Therese Rednor, On-Premise Area Manager for Beer and Craft Spirits
Keep It Up with Cans
Speaking particularly from the patio perspective, the first thing I would suggest customers look at is their can line-up. Most of our breweries are all moving to cans and that’s because it is the absolute, best package for beer. Light and oxygen are beer’s biggest enemies. With cans there is no possibility of the beer being light-stuck and the amount of dissolved oxygen in a can is much lower than in a bottle. Also, be sure that your can selection contains a balanced offering of not just beer styles, but also prices and breweries represented. Mix it up with local, regional, national and imported brands.
You also need to think about how you’re going to market your can selections. In the past bars have put together buckets of domestic and import bottles, but that can easily be switched over to buckets of cans. Bar and restaurants can get creative and go one step further by offering different types of canned beer buckets, each one grouped by a specific style, region or price point.
Summer Styles
You don’t want to have just pilsners or only light golden ales on your menu. What you really want is an array of styles. Here are a few suggestions:
Saison: You want to offer a saison, because it has a perfect flavor profile for warm weather drinking with its fruity nuances and dry finish.
Gose: German goses are lower in alcohol and have a fruity, tart and slightly salty favor.
Radler: On a scorching hot day there are few things more refreshing than an ice cold radler. These beers are also lower in alcohol and have a little bit of either fruit juice or natural soda added to them, which makes them incredibly thirst-quenching.
Kolsch: The kolsch is a little bit more flavorful than a pilsner, a touch more esters and flowery notes, but still very light, with a smooth and round body that is very easy to drink.
Hefeweizen: German wheat beers can be enjoyed right now, all the way through Oktoberfest. It is a wonderful patio beer and when served in the traditional hefeweizen glass, it looks gorgeous and basically sells itself with that visual appeal.
IPA: You can’t forget about people who love hops, and IPA is still the biggest craft category out there, so you don’t want to ignore that. Consider having a session IPA as well as a few other IPA options, preferably ones which showcase different hop varietals.
Stock the Shelves with Seasonals
I still suggest that retailers bring in as many seasonal SKUs as they can. Consumers continue to want something new, something they haven’t tried before and they essentially have demanded the brewers to create new seasonal releases, year-after-year. You don’t have to go deep with your ordering. Instead of bringing in 10 cases, bring in only five of that new seasonal, let it run out, and then bring in something brand new for the consumers. There is always going to be next one, because it is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that the consumers will always want that new beer, and brewers are responding by constantly crafting something new.