Tap Into the Business of Craft Beer

business of craft beer

There is no denying that the US craft beer industry has been experiencing some phenomenal growth in recent years, and the signs of the expansion are becoming harder and harder to ignore. Micro-brewery establishments continue to open up across the country, while craft beers seem ...

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Jeff Warriner

Tap Into the Business of Craft Beer

Tap Into the Business of Craft Beer

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business of craft beer

There is no denying that the US craft beer industry has been experiencing some phenomenal growth in recent years, and the signs of the expansion are becoming harder and harder to ignore. Micro-brewery establishments continue to open up across the country, while craft beers seem to be finding their way onto the beverage shelves of … Read more

New Evergreen Features

New Evergreen Features

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New Evergreen Features

Today we’re releasing some very exciting updates to our beer management software — On Deck Lists, Multiple Bar Lists and Multiple List Printing.   On Deck Lists Do you want to prepare your menu for that Dogfish Head Tap Takeover on Thursday? Now you can create a new On Deck List specific to the event … Read more

The Business of Beer with Greg Koch CEO & Co-Founder of Stone Brewing Co.

The Business of Beer with Greg Koch CEO & Co-Founder of Stone Brewing Co.

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Greg Koch

Evergreen Podcasts, Episode 1: Greg Koch, CEO & Co-Founder of Stone Brewing Co, expresses his passion for craft beer in this very unique podcast interview with a luminary figure in the industry. Andy “The Beerman” Coppock kicks off The Business of Beer podcast series here on Evergreen Radio with an interview with Greg Koch, CEO … Read more

Highlight Local Beers on Your Print Menu

Highlight Local Beers on Your Print Menu

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Beer on Your Print Menu

At Tuesday’s fantastic San Diego Craft Beer Hospitality & Tourism Economic Summit many calls were made to the audience by the speakers and panelists to do whatever is within their power to help promote local craft beer. One of the examples that Greg Koch threw out really struck a chord with us here at Evergreen: for bars or restaurants to highlight local beers on their printed beer list.

We want to ensure that we are doing everything in our power to promote local craft beer. After all our local San Diego brewers’ sales topped $781 million last year. For a full economic analysis of the San Diego Craft Beer Workforce published by the National University System Institute for Policy Research click here.

Since print menus are just one of the many things the Evergreen platform powers for over 100 San Diego bars and restaurants and hundreds of others across the US, we saw a way for us to make an immediate impact by empowering local businesses to heed the call with simply the click of a button.

So yesterday we launched the “highlight local beers” option for our printed tap and bottle menus. Our customers can select from one of 6 different ways they want local beers to be featured, save their settings, and print; our system handles the rest.

Evergreen Dashboard - Print Your Menu

Looking to create an even bigger distinction between local beers and the rest of your lineup? Just use our custom categories to push the local beers to the top. Here’s an example of how Sublime Alehouse is doing just that on their printed menus.

sublime.pdf

So go forth and highlight those local offerings. Your customers will try more local beer and that means everybody; the customer, the businesses, and the local community; will win.

Sign your bar up for Evergreen today – GET A FREE TRIAL 

Need an Excuse to Drink Beer on Valentines Day?

Need an Excuse to Drink Beer on Valentines Day?

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Valentine’s Day has always been the perfect excuse to ignore those New Year’s resolutions and eat lots of chocolate. But why not make it the perfect excuse to drink beer as well?

With this “Best Beer and Chocolate Pairings List” you can do just that. And who doesn’t love a good excuse to drink beer?

These pairings were discovered by Jeff Mendel, a craft beer veteran, and published in his article “Beer and Chocolate’s Not-So-Secret Love Affair.” For the full article click here.

Best Beer and Chocolate Pairings

  • Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro | Left Hand Milk Stout Chocolate Mousse Cupcake

 

  • Avery Hog Heaven Barleywine | Pecan Tart

 

  • Left Hand Good Juju Ginger Ale | Honey Lemon Tart

 

  • West Flanders Woodshed Smoked Porter | 64% Dark Chocolate Liquid Salted Caramel Truffle

 

  • Sierra Nevada Kellerweiss | Lemon Tart

 

  • Avery Tweak Espresso Imperial Stout | Hazelnut Espresso Shortbread topped with a Hazelnut Ganache

 

  • Upslope Foreign Style Stout | an Espresso Truffle

 

Thanks Jeff! We will all enjoy testing these pairings out for ourselves on Valentine’s Day!

