Craft Lagers Adopt 1970s Branding to Shed Complexity Stigma
Updated
Updated · The Washington Post · Jul 10
Craft Lagers Adopt 1970s Branding to Shed Complexity Stigma
3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Jul 10
Summary
3.8%-ABV West’s Easy Light Beer and similar new lagers are using muted retro cans, vintage type and minimal brewery branding to read simply as “beer,” not craft beer.
Brewers say the strategy answers a bias that craft beer is too complex, too extreme in flavor and too expensive, while helping local lagers compete with Budweiser, Coors and Busch.
2025 gave the trend commercial traction as Garage Beer and Tivoli Brewing’s Outlaw Light Beer entered the top 20 U.S. craft breweries by volume for the first time.
1970s regional beer culture is the model: U.S. brewery production rose about 40% that decade, and today’s brands are trying to pair that nostalgia with a local identity.
2026 branding analysis from CODO Design warns that leaning too hard on nostalgia can leave breweries defining the past instead of what comes next.