Scarlet Lane Brewing Company: Carving Out a Niche in the Craft Beer Market

Nick Servies, the founder and owner of Scarlet Lane Brewing Company, was faced with a dilemma. Scarlet Lane Brewing (SLB) had decided to position their brewery as producing ‘gender neutral’ beers. Gender neutral basically meant that they were attempting to appeal to both males and females, where the beer industry had traditionally appealed largely to males. SLB used no sexist advertising and brewed beers that past experience had shown had appealed to the female pallet. However, a recent marketing project completed by a student group had shown that the vast majority of both consumers and bar owners interviewed were not aware of SLB’s gender neutral positioning; and being gender neutral would have no impact on consumers’ choice of beer or bar owners carrying SLB beers in their establishment. Therefore, SLB needed to come up with a new market position.