OnTap Magazine

setting up a Facebook page for your brand and reposting all posts on your personal feed. I post more about the process, ingredients, and brew days. I think my biggest tip would be to not overthink the content; post what gets you excited about your product or process. I was reminded recently that consumers buy into craft because of the human face it presents. We should definitely lean more into this and let our personalities shine through in the brand. THE DISTRIBUTION DILEMMA As a new kid on the block and due to the traction recently gained by e-commerce, I opted to self-distribute my beer through my own website. There were a few drivers behind this decision. The first was to have the data available to build personal connections with first time customers. Building a self-distribution platform also gives me the freedom to not rely solely on bottle stores and venues to move my product. As an upside you can also evaluate your own marketing efforts and efficiencies as they translate to sales. I decided to build my site on a recognised platform. Platform selection was based on who had the best back-end customer safety integration. Building the website myself was an interesting choice that came with more than one false start, including locking myself out of the website. The upside though is that I can now comfortably complete any tweaks required – with the help of the occasional Google search of course. Getting to this point has been a fulfilling experience with many highlights along the way: from the sensory overload of that first big whirlpool hop addition on my IPA, seeing that same beer canned and labelled and finally listed on my website and finally the excitement of receiving the first order outside of my circle of influence. So would I recommend taking the leap into professional brewing? Absolutely – if you’re itching to get your beers into the hands of the beer-loving public. One final word of wisdom though: make sure you also have a non-alcoholic beer recipe in your tool belt – you never know when the next booze ban will come along… LOOKING FOR A CONTRACT BREWING PARTNER? The following breweries offer contract brewing services – get in touch to find out if they match your needs when it comes to batch size, packaging options and contract brewing model. WESTERN CAPE Folke & Goode info@frasersfolly.co.za Mountain Brewing Co. info@mbco.co.za The Brewery Hemel-en-Aarde marc@thebrewery.beer The Kennel Brewery paul@thekennelbrewery.beer Barrington’s Brewery drink@barringtonsplett.co.za GAUTENG At Hops End info@hopsend.co.za Brewsters Craft info@brewsterscraft.co.za OC Brewery gavin@ocbrewery.co.za KZN Drakensberg Brewery info@drakbrew.co.za Lions River Brewery macsas@mweb.co.za Nguni Brewing Co info@ngunibeer.co.za GOING PRO SUBSCRIBE & WIN www.ontapmag.co.za www.brewcraft.co.za By placing the iSpindle in the brew before closing for fermentation, the brew master can receive valuable data via wifi to provide you access to reports on battery life, sugar levels through SG (specific gravity), brew temperature and alcohol by volume (AVB) readings on a continuous basis without having to open the brew and test samples. This eliminates the risk of contamination and saves beer.