Tips to Create a More Profitable Bar and Beer Program

Tips to Create a More Profitable Bar and Beer Program

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Read these 5 quick tips on how to create a more profitable bar and beer program!

1. Sell More Craft Beer

While craft beer may have a higher acquisition cost than traditional macro beer, the profit margins are considerably higher. Craft beer typically sells for $2-3 more per pint than mass market beer. With roughly 120 pints per 15.5 gallon keg, you can make an additional $200-300 per keg.

2. Save Time and Money

In our experience, as well as the bar managers we have spoken to, you can spend upwards of 3-5 hours per week updating your beer lists. Between updating print menus, your website, and social media, that time really adds up. If you could save 50-75% of that time, why wouldn’t you?

3. Educate

With the additional time savings, you can more effectively educate your staff and customer base about the finer points of craft beer. A staff that can describe different beers and their styles properly will sell more beer. A customer base that understands the differences between mass market beer and craft will drink better (and more profitable) beer.

4. Craft Beer-Focused Promotions

Focus on promoting your craft beer program: tap takeovers, beer dinners, and meet the local brewer events will all drive consumers into your location. Local brewers and distributors are more than willing to invest their time to help you sell more product.

5. Get Evergreen

With a database of over 40,000 craft beers, 115,000 downloads of our app, and 65,000 monthly visitors to our website, our reach can really help you promote to the craft beer fans out there. Our easy-to-use platform can combine your web menus, print menus, on deck list, Facebook and Twitter updates into a simple, easy to use, all-in-one solution.

In addition, we also can help you design and implement digital beer boards using your existing TVs. Don’t just take my word for it, see what our clients say.

Barrel Aged: Our First Barrel Aged Cocktails

Barrel Aged: Our First Barrel Aged Cocktails

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barrel aged

More and more bars are seeing the value in offering “house made” ingredients in their cocktails, from syrups, bitters and tinctures to fresh juices. Barrel aging can be another way to customize your ingredients and make your cocktails unique to your bar.

You can age full cocktails right in the barrel or create new base spirits that you can use in a handful of different drinks. Thanks to our friends over at Deep South Barrels our team has been experimenting with “office aged” cocktails.

Here’s the results of our first 3 batches.

Manhattan

A classic cocktail with a new spin. We’d heard of a few places that have done a barrel aged Manhattan, including our neighbor Grant Grill at the US Grant Hotel, so this was a no-brainer first choice.

Recipe
– 3 parts bourbon
– 1 part sweet vermouth
– bitters to taste
Aged 75 days.

Results
The oak softens and rounds out the edges of the drink. Vanilla from the wood plays nicely with the spiciness of the bitters.

A bit of oxidation from the vermouth is present but isn’t off-putting. Overall this is a crowd pleaser.

Tequila with Coffee and Vanilla Bean

We started with silver tequila and added a fresh split vanilla bean and a small handful of crushed dark roast coffee beans. The goal here was a spirit that could be sipped like an añejo or used as a base for fall cocktails.

Recipe
– silver tequila
– split vanilla bean
– 5 crushed dark roast coffee beans
Aged 3 months

Results
The clear spirit picked up lots of color from the barrel and is now closer to reposado or añejo. Tons of vanilla on the nose.

Lots of oak and vanilla taste with a quick coffee hit on the back end. Nice for sipping but would be great in a Mexican hot chocolate, in a cocktail version of a horchata, or in a hot spiced apple cider with cinnamon.

“Bootlegged” Mark’s Bourbon Whiskey

Deep South Barrels has what they call “Bootleggers” which are additives that are meant to be mixed with a neutral grain spirit and then aged to create similar flavor profiles to big well known spirit brands. Can we make something that tastes like a certain bourbon brand out of cheap vodka? Let’s find out!

Recipe
– 100% grain neutral spirit (cheap vodka)
– Mark’s Bourbon Whiskey Essence
Aged 3 months…so far

Results
Based on side by side tasting results the bootlegger doesn’t have the body or mouthfeel of the bourbon. The bootlegger also still has a significantly hotter alcohol burn and sharpness. This bad boy still needs time to settle down. We’re going to leave it in the barrel and see what more time does to this one.

