Quick Sips: The Craft Beer Lesson the Cannabis Industry is Ignoring

Over 32 million Americans walk into a grocery store every single day. Half of the U.S. population conducts a transaction at a convenience store on a daily basis.
If we want to build a sustainable, normalized hemp and cannabis industry, this is exactly where these products need to live.

Fifteen years ago, I was running craft beer development for a wholesaler, the industry loved to villainize approachable brands like Blue Moon and Goose Island. I was the guy on the island defending them. Why? Because they were the entry point to the journey.

If someone asked me about craft beer, the first drink I handed them was a Blue Moon. They would say, "Okay, I can do this." Then the second drink could be a little more obscure, and the journey naturally progressed toward your Surleys and Revolution IPAs.

You cannot go to step seven without going to step one.

Right now, parts of the cannabis industry are fighting to lock all THC products behind dispensary doors. But if you cold-plunge a new, sober-curious consumer straight into a high-potency product or a heavily regulated dispensary environment on their first jump, you turn them off. When you don't allow that consumer journey to flow correctly, they are gone from the entire industry.

Hemp-derived THC beverages are our Blue Moon. They are the approachable, low-dose, commoditized entry point.

To introduce the mainstream consumer to this space, we need these beverages sitting in age-gated, easy-access retail venues - grocery stores, convenience stores, and bottle shops. That is how you build the journey. That is how you grow the entire pie.

Education. Regulation. Normalization.