White Street Brewing saw an opportunity, and it paid off very well for the Wake Forest, North Carolina brewery.
In the summer of 2016, the brewery was asked to team with the city to create an event to bring people out and enjoy what the downtown area has to offer. Now, in its fourth year, Friday Night on White (FNOW) sees nearly 15,000 people milling around the brewery’s area six times each summer for music and food along with the brewery’s beer.
”We shut [the downtown] down six times a year,” said Will Haddock, White Street’s Marketing Manager.
As the event has grown, so has White Street. The logistics started out simply as the brewery purchased a delivery truck and made the back into a mobile jockey box with eight taps. After learning they needed more taps and more trucks, the brewery bought a fleet of three trucks with 10 taps each that serve just White Street beer along with a wine license for the day to give more people options.
”[We] just tell people to come out and enjoy the time,” said Jason Faulkner, Sales Manager. “It’s a very very cool community thing.”
White Street doesn’t put the event on as it is just one of the sponsors, and Faulkner said the brewery helps with the logistics of selling beer via tokens.
“It’s just a perfect marriage of what community and craft beer can do for one another,” Faulkner said. “It’s just something cool, and it’s about 12-15,000 people six times a year.”
Haddock said that the town had no experience with any sort of festival or alcohol.
“Luckily, we do both,” he joked. ”That worked out well. I don’t want to take too much credit but we have helped revitalize that downtown area. I think you see that with a lot of craft beer.
”That’s one of the most beautiful things, is that instant connection to the community. That’s how we started. So it was a win-win for us.”
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