Kate Bernot

While many brewers love a well-made, Belgian-inspired saison—dry, refreshing, and great with all kinds of food—it can be a tough sell to North American drinkers. Yet the style has broad potential when breweries highlight the liquid’s virtues.

• Saison
• Sales
• Marketing

This bucolic Catawba Island brewery lures visitors with 63 acres of orchards and farmland—then turns them into loyal fans of its impeccable beer. Its next act? Acquiring another, distinctly less agrarian, brewery.

• Case Study
• Ohio
• Beer Tourism

Whether using whole fruit or purees, breweries benefit by estimating their needs in advance.

• Fruit
• Forecasting
• Raw Materials

Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, says it will require unique UPCs for each seasonal and variety pack—and other stores may follow suit. From the potential for packaging headaches to changing sales data, here’s what breweries need to know.

• UPCs
• Retail
• Packaging

Independent of state guilds and tourism boards, breweries are teaming up in creative ways to encourage multi-brewery visits.

• Beer Tourism
• Brewery Tourism
• Marketing

Simply having great beer is no longer enough, and on-site pie is a hit any way you slice it. Using pizza as a prism, here are three operational approaches to drawing more customers with food.

• Hospitality
• Kitchen
• Brewpub

Twisted or otherwise, hard tea can be made creatively at a small scale while appealing to a surprising range of customers. Here’s how a few small breweries are finding ways to make this drink work for their operations.

• Hard Tea
• Beyond Beer
• FMBs

With a tight focus on oak-aged beers inspired by Belgian lambic and gueuze, Lisa and Brandon Boldt are making their niche more convivial and approachable.

• Case Study
• Spontaneous Fermentation
• Lambic

New research and can-lining tech are expanding the options for beverages such as hard kombucha, canned cocktails, and more. Meanwhile, experts strongly urge brewers to test their cans thoroughly before releasing new drinks to market.

• Packaging
• Cans
• aTULC

Results of a burnout survey indicate beer industry pros are asking fundamental questions about their career paths, often feeling undervalued—and some are leaving it all behind.

• Burnout
• Human Resources
• Stress

With tighter competition, fewer wholesalers, and lower wholesaler interest, small breweries are looking for incremental ways to grow sales. That’s led to new models and some new opportunities—but there are no easy paths.

• Selling Beer
• Sales Strategies
• DTC

As damaging weather events become more common, breweries should consider whether investing in backup equipment now could help save money in the long term.

• Insurance
• Disaster Preparation
• Backup Generators