
CiderCon 2025 is next week in Chicago (February 4-7) as cidery professionals like yourself from across the country will gather to share information and strategies in making their businesses better.
Brewer will be covering the event and sharing business insights from the event each week after. Here are some of the seminars we feel are paramount to take in while in Chicago for CiderCon 25.
Modern Sales Playbook To Sell More Cider
Ben Salisbury is a consultant for the wine and spirits industry with over four decades in sales and marketing strategy. This session, he tells Brewer, will provide new and “modern” strategies cider brands can use to compete and win when the stakes are high. There are four critical things attendees will take away from his seminar, he said.
“The selling environment has dramatically changed in the last five or six years,” Salisbury said. “Much of what used to work no longer works (or works as well) when it comes to selling cider. Yes, far more cideries are operating today than five years ago, but that is only part of the problem. Cideries also must compete for attention with wineries, distilleries, and craft breweries.
“The bottom line is that the sales landscape is more crowded and competitive than ever before, and to sell more cider, you must first accept that things have changed. This might not seem like much of a ‘takeaway,’ but most cideries operate as if nothing has changed, and I plan to provide a cold, stiff shot of ‘reality.'”
He also will share the three top strategies every cidery must employ in 2025 to achieve its sales goals profitably.
“These three strategies, applied deftly, are game-changers,” he said. “I plan to slowly and meticulously ‘unpack’ these three strategies, and this is where I’ll spend the bulk of my presentation time.”
He will briefly discuss the three primary traps most cideries fall into and, more importantly, how to avoid them while also giving three key action steps that every attendee can begin implementing immediately. Salisbury plans to allocate a reasonable amount of time for Q&A as well.
“Because, for many in attendance, this will be the first time they’ve heard these ideas and concepts,” he said. “I want this section of my presentation to be highly interactive with the audience.”
Buzz vs. Brains: Can Education Boost Cider Sales?
It’s one of the most timely debates in the beverage industry: education versus entertainment. Are today’s consumers more drawn to fun, immersive experiences, or does educational content about products still hold value?
With the rise of non-alcoholic options, health-conscious trends, and shifting preferences among millennials, this conversation will explore how to balance “buzz” with “brains” to meet evolving customer demands.
“We want to believe customers genuinely care about the crafted products they enjoy, and we know the setting matters,” explained Jana Daisy-Ensign, the Marketing Director for the Northwest Cider Association said that attendees can expect practical takeaways as the panelists discuss the value of product origin stories, venue experiences, quality content, and how these factors influence sales.
Joining Daisy-Ensign are Em Sauter of Pints and Panels, Aneel de Albuquerque of Charleston Wine + Food, and wine expert Rachael Lowe, National Director of Beverage at Levy Restaurants, who bring diverse insights into consumer behavior, marketing strategies, and the art of storytelling in cider sales.
Using Data to Level Up Your Taproom
Information is vital to survival and speaker Aaron Gore, who recently announced is the new VP of Sales & Marketing for Beer30, tells Brewer that one of the hardest things about a passionate industry like cider is that for all of the love and craftsmanship that goes into it, you have to keep the lights on above all else.
“I’m excited to share with cideries from all of the country some of the ways that they can use the information they already have available to make decisions possible, instead of just educated guesswork,” he said. “That lets their business be more successful and more efficient, so that they can get back to the passion and people that made them get into this industry in the first place.”
Learning how to use that information simply and effectively to take advantage of opportunities from your taproom all the way to your production space or distribution is the difference between surviving and thriving in an increasingly competitive industry.
Gore said he will dig into point of sale systems — something every tasting room already has — and dive into how it can not only inform decisions in your own space, but also in production schedule, inventory planning, sales, and marketing.
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Business Planning for New Cideries
Brent Miles-Wagner, who is the owner of Brown Hat Consulting, which he started in 2019 after being the former Head Cidermarker for Sly Clyde Ciderworks and the founding Head Cidermaker at Seattle Cider, will provide an expert resource for new and expanding cider companies. Attendees will learn about business plans and how they can be used effectively not only by cideries-in-planning but also by existing companies.
“Besides making the case for why I think business planning is valuable, my hope is that attendees will learn how to think critically and creatively about their overall business model and incorporate that into their business plans,” Miles-Wagner told Brewer. “I will also present a framework for writing the business plan itself and will go over key parts of the various sections.
“The goal is that someone can use the presentation as a reference for when they write a business plan, whether for a new cidery or a cidery going through expansion or diversification.”
The presentation will discuss several styles of business plans, from formal business plans to less formal business model canvases, and will cover key things to consider when thinking about why and how to write a business plan, equipping attendees to begin working on their own.
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