Events / Promos / Specials

[einhorn]

What type of events, promotions or specials does your brewpub do? Not only the standard "Pint Night" or "$.25 Wings", or reduced price growlers, but rather normal OR unique things that customers enjoy and come back week-for-week. Maybe even something tied into food - whatever works for your market.

Also, any ideas on (themed) events for a brewpub which generate buzz and traffic?

Just looking for some fodder to chew on...

[LokeBrewSF]

I would suggest developing a "look" or theme for your brewpub. Something where either all of your beer names are somehow tied together, or just a general feel for the place. It should really be something that customers can either relate to, or something that develops interest in the everyday Joe-sixpack. You can then piggy back off of that. Special meals (maybe a guest chef) with specific beer pairings is always a good idea.

[BeerBred]

I know nothing about your vibe in the pub or where you are or whatever. When I had my brewpub we had a jazz band play on Saturday night's for dinner. Sales went NORTH! I guess you need to have the space. I had 10,000 feet.

[beauxman]

It is very market specific but in our beer savvy Seattle market:

We do a firkin cask each Wednesday on the bar. Each firkin is a spin on the base beer that is put in it. We add unique and different ingredients to each cask to make them super special (I believe key to making firkin Wednesday work). In a 40 seat brewery taproom we can blow a firkin in an hour or two. Record is 58 minutes, did two firkins in about 3.5 hours once also. We co-promote it with one of our bottle shop account in town that also does a cask each Wednesday. We call it the Oostkant Cask Crawl (named after a beer we made for them, Oostkant). We are adding another account to offer cask in town on Wednedays to develop a destination on Wednesdays. Redmond is an eastside suburb of Seattle so we are trying to create a reason for people to come out to see us from the "big city". Has made a dead Wednesday in sales almost as good as Fridays!

-Beaux

[SRB]

Hot Wax night first Thursday each month at our pub has been solid for us.
Bring your skis or snowboard down to the pub and have the local ski patrol wax em' for $5. All wax proceeds go to ski patrol fund.
First set is worth 2 happy hour pint vouchers. Every other set you bring in gets another voucher. Our happy hour is every day 4 to 6. Event starts at 6 goes to 9. We also expand our happy hour food menu until 9 pm.
We get our barrel fires going out front and set the wax station right outside our big front window in the pub so folks can watch the waxers.

[pghcraftbeer]

Thats a great idea! Thanks for the post.