Sales

Among the current shifts in beer packaging and design: going small for cans and ABV, leaning into flavor and line extensions, and getting nostalgic.

Last year was another tough one for beer sales, though there’s been a gap between retail and on-premise sales. Let's take a high-level look.

Distributor consolidation, competitive shelf sets, and beyond-beer beverages make a compelling case for external sales help. Here’s how to evaluate them against the in-house alternative.

It takes some extra attention to pricing and inventory, but some smaller breweries are finding that mixed packs can help energize to-go sales from the taproom.

What does it mean to generate consistent sales velocity? Here, wholesalers share what they wish breweries knew about it.

Whether through consolidation or layoffs, a brewery can lose its point of contact at a wholesaler. Here’s how to keep sales on track while strengthening your partnerships in the middle tier.

People are going out less often, generally, and brewery taprooms have had to get more creative to keep those beers pouring and margins healthy. Here are specific tips on how to entice customers out and make it worth their while.

IPAs are known crowd-pleasers, but what about that lighter style or passion project that somehow catches fire? Can your brewery capture that lightning in a bottle (or can, or keg) and reproduce the magic?

Successful breweries prioritize quality, from raw materials all the way to finished, packaged product. Yet even after your beer leaves the brewery grounds, there are ways to help ensure that people are enjoying the best possible version of it.

Amid wholesaler consolidation and a tightening market, could alternative distribution methods help small breweries achieve their goals?

Here’s how software for enterprise resource planning has helped breweries unlock previously invisible insights that can save money and grow sales.

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.

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.

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.

Much of the growth in convenience-store beer coolers is in the form of large, single-serve packages—but that doesn’t make the stovepipe a sure bet for all breweries.

The chief financial officer turned chief marketing officer at Chicago’s Revolution Brewing, known for dabbling in hot takes via his humorous social-media presence @beeraficionado, offers his perspective on the trends facing craft beer in 2023.

Make it fun for them: Amid rising costs and changing customer habits, there are untapped opportunities to pack them in and maximize sales with creative events and activities.

These demographic insights could help you please the fans you already have—and, potentially, win the ones you don’t have yet.

The pandemic streamlined the process of selling beer to accounts—and some of those changes are here to stay. While many embrace a return to in-person meetings, others prefer texts or online. To succeed today, sales reps need a more customized approach.

Pulling double-duty in terms of revenue and marketing, merchandise can be a lucrative source of extra cash for small breweries. Here are five strategies to sell swag that drinkers can’t wait to buy.