Overall we’ve had a blast doing our first batch of barrel aging and we’ve already got a new batch of ideas mellowing on oak right now. We highly recommend picking up a few barrels for your bar or home and experimenting on your own.

Top 5 Ways to Save Time and Sell More [WEBINAR]

Top 5 Ways to Save Time and Sell More [WEBINAR]

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Top 5 Ways to Save Time and Sell More [WEBINAR]

We all know that time is money. And we’ve heard that time is the most precious (and most wasted) commodity there is. Can we put a dollar value on our time? Even if we can’t monetize the value of time, we can all agree that, like money, time is something that can and should be saved.

Here are five easy hacks to save time, save money and make your bar or restaurant more efficient = SELL MORE!

[Webinar] Bar & Restaurant Hacks to Save You Time & Money

Our experts cover the top hacks busy bar and restaurant owners can use to save time and make more money.

Top Five Time-Saving Tips

  1. Use your calendar. Write down what you need to do and when you need to do it. Try using a single calendar for everything, personal and professional, so you can effectively budget your personal time as well. Get an effective calendar app for your smartphone, so you can link your office, personal and mobile calendars, there’s nothing worse than trying to manage 3 different calendars. By using 1 calendar for everything, I don’t make the mistake of scheduling a teeth cleaning when I’m supposed to doing a beer pairing.
  2. Stop Procrastinating. Most often we tend to put off the little things, allowing them to become big things over time. Dealing with things when they’re small saves time now and stress later. It’s much easier to deal with an employee issue now before it becomes a major problem.
  3. Learn to love routine. Have specific places for things and always use them. If your keys are always in the same place, you won’t waste time looking for them. Not only that, block certain times of the day for certain tasks. As a bar manager, when I know that I’m seeing vendors from 8:30 – 10:00 AM and 2:00 – 4:00 PM (and sticking to it) that allows me focus on other tasks. Routine doesn’t always speed things up, but it does make it easier to find things and get things done.
  4. Reduce multitasking. According to some researchers, multitasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%. How? By constantly switching between tasks you can easily lose focus and become more easily distracted. When you implement steps 1 and 3 you can maintain your focus on the task at hand. Set office hours for specific tasks.
  5. Eliminate repetitive tasks. Let’s use your beer program as an example. How often do you find yourself updating the same things on your website, print menus, digital menu board, Facebook, Google menu, etc.? Evergreen software lets you automate menu updates from one easy-to-use interface so you can save more time.

[LEARN MORE] HOW EVERGREEN TECH SAVES YOU TIME

Digital Beer Display – Future or Fad?

Digital Beer Display – Future or Fad?

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It seems more and more restaurants, bars, taprooms and brewery tasting rooms are jumping on the digital bandwagon with large format HDTV displays featuring their daily offerings. Is this the future for the industry? Will this be the death knell for the old fashioned, hand written chalkboard?

I’ve been in many taprooms and bars with poorly or sloppily written chalkboards and I’ve been to many that have gorgeous, artistic and creative boards. Many craft beer centric pubs and restaurants have a very DIY vibe with exposed beams, old relics and vintage signage and the chalkboard seems to be part of that “charm.”

A lot of places have a hip, tech type vibe with an almost industrial feel and the digital board seems to fit right in.

While the chalkboard will never really go away, there are numerous reasons why a digital display makes sense:

  • Sleek
  • Fits in with the existing TVs behind the bar and around the restaurant/bar/tasting room
  • Crisp, easy to read fonts (when done properly)
  • No more climbing up a ladder or standing on the bar to change beers
  • No more chalk covered hands (and clothing)

Digital displays also open up a host of questions:

  • Do I have to buy new equipment?
  • Do I have to contract with an A/V company?
  • Will the TVs I already have work?
  • How do I update my content?
  • How much is it going to cost me?
  • In a world of rapidly changing technology, which solution is best for my location?

We know that every location is different and both sides have their benefits and drawbacks. Unlike an analog chalkboard, a digital solution from Evergreen combines digital menu, online menu and print menu maintenance, social media and advanced data tools all into one easy to use interface.

I’d be happy to share what we’ve learned about making the digital transition and show you some examples. For more information, drop me a line: [email protected] or check out some examples here!

Andy Coppock

Business Development // Evergreen

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