One of the hottest trends in craft brewing is selling beer on premise. It’s not hard to see why, since on premise sales are vastly more profitable. However, making on premise sales an integral part of your business model will require paying careful attention to the construction and design of your facility.
Choosing an Architect
California-based Hauck Architecture has extensive experience designing custom craft beer projects. Architect T. Dustin Hauck says the first thing to remember when selecting an architect for your project is that a brewery and a tap room are two completely different project types. “A brewery is a manufacturing plant with its own distinct needs. The tap room is a hospitality space. In almost no other industry will you see a blend of such complex and different projects in one facility. It is important to work with someone that understands your brewery operations, equipment, and brand so that the tap room reflects these same ideals. They are two different projects that need to act as one,” he said.
Texas-based OPA Design Studios provides sustainable architecture design and consulting services, specializing in breweries, distilleries, and entertainment destinations. Architect Stephen Oliver agrees that it’s important to work with someone who has experience in brewery design due to the challenges associated with combining the industrial nature of the brewing process with the customer service focus of the tap room. “With respect to our work, breweries are a great blend of designing for both the efficiency, productivity, and functionality of the brewing area as well as the aesthetics, comfort, branding, and consumer experience,” he said.
Building a Brand
As the craft beer industry has expanded, it’s become even more important for breweries to focus on building a brand that stands out in a crowded marketplace. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a destination tap room or brew pub with decor and furnishings that match the aesthetic of your beer labels, website, and other marketing materials.
Hauck agrees that a driving factor in the design of your public spaces will be creating a customer experience that is consistent with your brand. “It’s all about the customer experience and how we can maximize that,” he said.
O.H.S.O. Brewery & Distillery has thrived due to the company’s focus on designing a space that reinforces their brand message. O.H.S.O. has three locations in Arizona, all of which were inspired by the Arcadia neighborhood where the first location was established. Paul Gillingwater describes O.H.S.O.’s design as open, airy, and industrial. “Like our beers, our brewpubs are made by hand,” he said. “We build our perfectly imperfect tables, bar tops, kitchens, and patio spaces. This helps people to relax and feel like they can come to the brewpubs in jogging pants or in a suit. Our guests love to enjoy the beautiful weather on our patios. We use a lot of window pane garage doors to blur the lines of inside vs. outside. We always try to put the indoor bar near a garage door so guests feel like they are sitting outside.”
Being a dog-friendly establishment has helped O.H.S.O. stand out from other craft breweries in the area, but accommodating furry friends has required some careful planning. “All our brewpubs feature a ‘friendly dog’ patio,” Gillingwater said. “The county health department sets forth the sanitation guidelines that we must follow to retain a dog friendly patio permit. We go above and beyond this permit to make our guests and their animals comfortable. We have a Barking Bar, a self-service water bowl filling station, that is stocked with our spent grain dog treats. Each patio table has a secure carabiner to clip your dog’s leash so you don’t have to hold the leash while dining. We have doggy litter stations and dedicated garbage cans that help with sanitation issues. One of our restaurants even has a dog washing station for the joggers coming off the canal.”
Adding Wedding and Event Spaces
Wineries have been popular as wedding reception locations for several years, but couples seeking a more laid back vibe are starting to turn to craft breweries for their special day. Breweries are also perfect spaces for private parties and smaller corporate events, since the atmosphere provides a more intimate feel than you’d find at a large ballroom or banquet hall.
As you’re thinking about how to make your space work for wedding receptions and other public events, Hauck urges you to remember that you’ll need to stay compliant with any applicable building codes. “All of our clients are concerned with getting as many people into the tap room as possible,” he said. “We can accommodate most requests pending the features of the building. The building code has restrictions on sizes of spaces and the number of people in them based on emergency exits, fire protections, and number of plumbing fixtures, to name a few. We prefer to evaluate a space prior to our client’s signing a lease so we understand building code implications that could affect what we can do with a space.”
Oliver adds that accommodating customers who want an indoor/outdoor event might require a special event permit. “There’s tremendous potential for profitability in the wedding and events market, but a lot to consider in terms of zoning, occupancy, parking, and local regulations,” he said. “You may need a special event permit that’s separate from your building permit. These types of permits may have restrictions on how often you can hold events, so investigating all the requirements before you get too far into the process is essential.”
Educating the Customer
Craft beer enthusiasts tend to consider themselves sensible and responsible drinkers, blending alcoholic beverage enjoyment with intellectual curiosity. The design of your tap room should reflect this trend towards combining education with a fun night on the town.
Tap room customers want to get an inside look at your brewing operations and be in close proximity to your brewery staff. For example, you might consider a L-shaped space that wraps around the brewhouse and primary fermentation area so customers can have a walking tour of all the brewing stages before sampling a few of your limited run beers. “Our client’s customers react to a well-designed space with good flow, good interaction with the brewery, and adaptable facilities with repeat business,” Hauck said.
To encourage customers to socialize, many breweries incorporate spaces for a pool table, dart board, or other games. However, Brenner Brewing’s founder Mike Brenner has taken a different approach. Combining his love of peer with his passion for the arts, Brenner has created a family-friendly space that lets guest sample delicious brews while learning about the work of local artists. “We’ve had painters, photographers, fashion designers, sculptors, and every other type of artist you can imagine shown in our adjacent art gallery,” he said. “Many of these artists have also contributed their talents to the design of the brewery. For example, we had a local woodworker create our bar tables and our signs are hand lettered by one of the artists with studio space next door.”
Brenner’s unique approach as made Brenner Brewing popular with locals as well as tourists.
“We get tourists from all over the Midwest,” he said. “There’s an independent audience for the art and an independent audience for the beer, but guests typically leave learning a little bit about both aspects.”
Exploring the Benefits of
Sustainable Design
It’s no secret that craft beer lovers tend to be very eco-conscious. They’re passionate about water conservation, clean energy, and other elements of sustainable design, so it makes good business sense to make your customers aware of your efforts to incorporate these elements into your facility. “Brewery owners tend to be more design conscious than many other types of business owners, but they’re also interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of the process such as what to do with production wastewater and how to cool a large environment using passive air flow to keep visitors comfortable without central air conditioning,” Oliver said.
Dave Morgan, founder of SingleSpeed Brewing, makes sustainability a key factor in every business decision he makes. Even his choice to locate the brewery in an abandoned Wonder Bread factory in Waterloo, Iowa instead of building from scratch demonstrates a desire to be environmentally conscious. “Adaptive reuse is such a cool concept,” Morgan said. “When the building was vacated in 2012, a group of socially responsible individuals formed a group, the Friends of the Wonder Bread Building. Their goal was to advocate against demolition and find a suitable role for the existing building. They were our initial inspiration, providing us with access to the space, from which our vision grew.”
Repurposing a historical building may be the ultimate eco-friendly way to begin a brewery and a novelty that attacks customer interest, but it’s a research-intensive endeavor. “The research needed to do the project in the correct manner is intense,” Morgan said. “It adds steps to the redevelopment process that a normal construction project would not have.”
In addition to being a historical building, SingleSpeed is also a LEED-certified facility that uses less water and energy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Going LEED was a no-brainer for us, as many of the directions it leads you walk right in line with our core principles,” Morgan said. “I mean, what is more environmentally conscious than extending the life cycle of an entire building? The key step for us was bringing someone onto the design team that was an expert in LEED certification. Each decision we made for the purpose of LEED certification was actually made to make our project better.”