It turns out beer is consumed by people. Not pie charts, not growth numbers, not share prices. Regular normal people like you and me. Well, me, anyway.

An article in today’s New York Times outlines an increasing use of regional advertising as by the nation’s largest brewers in an effort to retain the market share that’s slowly being eroded by smaller breweries. Instead of approaching their market purely on a national level, the big brewers are running locally themed campaigns in places like Texas, where the ads feature the state flag, cowboy hats, and other stereotypes of the type which people love and embrace.

This is a sound approach, probably a necessary one for Big Beer. People are proud of where they live and proud of their customs. These customs include, often revolve around, food and drink. Across the nation, where breweries had long been snapped up or put out of business by the conglomerates, new regionals are moving beyond the kitschy microbrewery phase and working themselves into the cultures of their areas.

Craft and regional brewing isn’t a secret anymore. It’s no longer an exclusive club of homebrewers and mildly eccentric connoisseurs. 22-year-old sorority girls know about and relish their local beer. People know they have a choice again. And often, they know it’s their hometown choice.

In the Times article, Beer Marketers’ Insights Editor Benjamin Steinman drops a quote I love: “Everybody’s fighting for a bigger piece of a pie that’s not growing,” he said. “What’s really growing at a rapid rate are smaller brewers.”

As Big Beer is realizing, these smaller brewers are growing radially, out of their home regions, and they’re reaching across a nation, an ocean, soon a world. But it’s the local love that provides the strongest fuel. By addressing people on a regional level, the national conglomerates hope to tap into that sense of pride.

We’ll see if it works. At any rate, it shows they’re scared of mice that roar.

-Mark