5 Signs of a Solid Craft Beer Bar
With consumer options for beer bars expanding all the time, how does your establishment stand out from the crowd? Having good beer and possibly food are obvious choices but you also want people to know your bar isn’t just another attempt to make money on the craft beer revolution. So let’s look at 5 simple ways you can show off the thought you’ve put into it.
Local Options
Serving beer that is brewed locally shows your consumer’s two important things. You support the community by putting your buying power behind local breweries. And having beer delivered from breweries in your state versus across the country guarantees more freshness. You could argue that folks want to try beer from other parts of the country they don’t normally have access to. But you should still keep a portion of your tap list dedicated to drinking local.
Quality Not Quantity
Trumpeting the fact that you have more than 100 taps is a great marketing play but you run the risk of confusing your customers. It’s naturally going to take longer for someone to make a decision when they’re browsing pages of a beer list. Your bartenders will also struggle to stay up to date on the selling points of each beer when the variety is huge and ever changing. Loyal craft beer drinkers will respond well to a bar that has a thoughtful tap list that their servers know inside and out. And loyalty is what you want in a customer.
Beer Savvy Bartenders
Whether a new drinker of craft beer or a seasoned whale seeker is asking questions about your tap list, the last thing you need is a bartender that doesn’t have an answer. For the new guy looking for something like a Budweiser, serving them an imperial IPA hop bomb will send them out the door never to return. For the hardcore hop head, suggesting a bourbon barrel aged stout when they want a crisp sessionable brew will result in scathing reviews online. Make sure your servers know their stuff.
Strong Glassware Game
While you could serve every beer into a standard pint glass, utilizing glassware constructed for particular styles of beer lets people know yours is a beer-savvy bar. Plus it’s an easy way to make the experience for your customer more interesting and likely to generate a return visit. Everyone has had a beer in a pint glass. But if your server delivers that beer in an elegant snifter and explains why this glass is ideal for the barley wine ordered, you’ll impress the beer geeks and newbies alike.
Social Media Up To Snuff
If someone visits your Facebook or Twitter page and nothing has been posted in weeks or sees a litany of posts with questions from consumers and no replies from you, they may think twice about coming in. Being active on social media shows people you’re engaged with your customers which is a natural extension of how you treat them in the real world. If you can’t find the time to keep up with this side of your business, consider TapHunter. One of its many features is tap list updates that automatically post to your social platforms. So you can keep working the bar and half the social media equation can run with the click of a button.
