
Behind The Bar: Defeat the Doldrums
Winter has come. Across much of the North America, the post-holidays lull can be devastating to hospitality-focused businesses that aren’t prepared. Here are some strategies to survive until spring.
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Winter has come. Across much of the North America, the post-holidays lull can be devastating to hospitality-focused businesses that aren’t prepared. Here are some strategies to survive until spring.

With rents increasing and sales growth slowing, keeping costs in check can make or break a brewing business.

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.

The old tech of the oak barrel still works beautifully in the brewery—but it does need a nice, solid thwack with the mallet now and then. Brewers are already janitors, plumbers, and microbiologists, among other things. Might as well add coopers to the list.

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.

An economist for the industry group for more than a decade, Watson steps into the lead role upon the retirement of Bob Pease.

Brewer’s Gold established the viability of hybrid hops, and its offspring include some of modern brewing’s biggest aroma stars. Don’t call it a comeback, but Russian River is exploring what it may contribute today.

Getting label approval for beers that include certain ingredients should be a simpler process after the addition of two dozen items to a list of those exempt from formula requirements.

Amid the enduring popularity of soft, pale, hazy IPAs, maltsters have worked to develop wheat malts specifically meant to fit the (grain) bill. Here are two examples, with insights from brewers who use them.

Understanding the cost of wages and benefits is more important than ever. The balance is in finding creative ways to keep them steady while ensuring that employees feel valued.

What do changes in the beer market and drinking habits portend for one of the most creative and influential beer-producing countries? These data points from the Belgian Brewers industry group provide an eye-opening glimpse.

Born of companionship, curiosity, and confident risk-taking, this soulful North Carolina brewery continues to explore new creative interests while growing deeper roots in its community.

By taking some new approaches to pairing beer and food, we can energize the craft-brewing scene and create the kinds of experiences that keep people coming back for more.

It’s rough out there—even for young, freshly developed hop cultivars. Yet while many brewers are buying fewer hops these days, the Help Wanted sign is still out for new ones.

These self-described “coyotes” are always on the hunt for the next improvement and next opportunity—a drive that’s led them to medals, expansion, and the flavorful grounds beyond beer.

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?

When it comes to malt these days, brewers are spoiled for choice—and yet maltsters continue to try new things, working to release products that satisfy modern brewhouse demands … and, maybe, find a place in your next recipe.

Not every brand can be a hit. Even at the most successful breweries, classics must make way for new chart-toppers. Here, we chart New Belgium’s brands as they’ve appeared among the top 25 craft beers annually since 2020, as the Voodoo Ranger line has ascended.

Brewers share strategies for reducing costs on craft beer’s most competitive style.

In hard seltzers and other FMBs, sulfur as an off-flavor can be an even smellier obstacle than it is in beer. Here’s how to avoid it.