The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., visits Pyramid Alehouse in Seattle for a Q&A with with Mark House, head of brewery operations and a company veteran, and marketing director Paul Curhan. Not surprisingly, answers about Pyramid focusing on wheat-based beers dominates the conversion.
For Curhan on competition with Widmer:
Over the years we’ve done more traditional consumer research, qualitative and quantitative. We have been preferred 2-to-1 or greater to (Portland’s) Widmer, which is probably our biggest competitor. An excellent beer, but a very different taste profile.
Ours is more of a citrusy, aromatic, smoother hefe. Widmer is a little more bitter.
From House on innovation:
We have a lot of things on the docket. One thing is the whole fruit category. I think we’re going to have fun with that. We have R&D sit-downs with our brewers, coming up with new ideas. Our Oktober Weizen is the first ever, we think, wheat Oktoberfest beer in the U.S. There is innovation.
We have restaurants up and down the West Coast, and one huge advantage is I can make one keg of (experimental) beer in the Seattle alehouse. We’ve got thousands of people here who can try (new beers).