
BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer - qb
http://bierbier.org/website/en/what-its-all-about/
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kken
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...

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

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

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ftio
"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...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm)

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tehwalrus
I'm surprised nobody posted this already:

[https://xkcd.com/993/](https://xkcd.com/993/)

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omnibrain
real,- tried something similar:
[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0UxbXT_3JOI/UnEjToVqADI/AAAAAAAAAe...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0UxbXT_3JOI/UnEjToVqADI/AAAAAAAAAeM/ZcyvZCEWKfY/s1600/real.PNG)

~~~
eli
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](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.

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

~~~
jasoncartwright
"Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every f __king thing on this planet! "

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

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Test-Grave
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.

~~~
LeonidasXIV
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.

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dilap
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.

~~~
walshemj
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.

~~~
detaro
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.

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lambda
It's a concept that's been done before:
[http://i.imgur.com/wteBl.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/wteBl.jpg)

~~~
mbrock
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kooperativa_F%C3%B6rbundet)

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

~~~
jagheterfredrik
Also; starköl[1] (strong beer)

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

~~~
mbrock
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/...](http://www.systembolaget.se/ImageVaultFiles/id_9735/cf_4500/2.JPG)

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jksmith
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.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Generic beer really was a thing in the US.

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

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panamafrank
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)

~~~
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
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.)

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nailer
This is an ad, with a fairly unoriginal concept.

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superplussed
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.

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ssalazar
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.

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cafard
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.

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moron4hire
Yeah, that's _just_ what the German beer market needs: _more_ genericism,
_less_ diversity. Sure.

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

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atomwaffel
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](https://instagram.com/p/teDSx_zPG7/?taken-by=bierbier_org)

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

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

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

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

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kachnuv_ocasek
How does one order a BIER beer in a pub?

