black-on-white packaging.

So, basically, "OK Soda"?

"Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."

"Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fking thing on this planet!"

These are also quite well-known in Germany: http://i.imgur.com/baRUVan.jpg (5.0 is the percentage of alcohol)

Came here to post this. I feel like the idea here was partly influenced by the 5.0 brand.

It is still a little different, since, afair, 5.0 just cut their ad costs and thus are able to provide the beer cheaper. Which for them I would think was a success.

For me though, it would be weird, especially in Germany/Bavaria, to buy a beer without brand identity. I could see this in the US, but not in Germany.

My main gripe with the 5.0 bear is not the lack of brand but more the fact that the beer is pretty bad (also living in Bavaria).

Not sure the brand-less concept would work out for beer, since there are clear personal preferences that make no-brand beer difficult. There's less taste preferences in other products, that's why store-brand butter etc. is popular.

Of course, that becomes just another brand gimmick, right?

It would be interesting to see what would happen if another company started using the same packaging to make a clearly inferior (or even just different) beer.

Last thought: reminds me of repo man (the one from the 80s), a great movie you should probably go watch right now, I mean come on, it's Sunday, relax.

Germany has VERY strict laws on what can go in beer - which means its all high quality but rather bland when compared to Belgium which has much more variety.

For some definitions of "high quality". It doesn't contain any random crap, but that doesn't mean it necessarily tastes good. Which of course is quite subjective, but IMHO really the thing that matters, and as others have mentioned a big problem with "non-branded" beer: I don't want to buy "a beer", but either try something new or buy something that I know I'll like. Unless they make it a feature (buy a bottle and get something random, with just a small marking to later figure out what it was) this won't work generally.

See "Reinheitsgebot" on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot

Even within the confines of water, grain, yeast and hops there's a ton of variation possible in the resulting beer.

It's a concept that's been done before: http://i.imgur.com/wteBl.jpg

It's also been done in actual reality. For example, one of Sweden's largest supermarket chain is the consumer co-operative Coop [1]. Their own line of budget private-label products had a very minimal "no-brand" design, though in 1979 they started using the name "Blåvitt", referring to the blue-white colors of the minimal design. I found a picture [2] of some of their products (coffee, detergent, tooth paste, tea, soap, bread, etc).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kooperativa_F%C3%B6rbundet

[2]: https://fredrikedin.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/blavitt.jpg

The Japanese retailer Muji also has a no logo or no brand approach to their products. Somewhat ironically, their 'brand' appeal (and company recognition) is due in large part to their minimal, unbranded design.

Also; starköl[1] (strong beer)

[1]: http://cdn.beeradvocate.com/im/beers/22068.jpg

Excellent point! And "Renat brännvin" [1] ("pure booze"), with the distinction of having product ID 1 (one) at the state-owned alcohol monopoly.

[1]: http://www.systembolaget.se/ImageVaultFiles/id_9735/cf_4500/...

Euroshopper too

https://www.google.nl/search?q=euroshopper&safe=off&client=s...

One of Canada's largest grocery chains has a similar brand, actually named "No Name"

http://33.media.tumblr.com/9a00bdd93c236e0b7aa4441318308bbe/...

Reminds me of the movie "Repo Man." Harry Dean Stanton says "let's go get a drink." They go into a quick mart and they find six packs of white cans labeled "Drink" and that's it.

Generic beer really was a thing in the US.

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/general-generic-beer/7987/

I don't know if generic "Drink" was real or a projection of generic beer.

Dunno if it was intentional or not, but this was Mike Nesmith using the "cheepnis" concept Zappa developed in a different way. Zappa meant cheezy rubber-spider horror movie artifacts; I'd say Nesmith was identifying the permanent recession as a driver for punk culture.

It also has overtones of "victory gin" from 1984.

In your average German bar you have maybe 2-3 choices of beer. In the south you say 'zwei mal helles', the north 'zwei mal pils' but throughout 'zwei mal bier'.

bier bier is around 3.50 in a club, so 0.20 more than the next pils, you pay for your laziness.

('mal' meaning 'times' is used instead of a plural)

I don't think I'd ever use that 'mal' phrasing. It would have to be "2 mal ein Helles" [~one light beer, twice] for it not to sound totally off to me. But "1/2/3 Helle[s]/Bier/Halbe[s]" [normal plural] is what I'd say. (I'm from Franconia.)

This is an ad, with a fairly unoriginal concept.

As an American living in Berlin: thank you for posting this! I always wondered what the deal was with "BIER". I'd assumed it was some kind of home-brewed concoction. I guess I'll give it a try now.

Meh. Maybe this is an American/California thing but at the bar or supermarket there are 100s of possible brands of beer, many of which incorporate different ingredients and brewing processes that will have profound effects on flavor (and physiological effect). One utility of a brand to me as a beer drinker is to help me remember which Imperial stout was too chocolatey or which IPA had an enjoyable hoppy taste.

On the other hand I could see the point of this for the huge domestic American brands e.g. Coors, Miller, Budweiser, etc.

Back in the late 1970s, one saw "generic" products in the store--the movie "Repo Man" has some allusions to this. I remember my folks buying "Generic" beer; I took it, from the shape of the bottles, to be Falstaff. But that may have been the case only with the supermarket chain where they shopped.

Yeah, that's just what the German beer market needs: more genericism, less diversity. Sure.

The other side of that bottle will be much more busy due to all the compulsory requirments: ingredients, etc.

A bit, but not that much. Most of it is marketing blurb. I couldn't find a good photo, but here's one that should at least give you an idea: https://instagram.com/p/teDSx_zPG7/?taken-by=bierbier_org

BIER back label: https://i.imgur.com/eVm18Vm.jpg

What if other people come up with their own bier and they use the same no-brand branding?

You have to write somewhere on the packaging of food which company is responsible for it.

ordinal numbers come to mind

Meh, Quartiermeister is more fun — selling beer to fund community projects: http://www.quartiermeister.org/en/

The first time I see a website translated so well to Italian.

How does one order a BIER beer in a pub?

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