Competitive Edge
Good Beer Is Not Good Enough
I was in a town recently and drove by a vacant restaurant for lease, and as usual I thought to myself, “I could make that into a brewery.” Then I seriously started wondering if that still holds true anymore.
It used to be you opened a brewery, made some decent beer and people would flock to it. I don’t think that holds true anymore. Our industry is at a point now where there are enough of us, it just isn’t that special to go to a place just because they make their own beer. In my mind there has to be a better attraction other than making a slightly better IPA than the next guy.
If you are in a small town this may not be in an issue, but even a medium size town can have 4 breweries. Our Colorado Boy in Montrose, is now one of 4 breweries with another large one on the way. And Montrose only has 20,000 people!
In my way of thinking you now have to stand out from the crowd. You need to offer something no one else has and that can be in any number of ways.
Brew different kinds of beers than anyone else, like cask, lagers, Belgians, Sours. In other words, be known for a certain kind of beer.
If you serve food, be known for that type of food. We serve Neapolitan pizza and it’s damn good. I don’t care how many breweries are in our town, people will come for our pizza and then drink the excellent beer.
Have a really cool theme (your Oyster), like an airplane theme, cozy pub, game room, train theme, library theme lining the walls with books people can exchange, key into your local history, you get the idea.
Have a great outdoor experience with picnic tables, hiking trails, dog park, pickle ball courts.
Set your brewery up where you get input from customers so that some of your beers are actually designed by the people drinking it. That would attract a lot of customers bragging about the beer they had a hand in designing.
It could be something as simple as serving a wide variety of beers but in special glasses that fit the style of the beer like the Belgians do. Then it’s all about the presentation.
What I’m saying is, if you are planning on opening a brewery, first take the time to really think about what you can do that will be different from the competition. Most of the things I mentioned above - with the exception of the pickle ball courts - are really inexpensive compared to the overall cost of your brewery. You know that last idea of creating a whole smorgasbord of glassware is a pretty cool idea. I’m thinking Colorado Boy should do that one.
As always, I would love to hear what you are doing if you currently have a brewery that is open that differentiates yourself from your competition. There is a lot of creativity in our community. Please share!
