The Best Brewery Guides and Tips

Opening a brewery can be one of the hardest yet most fulfilling challenges. Starting a business requires moving many pieces and making many decisions. A small sample might include: writing a business plan, designing the perfect brewery logo, finding great beer names, pricing your beer properly, learning how to run a successful Instagram, and so much more.

Honestly, the list goes on and on.

But once you’ve established your business, one of the core components will be building a great team around you. Hiring competent staff that understands your mission, policies, and procedures will directly contribute to the success of your company culture and your company as a whole.

Your employees reflect you and your business, so you want to make sure that you hire the right person for the job.

But how?

It all starts with asking the right questions.

Photography courtesy of Fullsteam Brewery

The 11 Best Brewery Interview Questions to Ask

Like with any hospitality job—be it in food service or in the taproom—turnover can be common. To ensure you have the best opportunity for operations to run smoothly, investing in the right people will be crucial. You want to find folks who are the right fit for your establishment. Ones who are excited to be at work, who understand your culture, and who look forward to coming to work every day (or at least most days).

While the interviewing process can be exhaustive, asking the right questions can help you find the right person for your team. This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list. Everyone has their opinion on the best questions to ask, but these top eleven will at least give you a foundation. From here, build out your list to suit your own brewery’s goals and vision.

Pick the ones relevant to you from the list below to help guide you through a more genuine and conscientious interview.

For a brewery owner, crafting the right interview questionnaire and strategy will give you the best chance at finding the right candidate to join your team.

This has been a hot year for hops. Who are we kidding? Hops have been hot for decades now. This year in particular our friends at Hop Culture have already covered “The 5 Hottest Hops of 2022, According to an Expert” and “The Four Hottest Hop Trends.” So maybe it’s time to cool things down. One of the newer trends in the hop-forward IPA category is Cold IPAs.

First pioneered by Wayfinder Beer in Portland, OR, Cold IPAs have popped up in the portfolios of revered breweries all across the country. For instance, WeldWerks Brewing Co., Necromancer Brewing, Reuben’s Brews, Alvarado Street Brewery, Great Notion Brewing, and so many more.

But what exactly is a Cold IPA? Why are brewers so hot on them? And why should you even care?

According to “Untappd’s Top Ten Styles of 2021”, IPA – American, IPA – New England, and IPA – Double / Imperial nailed down the top three spots with a whopping combined 17.5 million check-ins last year. Quite simply: craft beer consumers love IPAs.

But drinkers are constantly looking for something new, innovative, and different.

A Cold IPA ticks all those boxes. Which is why you should consider learning more about them and potentially adding one to your portfolio.

For ages now it seems like hard seltzer has been hot. Every year sales for cans of alcoholic fizz bubbled over the top.

But is that very same bubble about to burst?

Normally, summer signals the season of seltzer. Last year, analysts predicted that over the warmer months hard seltzer would dominate. And in all fairness everyone had a reason to be sunny.

Up to that point, the U.S. hard seltzer market was valued at over $4 billion according to data from Nielsen IQ. And while for comparison beer is an almost $88 billion market, it’s the growth pace of hard seltzer that has caused so much optimism.

For the last half-decade or so, hard seltzer grew exponentially. According to data from Nielsen, the category accelerated 226% in 2019 and 165% in 2020.

For that reason, every big (and small) beverage business and brewery (and their mother, brother, sister, and cousin) have attempted to cash in on the carbonation.

Brands like The Boston Beer Company (who makes Truly), Mark Anthony Group (White Claw), Constellation Brands (Corona Hard Seltzer), MolsonCoors (Vizzy), Coca-Cola (Topo Chico Hard Seltzer), and more.

Plus, many neighborhood craft breweries and brands, including New Belgium, Cigar City, Roadhouse Brewing Co., Evil Twin, and Mighty Swell, started putting out their own craft spin.

But in 2021, the numbers showed a different story. Hard seltzer grew only sixteen percent last year, according to data from Nielsen.

In fact, Data from Bloomberg Intelligence showed that hard seltzer sales slowed to about thirty percent by July 2021, down from 165 percent in 2020.

Have we had our fill of fizz? Why are seltzer sales falling flat?

We dug into the “check-in” courtesy of Untappd Insights and chatted with Bart Wilson, Chief Economist at the Brewer Association to find out if hard seltzer is truly fizzing out or if the segment is poised to return with a big splash this summer.

By now, we’ve all heard about food trucks—and more specifically, we’ve probably stood in line for one. Not only do food trucks provide a unique, mobile, culinary experience, but they are an effective way to reel in customers as part of your weekly or daily food options, especially if you don’t have your own on-site kitchen.

But where to start?

