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Expect to see more of this around Colorado (Eric Gorski, The Denver Post).

Welcome to The State of Craft Beer.

You may have heard that phrase before. The Colorado Brewers Guild, the nonprofit advocate and promoter of the state’s 200-plus independent craft brewers, has been using it for years in its marketing efforts.

Now “Colorado, The State of Craft Beer” is the crux of a new guild consumer brand campaign meant to draw more attention to Colorado’s flourishing brewery scene at a time when the industry continues to take off nationally.

Steve Kurowski, marketing director for the Brewers Guild, said the plan is to build a “brand platform” using the newly unveiled logo on brochures, signage in pubs and liquor stores, glassware and other merchandise, festivals and eventually a website that will likely include blog posts from some of the state’s top brewers.

The brand will also help the state tourism office and Visit Denver promote beer tourism, he said.

Other states have launched like-minded efforts. The Michigan Brewers Guild has many great breweries to promote and developed a logo around the slogan “The Great Beer State,” a play off the state’s nickname as the “Great Lake State.”

Colorado, Kurowski noted, can claim its stake as home to the nation’s first microbrewery (Boulder Beer, founded in 1979), 200-plus breweries, the Brewers Association trade group, the Great American Beer Festival and homebrewing god Charlie Papazian.

Kurowski highlighted other ingredients that make Colorado a craft brewing hotbed, including pure water, brewing laws friendly to things like self-distribution and tap rooms, a strong beer culture and a tourism-driven economy.

But is it fair to Colorado the state of craft beer? Last year, Colorado ranked fourth in number of breweries and breweries per capita, according to the BA. Another BA report published last year found Colorado ranked No. 5 among states in economic output related to craft beer, at $1.6 billion, and No. 2 in per capita output for the over-21 population, just behind Oregon. (No other state, it should be noted, cracked the top five on that economic measure).

Steve Kurowski (Denver Post photo)

“We feel we are an epicenter of craft beer in the country,” Kurowski said. “The eyes are on us often. It’s a great opportunity to brand what our industry is doing here what our breweries are up to.”

“It’s not necessarily separating ourselves from other states, it’s about what we want to do in Colorado,” he said. “We definitely realize and understand there are great things going on in craft beer in other states. But it’s a fun tag line and it means a lot. I think we can legitimately say we are the State of Craft Beer.”

According to the latest figures from the Brewers Guild, Colorado can claim more than 200 operating craft breweries. In 2013, independent Colorado craft breweries were responsible for more than 5,000 jobs and $826 million in revenue, the group says.

Marty Jones – one of Colorado’s beer marketing maestros, having brought greater attention to Oskar Blues, Wynkoop Brewing and others – praised the Brewers Guild for ramping up already successful efforts to market Colorado craft beer.

The extra effort is vital, he argued, as more out-of-state craft beers hit local liquor store shelves (though he noted much of that competition is in-state, too). Plenty of work remains, he said, in getting Colorado beer drinkers to think and drink locally.

Jones gives his blessing to the “State of Craft Beer” slogan.

“Yes, it’s a bit strong and rah-rah,” said Jones, who used to help the Brewers Guild with marketing committee efforts. “But if your task is to wave the flag for something, get a big flag and wave it like you mean it … For those who think it’s a bit much, we have plenty to back up that ‘the’ in the slogan.”

Jones said he loathes – yes, that was his verb – the “Napa Valley of Beer” line so many use in Colorado. His beef is that using a California wine reference to celebrate Colorado beer “makes no sense and diminishes what we do.”

Colorado already has a craft beer brand – an excellent one forged in a reputation that can’t be pigeonholed by a particular style, said Todd Thibault, the longtime director of marketing for Breckenridge Brewery in Denver.

While West Coast IPAs help define that region, there is no such thing as a Colorado IPA, he noted. The Centennial State’s IPAs run the gamut stylistically, as do the dizzying array of sours and malt bombs brewed here, he said.

The branding campaign, he said, “is a good educational piece. Nationally, so many people are looking to discover craft beer.”

Justin Baccary, president and founder of Station 26 Brewing, which opened in December straddling Denver’s Park Hill and Stapleton neighborhoods, sees value in the brand educating tourists about the state’s beer scene and helping Colorado breweries that distribute out of state reinforce that Colorado’s beers are among the best around.

But Baccary also raised the issue of growing industry concerns about quality, a message Brewers Association director Paul Gatza .

“Colorado’s a great craft beer state,” Baccary said. “A lot are good. Some are not very good. How do you highlight the best of Colorado beer? There is not-good Colorado beer, just as there’s not-good California beer, or the same in any state.”

Will there be any control, he wondered, about who can use the “State of Craft Beer” brand? If not – and if there are below-par breweries wrapping themselves in that slogan – do good breweries want to be part of that?

These are good questions, complicated by the fact that what constitutes “good” is a highly subjective call.

And might craft beer drinkers with an independent streak cringe at being subject to more marketing, and the very notion of branding? Kurowski suggested that if anything, the opposite should hold true.

“Keep in mind, this is not going to be a big campaign,” he said. “We are a state trade group. We’re not even state-funded. We are nonprofit. We don’t have gobs of money. This will remain as grassroots as we can possibly get. We don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to put behind this … Grassroots marketing is what we have been good at. The breweries are great at that, too. The State of Craft Beer will be grassroots and showcase independent breweries, beers with an independent spirit.”