A local beer week can be a boon to your brewery’s local market and help raise awareness of breweries in your area. But there is a load of work to undertake before success can happen.
Christina Dowd of Philly Loves Beer feels it takes a core group of breweries, distributors and bar owners along with a group of amazing volunteers to dedicate hours to organize and pull off a successful beer week in a local area at the start until there is enough ‘steam and recognition behind it’ that they are ready to hire a full-time executive director.
“Organizing the marquis or namesake events are what separate beer weeks from festivals or other brewery branded events,” she explained to Brewer recently. “It is the collaboration that keeps the industry and consumers interested.”
The Philly Beer Week, going on since 2008 and scheduled for May 29 through June 8 this year, now has Dowd at the helm. Yet, that wasn’t the case at the start and it has built itself through the years because of previous people that helped elevate the status for the city and its consumers to support it.
Dowd said a local area needs to find a group that is motivated and has the resources to dedicate to its success.
“Create events that appeal to everyone, from the super beer geek to the beer curious,” she said. “No one should feel like they can’t attend a brewer lunch or dinner because they don’t know enough or know too much.
“It’s beer, it tastes great and we should have fun while talking about it and experiencing it.”
She added that there is always the challenge to keep growing and appealing to new audiences.
“Events need to be fun, inclusive and approachable,” Dowd said
Balance is key in figuring out what works. Dowd explains that when holding an event, give it a checklist to meet three criteria: engage, entertain and educate.
“The beer-drinking consumer is not a homogenous audience and the events should reflect that,” she noted. “Talking about cutting-edge technology for quality assurance will appeal to some consumers and industry folk, as will exploring different styles of beer and pairing them with great food.
“Inclusion is key and that means very little barrier to entry as in no need for prior knowledge but if you do understand the difference between yeast strains, good — hopefully you can add to the conversation.”
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