Do Quality Checks & Education Connect with Consumers?

Bret Kollmann Baker​ believes that ​​transparency ​in a brewery’s quality practices ​won​’​t necessarily ​attract customers, but it will help retain them.

​”We have, and will continue to have, a “lines cleaned on: XX/XX/XXXX; by YYYY ZZZZ” on our draft list in the taproom,” said Urban Artifact‘s Chief of Brewing Operations.

The Cincinnati brewery updates its cleaning board biweekly, he added.

“The ‘lines cleaned on’ message we have on our draft board is a huge bonus for people who come in,” Kollman Baker said. He added that consumers could come in and say things like, ‘I love the beers, we are so happy to be here. Oh! And you just cleaned them three days ago, that is amazing! That is great you put so much care into your product and customer experience.’

“Obviously, that is a bit … paraphrased and people don’t really talk like that but we get responses and conversations like that regularly,” he said.

In addition to social posts depicting scenes of everyday life around the brewery, much of Bonfire Brewing‘s consumer-facing education comes from its beertenders.

“We place a heavy focus on staff training, and all of our bar staff is proud that their knowledge and expertise extends beyond simply pouring a beer and running a register,” said co-owner Amanda Jessen. “After just a few months on the job, most of our beertenders have assisted with line cleaning regularly, have participated in tasting panels and off-flavor analysis, and have even shadowed our brewers and participated in the brewing process.

“We’ve found great success with this kind of integration across the different areas of our company, resulting in staff that is able to thoroughly answer questions from customers, and quickly detect any quality issues that may arise.”

The Eagle, Colorado has worked on being committed to transparency from Day 1.

“[It’s] through our voice in social posts and other media, internal company philosophy, and involvement in our community,” Jessen said. “We actually hear very little from customers regarding suspicion or questions about quality, and I believe this is directly related to the efforts we’ve made to build trust among our customers.”