How to Make Your Brewery Seem Lager Than Life

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as a great brewery. The food, the beer, the atmosphere. Breweries are a fun place to spend some time and relax with the people you love most. But you already know this: you own or operate a brewery! 

While you pour your heart into everything you do, you may be wondering how to market your brewery more effectively. What can you do to gain attention and increase traffic to your location? 

Don’t worry - you’re not the only one with this question. We’ve put together a few of our top brewery marketing tips to help improve the brewery experience and earn more customers. The best part is –  you can incorporate one or all of these tips today!

5 Smart Brewery Marketing Tips to Try This Year

Whether you’re a new brewery or an established brew house trying to draw new customers, these five smart marketing tips will meet the mark:

Collaborations can attract additional eyes to your beer and help establish authority in the space.

But don’t take our word for it – a ton of major breweries have already done this successfully. Look no further than Vrieden, the New Belgium + Allagash partnership. Other examples include Cigar City + The Bruery collab, or Sierra Nevada’s collaboration with 3 Floyds, Bell’s, Ninkasi, and Weihenstephaner, among many others.

While those are major beer collaborations, smaller collaborations tend to begin socially. One brewery tosses out an idea for a project and another brewery bites. From there, it’s a fun, creative, informal process that results in truly unique recipes.

Along with making great beer, partnering with another brewery allows you to reach an entirely new customer base and market. Mortalis Brewing in Western NY collabs with breweries in Florida, Michigan, and even North Dakota.

To find other breweries to collaborate with, look no further than your local brewers or your brewer network. It’s a small world and you want to find someone who is like-minded, committed to creativity, and – of course – dedicated to making great beer!

Most breweries don’t have kitchens and if you’re slinging beer, you want to provide customers with something to eat. 

If you don’t have your own kitchen, partner with a local food truck (or a selection of food trucks) to set up shop at your brewery a few days a week or on a particular day. 

Port City Brewing Company, just outside of D.C. is famous for offering a mouth-watering selection of food-truck pop-ups, from Rocklands BBQ to Borinquen Lunch Box. Widowmaker Brewing in Boston, MA not only has food trucks that come out weekly, they also coordinate beer releases with those days.

People view breweries as cool places to hang out, have a cold beer, and grab some grub. Offering creative fare will set you apart and like the collabs, you get two for one marketing! 

Untapp’d is a unique app that allows beer lovers to discover and share their favorite beers, breweries, or venues. Users can check in, rate beer, find nearby popular bars and breweries, and more. 

As a brewery owner, Untapp’d allows you to easily share your beer menus, maximize online visibility, create, and share contactless menus with easy-to-use QR codes, publish directly to Twitter and Facebook, and access analytics to make data-driven decisions about your marketing. 

Untapp’d is also a fantastic word-of-mouth tool used by beer lovers all over the world. Think about it. A potential customer arrives in town and checks to see what must-have beers are nearby. They see people love your brewery and immediately add it to their list of things to do. Easy right?

Many breweries display Untapp’d ratings right in the brewery while others simply add signage encouraging customers to rate their beer.

The bottom line is asking customers to rate their favorite beers can help build notoriety and drive word of mouth. Claim your brewery listing now! 

Whenever possible, see if you can sponsor or participate in local events. Festivals, farmers’ markets, outdoor shows, and fundraisers often hire breweries and food trucks to provide meals and refreshments for attendees. 

When it comes to which events to participate in, the options are virtually endless. If you prefer something a bit more brew-focused, explore exhibiting in a beer expo like the famous Rochester Real Beer Expo. Alternately, breweries around the country have started to band together to hold their own beer-centric festivals and pop-ups, which are excellent opportunities to gain notoriety. 

In addition to getting new eyes on your brand, participating in local events is a perfect way to become enmeshed in your community and attract new customers to your physical location. 

Fact: people LOVE free stuff. If you’re trying to get the word out there about your brewery, or pitch your new brew, consider creating and giving away some freebies for your customers. 

Things like free brewery stickers, koozies, t-shirts, hats, and other swag are all great ways to thank your customers for their patronage. Just like that your logo becomes a billboard advertising your brewery everywhere!

Other, more creative options can also work. We love how Thin Man Brewery in Buffalo, NY gave away a mouthwatering, three-course dinner along with a beer to wash down each course. 

Harpoon Brewery, meanwhile, got super creative and partnered with Reebok to create and give away what they call a “limited edition Rec. League pack.” The pack includes cans complete with the Reebok logo and 12-pack of their beer, complete with packaging that mimics the classic Reebok sneaker box design! 

The moral of the story? There’s no limit to how creative your giveaways can be. 

Improve Your Brewery Experience with Stomp

You’ve worked hard to create an incredible brewery experience, and now it’s time to spread the word and get your name out there. These five simple brewery marketing tips will pave the way. 

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