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  • Small Brewery Business Ideas?

    Howdy all,
    This goes out to all the small (15bbl, 10bbl, 7bbl, and less) breweries out there with public tasting rooms located in seasonal locations.

    Where we are located in Montana, the population swings from a summertime high of around 15,000 to a non-warm-months low of around 3,800. We are always working on getting more people through the door.
    What have you found to be some of the more successful (and maybe offbeat) ways to get more customers into your tasting room?

    Prost!
    Dave
    Glacier Brewing Company
    406-883-2595
    info@glacierbrewing.com

    "who said what now?"

  • #2
    Mug Club keeps the locals interested-
    Special events, especially with music have a good turnout.
    Charity events work well too.
    (We only get 15k here in Lander for one day- the 4th of July. I think 24 suspension of open container law and the fireworks law help. Basically WW3 with beer! )
    Brewmaster, Minocqua Brewing Company
    tbriggs@minocquabrewingcompany.com
    "Your results may vary"

    Comment


    • #3
      Tuesday night Trivia.

      Busiest night of the week in the depths of winter. Crazy busy.

      Pax.

      Liam
      Liam McKenna
      www.yellowbellybrewery.com

      Comment


      • #4
        Trivia Night

        We also do a Tuesday night trivia. We have been packing our small pub with trivia players every Tuesday for almost 6 years. Our trivia night consists of 7 rounds of 5 questions shown on a power point presentation via a laptop and projector. We even have a loud speaker to play sound questions. Our place starts to get busy with trivia players sometimes as early as 3:00 (trivia starts at 7:00 and ends around 9:00). A lot of time and effort goes into trivia, but it’s totally worth it.

        Mickey Mahoney

        MickDuff's Brewing Co.

        Comment


        • #5
          This doesn't help a lot with your in pub sales but it could help with over all exposure. We're going to be bringing our beer festival to Missoula this coming July 4th weekend and we'd love to have you be a part of the event. It will be held behind the Big Sky Brewery.

          We're going to be doing events like this across the country to help benefit the local craft beer community. For example, we're doing a beer festival in Twin Falls, ID this year to benefit a local home brewer who wants to launch his own commercial brewery. We'd like to pick one person each year that we can can hold a festival on behalf of so we can help grow the number of breweries in the country.
          Owner
          Grind Modern Burger
          PostModern Brewers
          Boise, ID

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          • #6
            ideas...

            Beer & Cheese pairings

            Events at restaurants in towns close by, help advertise your place while costing less- you are only "donating" a keg or 2.

            Comment


            • #7
              We offered a pretty good value for
              Our Mug Club Members and had to expand the Mug Club by 50% within the first month by demand.

              In our small town of 734, music one weekend night draws standing room only. Ironically, the call for local charity benefits at a $1.00 per draft donation have had zero response.

              I've been hounded for big screen TVs for the Griz games but everyone would drink 4 before the 1st quarter.

              A free draft with every growler fill keeps people in the tasting room with a chance they will buy another.

              We offer Mug Club Members they drink free on their birthday (48oz max in Mt). They usually bring 3+ people with them who match their beer consumption.

              We offer a free taster to local skiers. It's only 4oz and most of the time they buy at least another draft and then drop by after ski days for the free taster.

              We offer a free taster for Yelp reviews. May help tourism traffic- don't know yet.

              We are tiny and our niche is variety. We offer mug club members a free 4oz taster for every new beer on tap- which is practically weekly. Even if they don't like the new beer they usually always order a draft of their favorite.

              Being nano, I've been asked about brew school or spend the day with the brewer kind of thing.



              Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
              JC McDowell
              Bandit Brewing Co.- 3bbl brewery and growing
              Darby, MT- population 700
              OPENED Black Friday 2014!

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by TTB Helper
                All good ideas. I know of one brewery located in a cold winter climate that had a frozen T-shirt contest. Hold on now!.....It's family friendly, all genders can enter. You soak then wad up tightly and freeze t-shirts. The first person to pull the frozen wad of a t-shirt apart and get it on over their existing shirt wins the contest (free beer, money, etc.) This should be obvious but use brewery logo'd T-shirts. Everyone who enters gets to keep their T-shirt.

                Also, don't forget about the value of local PR. The news channels and newspapers and local magazines are always on the hunt for content. Let them know when you are doing a new brew, modifying the brewery, adding a new fermentation tank, hiring new employees............, or throw a celebration for something historically significant, or historically insignificant to the local area. Invent a reason to celebrate something when things slow down and people start getting the winter blues. Get the most craft beer looking and well-spoken team member out in front of the camera or interviewer. Deliver a fun, unique, welcoming message and you'll wake people up. Don't overthink it, have fun and create fun.

                Hope this helps.

                Gary
                Old thread but very creative, good idea!
                Thanks Gary!

                Prost!
                Dave
                Glacier Brewing Company
                406-883-2595
                info@glacierbrewing.com

                "who said what now?"

                Comment


                • #9
                  Trivia

                  We did trivia for a year or so. Started getting the same people and they would buy less and less beer and we stopped it. Have to keep it lively and fun I guess.

                  Originally posted by MickDuffs View Post
                  We also do a Tuesday night trivia. We have been packing our small pub with trivia players every Tuesday for almost 6 years. Our trivia night consists of 7 rounds of 5 questions shown on a power point presentation via a laptop and projector. We even have a loud speaker to play sound questions. Our place starts to get busy with trivia players sometimes as early as 3:00 (trivia starts at 7:00 and ends around 9:00). A lot of time and effort goes into trivia, but it’s totally worth it.

                  Mickey Mahoney

                  MickDuff's Brewing Co.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Old thread, but here goes

                    Helps we have an owner with a really nice telescope but we've been having astronomy nights where everyone gets to look at a cool astronomical happening through his telescope. So far we've had a 3/4 eclipse of the sun and another night where the moons of Jupiter all cast their shadows on the surface. We usually get quite a few folks here for it.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Junkyard View Post
                      Old thread, but here goes

                      Helps we have an owner with a really nice telescope but we've been having astronomy nights where everyone gets to look at a cool astronomical happening through his telescope. So far we've had a 3/4 eclipse of the sun and another night where the moons of Jupiter all cast their shadows on the surface. We usually get quite a few folks here for it.
                      That is RAD.

                      This year was our second winter, and learning from last year we brewed our asses off through the summer to fill up a lot of specialty barrel fermented beers, and other small batch stuff that we hung onto. Starting in January we started doing releases every single weekend. This past february rivaled a decent fall month. Worked great!

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