Approach booking a food truck just as you would planning a party. You will need to consider variables like cuisine, where to have catering set up, and number of guests.

Read on to learn everything about booking the right food truck.

Today, it seems like everywhere we turn we see dogs in new places.  We see them accompanying their owners into stores, work, coffee shops, airplanes, and everywhere in between. In an age where you can bring Fido just about anywhere, what does that mean for businesses, like breweries, looking to make their taproom more dog friendly?

Many breweries have taken simple steps to make their taprooms more dog friendly. There are a few obvious ideas. For example, setting out treats and water bowls. But if you’re a brewery owner, how can you take it to the next level, creating a comfortable place for both people and their dogs that meets regulations and standards?

Looking for more ways to cater to your customers and their pets?

We’ve got the 411 for your furry friends.

As of April 2022, the Brewers Association recorded a record number 9,118 breweries operating in the United States. In such a crowded marketplace, how can you make your establishment stand out from the crowd? Sure, you can opt for traditional print or digital marketing. And social media should certainly be an essential part of your marketing strategy. But what are those one or two tips and tricks you can use to push your taproom ahead?

If you’re looking for a new, creative way to potentially drive extra foot traffic into your space. It might be easier than you think. Creating a clever or memorable sign can give your bar or brewery a distinct advantage over other businesses in the area.

Witty or humorous signs immediately establish a connection with potential customers. Plus, it leaves a memorable impression in patrons’ minds. And it’s an instant Instagrammable moment that people can post, helping you virally market your business for free!

Below you’ll find a list of 36 witty, funny ideas for bar signs to help increase foot traffic into your bar or brewery. Consider hanging these phrases up around your taproom, writing them on a chalkboard, or setting them out as their own sign on the sidewalk.

Use these clever repartees to draw potential customers in to drink, entice new patrons to check out your place, or as a way to directly increase your sales.

You shouldn’t use all of these ideas. This is more of a find-the-right-fit approach…quality over quantity. Take some time to comb through all the ideas, finding one that fits with your brand and your personal identity.

But once you find that buzzword, go to town discovering new ways to get this message out to your community, attracting new customers, and hopefully garner some free attention on social media.

For centuries, bars and taverns have been a gathering place where folks from all walks of life can gather and bond over a pint any time of the day. And today, you can add taprooms to that list of gathering spaces. There are many times you can count on your bar or taproom being a little busier, like on payday or during happy hour. But what about the days when business tends to be a little slow? How can you continue to drive traffic to your establishment during those off-peak hours of the week?

To cultivate customers, you must give them a reason to stop by any day, whether it’s a Tuesday afternoon or a Friday night.

If you’re a bar owner struggling to find creative ways to drive customers in the door, keep reading.

Promoting your bar doesn’t have to be complicated. Keep it simple by following these fresh takes on increasing foot traffic to your bar.

We’ll make this simple: If you serve food, you will most likely sell more beer. Adding a food menu to your brewery or bar program has many advantages. It creates a reason for people to stay and order more beers; it increases your revenue; it brings new customers into your space; it gives folks more reason to love your brand.

Sure, we understand that building a bar menu means tackling a whole new beast, paying for a food service license, planning for food cost, and investing in the labor and equipment necessary to operate a kitchen.

But the perks are worth the potential problems.

“If you do sell food as a brewery, you will also sell more beer,” says Tim McLaughlin, founder of GoTab, a revolutionary contactless ordering and payment web service that recently launched an all-in-one restaurant point-of-sale system. “We’ve worked with breweries that have done studies, and every single one finds they sell more beer when they sell food.”

If you do not sell food, now is the time to consider adding dishes to your menu. Fittingly, we have all the details you need to design the best bar menu.

And once you have your bar menu mapped out, Untappd for Business is the ultimate tool to build a menu for your establishment that you can publish to your website, digital menus, Facebook, and the Untappd app. Leveraging QR codes and well-designed custom contactless print and digital menus helps you create a safe environment for your customers and staff.

Over the last half decade, Instagram has become the social platform of the beer industry. Consumers have created their own craft beer subculture where top influencers have thrived. For breweries, posting gorgeous beer shots and announcing releases have become crucial to their marketing strategy.

With over 9,000 breweries around the country, it’s imperative to find a way to make your brewery, bar, or restaurant stand out. Cultivating a current, consistently updated Instagram profile is imperative to reach your target audience.

But where do you start?

For example, how many times a week should you post? What time should you post? What should you post? What about those “hashtags?” Should I hire a social media manager? And how about Instagram influencers? We’re breaking it all down and more to tap into what makes people double-tap.

Here is a beginner’s guide with all the basics to help you build a foundation for the best Instagram account for your business.