What Benefits Does a Beer Calendar Provide?

Planning for the future means planning for success. For many breweries, that means hammering out a yearly beer portfolio calendar. For many, that means a list of year-rounds along with seasonals, planned one-offs, and specialties.

“The calendar really keeps us all working in concert,” said Marc Jalbert, the Director of Marketing & Sales for Dust Bowl Brewing. “It’s an important internal business tool, but it’s also vital for our wholesalers to understand our portfolio and the timing of our limited releases.

“Our distributors look at the calendars to help balance their own portfolio of multiple brands and determine their order needs with us.”

For Ecliptic Brewing, the brew and packaging teams can stay on track because they know what is next and when it is being released added Sales Manager Erin Grey Kemplin. “Sales is one step ahead on their pitch.

“A plan also allows sales to pitch across the calendar when our lead may not be the right fit. It is also a visual that helps marketing get the word out about what we are doing for the year.”

The calendar helps breweries like Ecliptic build a plan and stay on track during the year.

The Portland, Oregon brewery has its calendar posted on its internal Tool Kit and its Distributor Drive. Kemplin also said they send the most updated calendar out with each New Beer release email. The sales team delivers them daily during account calls and they have an amended one on the brewery’s website as well and many consumers anticipate these calendars also.

The calendars are available digitally to both Dust Bowl staff and customers. In light of the Turlock, California brewery’s staff all working remotely during the pandemic, the calendar really has proven itself to be a vital tool.

“Without the face-to-face meetings and interaction, each department can easily share our plan and gain support from our wholesalers and retailers so that together we maximize sales seamlessly,” Jalbert said.

He also added that the brewery utilizes it to determine ingredient needs and critical production scheduling while the marketing team relies on the calendar to anticipate and execute design and packaging needs to support the sales department with timely marketing materials.

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