Craft beer list • Craft Beer Restaurant Blog

Avoid these beer list mistakes

Week 7 — 52 Weeks of Restaurant Beer

1. Adding beers to your list just because:

it’s new in your market and someone asked for it; your distributor is pushing it; it won a gold medal at a prestigious competition; or it got an “A” rating in a beer magazine review.

Only add beers to [...]

Wood-aging means many things

Week 4 – 52 Weeks of Restaurant Beer

Wood-aged and barrel-aged beers are those that have been aged on contact with wood to purposely pick up flavors associated with wood aging. As a group they are one of the more exciting and rapidly growing categories in the craft beer market today.

Wood-and barrel-aged beers [...]

Barley Wine Ales—52 Weeks of Restaurant Beer

Week 1: Barley Wine Ales

We open up 2013 with an appropriate beer for celebrating the New Year and celebrating the fact we didn’t fall over a fiscal cliff: Barley Wine Ale. Barley wine is a typically strong elixir that comes in two versions, British style and American style.

If you just need a strong [...]

Use beer release calendars to boost your seasonals

The beer release calendars found on craft brewery websites are an incredibly useful tool for improving your Seasonal beer sales strategy.

Seasonals are limited-production beers that are released in a specific calendar period during the year. A craft brewery typically offers between four and six seasonals. Taken as a group, seasonals are the most popular [...]

Get Fresh Hop Ales while they're fresh

Sierra Nevada's Northern Hemisphere Harvest Ale is a good example of the fragrant fresh hop ales that tell you fall has arrived.

American fresh-hop craft beers will make a dynamic seasonal statement on your restaurant’s beer list this autumn. They are truly the premier harvest ales.

Like the story of nouveau wines, the story of fresh hop beer [...]

Using 2011 brewery release calendars

The start of a new year is a good time to explore and plan a number of ideas for improving your craft beer list. One very helpful tool in this are brewery beer-release calendars. Seeing when a brewery plans to release its seasonal and special beer selections helps you map out a better annual beer list plan for your restaurant. Seasonal and special release beers are in high demand by your customers. Using brewery release calendars to pencil in a monthly strategy at the beginning of the year is a useful exercise that will help you stay on top of the opportunities. [...]

Winter beers hit the market

November pretty much marks the transition month from autumn seasonal to winter seasonal beer. By December, winter beers are kings. For restaurants serving up cool-season cuisine, winter seasonals provide numerous opportunities to enhance any hearty fare. [...]

Profit with autumn seasonal beers

October is a great month for exploring autumn seasonal beers. Autumn beers are much anticipated across the planet, and the craft beer world is no exception. As outdoor temperatures cool, that’s our cue to look for the bigger richer tastes of autumn at our favorite restaurants.

Adding a few special autumn beers to your beer [...]

Profit from summer seasonals

I stopped in a local restaurant last evening and asked about the beer selection. Here it is the last half of July and there was not a summer-styled craft beer to be had. The bar manager was excitedly telling me about the great Imperial this and the Double that and the Tripel whatever, but he [...]

Does Cigar City have a specialty for you

The Cigar City Brewing line up includes both limited- edition specialties and traditional craft beer styles.

Like the excitement a top-notch chef/restaurateur brings to the market when opening a new restaurant, a new craft brewery can also make a big splash even when it is small. One perfect example of this is Cigar City [...]