Finding the Right Brewpub Location

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Transcript

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hello and welcome again to what’s brewing with Augustine oh your source for information and musings on the world of craft beer craft food and craft coffee not necessarily in that order I am your host Augustine Steen oh Iacopelli and today we are talking about how to create a great beer tasting experience and I’m to be referring to that adapting from a great article from Gordon Strong which appeared in all about Beer magazine several years back and it is the excellent article on how to host a beer tasting at home not to turn it around and I turn it on its head in terms of a a craft brewery for those of you who are tuning in from across the country across the world Augustine oh brewing is opening in Wichita Kansas in a matter of months here and location God willing soon to be determined we are working on a couple of locations and it is looking good that at least one of them will pan out so is working to tackle this from the craft brewers side of things in and my thoughts on how is a craft brewer you should establish and set up craft beer tastings to bring in traffic for your business so you know the first thing that is important whether dealing with the home tasting or I tasting it your business is that any time you can establish a theme to go along with your tasting in the scene could be anything from certain types of beers to just something really fun and crazy like you know I have people dress up in certain ways or do certain things and then they get you a discount off of the tasting or some other swag that outlines a being that hook to bring them and that’s a really important part of really helping to pack your your store for such a tasting event the tasting event can certainly stand on its own but if you really especially in the it more crowded craft brewing market here in Wichita and I’m sure in your neck of the woods as well as it has gotten to the a much more crowded market it is becoming a lot more important to have something that is good to bring people in and so a theme is a big helping in making that happen I it helps if you have already also gathered an excellent either mailing list email list your alike some Facebook people are connected to you on other social media pet platforms and you need to blast that list hard with your event and the just really drum it up market it don’t just set something up and assume people are to show up to at some of that will happen if you’re good brewery in and make good beer but if you really want to maximize your profitability of an event you really need to consider in my opinion also is seeking out sponsored posts and that helps get your word a lot more widely spread across to people who may or may not be connected to your social profiles currently and so that’s that’s really important thing in in order to make sure that you bring people in because it’s no longer a case of if you brew it they will come in Wichita we still are pretty good on that the Wichita craft beer market is still on the rise big time here but in other parts of the country it’s not quite that way the markets getting a little tighter especially depending on where your market niche is for your a microbrewery or book or rub brewpub and and so it’s it’s important for you to to think about how you’re going to get people in the door you want to obviously have enough beer for the a tasting if you run out of a beer that you said you were gonna taste that just is a real black eye and you and you want to make sure that you develop before you do any events a written checklist for everything that needs to be done in order to make that event happen there’s a lot of cases where breweries out there though just say hey you know what you want to do is just great sampling of five years of XYZ and they haven’t really put a whole line of thought into each of those steps and the what winds up happening is constantly has to be changed or updated things go wrong on the day some of it happens to matter what in terms of a checklist are not a checklist but the more you can avoid that the better off you to be in the long run so bear that in mind I you want to connect also have set the expectations of the persons tasting the beer now if it is a coordinated event that happens at the same time the best way to do this is to have somebody hosting the tasting and cutting narrating everybody through it on a home level this is oftentimes an easy thing to do but on a commercial level if you’ve got a brewpub that people may be coming and going over a or an extended period of time it’s not that practical to have somebody who’s guiding the the tasting so in lieu of that it’s really important to hand out to people as they get their flight or as each individual beers passed out I to give them a description of the beer and give them some guidelines on what they should be experiencing in that beer people like that kinda have a framework for where to start from in terms of their tasting and if you just say here here this is a beer it’s a Belgian trip will what do you know him and you just handed to them that way to get it’s great fine but you’re making an assumption at that point that your guest knows what a Belgian trip was and so it it’s really essential that the you set that stage because it also enhances the experience for the individual whose tasting the beer and if you enhance that experience you’re gonna wind up with a much more satisfied customer with the tasting that you provided them with because they will walk away feeling that they are a little bit more educated and craft beer and that’s what what were all about as brewers we want to raise the bar for craft beer and part of raising the bar is educating people so think about what you can provide that is good help enhance that experience and that oftentimes is some giveaways whether it’s a flyer maybe a flyer and in a little trinket that you can give away along with it something that’s a tangible take away from your tasting is really important and that’s also something I see very very very few breweries doing and it’s a it’s a real opportunity for those of you out there who want the at the edge and I’m happy to give away these the ideas and tips because I know most people out there will not do it so we will be out there doing that and many other things it Augustine brewing so those of you who are in the Wichita area or a planning to visit the Wichita area down the road here I have a lot to look forward to in terms of what would be able to provide you with so now let you know basically you know at the end of the day we want to be able to keep in and pick at the interest of the drinker and is sometimes that’s really difficult to do in a brewpub or taproom, setting by it still really important for us to try to tackle as the owners of of breweries and brewpubs that we want to constantly be engaging people and you can do this in in the if you’re on your a taproom side or a bar site if you it’s of it if it’s a brewpub use and utilize your bartender and your servers they need to be educated in beer if you’re not taking the time to educate your servers and how to serve beer and what your beers are and what beers are on tap on a particular day it is really a turnoff to a lot of craft beer drinkers so make sure that your people are educated it’s very very important to the success of your business and it’s important part of being a great host of a craft beer event craft beer tasting at your facility I’m Augustine and thanks for listening