Putting 40 beers on draft and need help

Give them a reason aside from just the beer list to come. One of my local watering holes features a brewery each week and has specials on their beers. This ranges from local nanos to Sam Adams to imports. Also invite brewers to pour their beers. They usually have 5 or 6 beers from the featured brewery.

40 beers is not a lot of tap, I live in a city of 60k and can think of atleast 6 different places that have that many and none have issues. Educate your staff let them get samples to customers when needed and you will be fine, most of your customer won't be BAs so don't worry

 

The business man in you is wrong, in this case. Spending the money to put in fourty taps to capitalize on crafts popularity and then hedging on a bunch of lowest common denominator beers is a good way to waste 3-10 grand (depending on how much your installer is screwing you on tap installation price). A mediocre lineup will do nothing to attract the craft demographic, that sort of beer only gets you somewhere if you want to be a late night, vomiting drunk hangout (which can be quite lucrative, but doesn't seem to be what the op is going for).

If you want to exploit the craft boom, go for a real, impressive craft lineup like in the first example. I have seen time and time again bar and restaurant owners get told they "have to" carry BMC and fake craft to sell beer successfully and they absolutely do not. You will turn off very few people by not having the generic stuff, but you will aleienate all but the most inexperienced craft drinkers with a phoned in selection. The people you are trying to attract by getting into craft can smell pandering a mile away and will hate you for it.

All of what I am saying here is based on about seven years of experience selling craft beer in a market that is much less mature than Southern California. In this time I have seen many bars drop BMC (and even pedestrian craft like sam and SNPA) and see better sales and buzz within the community.

As a PS to the OP, whatever you do, do not trust your distributors sales reps. They are, by and large, liars and cheats who will do anything for a sales incentive. They will tell you that you will go out of business if you don't sell bud, red hook, Sam, whatever they get a bonus for selling you when the opposite is true. They will also flat out make shit up when it comes to talking about craft beer (which 98% of them know nothing, and I mean nothing, about). Some are good, knowledgeable people that I even sort of trust, but they are very much exceptions to an intustry dominated by cutthroat *****s.

 

I was down at Misquamicut a couple of weeks ago. That looks a lot like the beer list at Paddy's. Am I right?

 

Honestly, I'd hate to see you eat up the competition if the competition are true beer loving folk who have had a passion for craft brews for years and have an excellent selection. I wouldn't want to just hand you all of my beer experience, you need to learn it and love beer for yourself. If you don't know enough about beer to have 40 solid taps then maybe you shouldnt have 40 taps

 

Not to pick on this particular post--nothing specifically wrong with it, really--but most advice above seems to be on what you would be drinking, not what would make for good turnover at a restaurant. I know I get a bit preachy and longwinded, but bear with me--you can always ignore it later. And we're still mostly shooting in the dark, not knowing the kind of food the restaurant serves (although, with 40 taps, it can be just burger and fries and no one will notice).

Devoting more than one or two taps to sours is guaranteed to suck unless this becomes a particular place of pilgrimage for sour beers. But 1) this gets expensive very quickly and you can't afford those to go bad, 2) the sour-heads will be coming for beer, not food, and 3) it turns off other customers. So, no, 8 fruit beers and ciders would be an overkill, 3-5 taps for the The Bruery would be an overkill. I'd say one The Bruery tap and one Lost Abbey tap, unless you can get a really good deal from either one or can add an actual Flemish non-fruit sour. Period. If they want more, they can always have bottles, which you'll have on hand (at higher markup, no doubt). One or two ciders is a good idea and they can be rotated, but if it's just one rotating tap and a few bottle choices, that's fine too. I can say that, at least in Hartford, having four Stone IPAs and Arrogant Bastard out of 12-15 taps worked out really well--the place was hopping and half the orders were for Stone. That's regular IPA, Ruination, Ruin10, Tropical and AB. That's another 5. Forget the Tropical as a regular, just have two limited batches, whatever you can get. So that's 9 regulars, plus maybe 3 rotating specials dedicated to Stone, ciders and sours. If Stone is too ubiquitous, it's easy to find a half-dozen of other IPAs in the same categories, plus a couple of pale ales. Add 1 more for a rotating fruit beer (no f-ing blueberry or blackberry though--only something that resembles a true lambic). Add another 2-3 permanent US stouts and reserve one for Guiness (can't get around that). Another 4 can be some combination of SamA and SN, not counting seasonals and stouts. Have at least 5-6 different-style seasonals, rotating, in the summer including Pils, Wit/Blonde, several German styles and at least one with "summer" in the name. Obviously other seasons imply different beers and you can't get most seasonals after the season is over (although, of course, you can start getting them before). Add 2 lighter German lagers, plus hefe and double-bock as permanent installation (you can always rotate them depending on success). That's already more than half the taps. The rest are tougher. Make a special deal with one or two semi-local breweries or through the distributor and become known as the purveyor of those brands--if it's Stone, that's already counted above, so just add some Belgian and English ale styles instead. If it's someone who specializes in Belgian ales, there's no need to get more of them from other sources. If it's Spaten*, no need for a separate German section (unless you're serving German food). *It doesn't have to be local, but local is more likely to guarantee variety and freshness. I would have one BMC tap as a joke and rotate it between B, M and C--someone will always ask for it. For the rest, just look out for the best deals you can get. You want to make profit off those beers, not just have a few regulars who come for a pint of barleywine. And there are enough of these left over to guarantee variety. Most important, of course, if something does not sell, just don't get it again. And what's lacking on tap, you can always supplement with bottles. And another thing--watch the bottle sales. If something flies off the shelf, it's a guaranteed winner on tap. Corona, Heineken and the rest of the TV-brands can come from bottles--people who want them would prefer it that way anyhow.

 

For a good reference, check out the beer list at my favorite tap house in Denver. Suppliment beers from Avery/Great Devide/Odell with things from the SoCal region and voila. Granted this isn't all of their beers, they always have 5 taps dedicated to more sought after beers like Pliny for example.

http://fallingrocktaphouse.com/beer/

 

I saw the list first and thought, "this sounds a lot like New England". Sure enough... Newport and Wachusett are interchangeable in this regard, although Wach is a ted better. Magic Hat #9 is popular in the Northeast, but not really anywhere else. Harpoon is ubiquitous here. Newcastle, Smithwicks and Bass seem to be everywhere in the Northeast (along with Guinness and BMC), but I have not seen them as much in other parts of the country (nor would I want to--Newcastle is a poor step-child of a major, Smithwicks always tastes watery on tap and is intended for people who want to order Guinness but don't like it, and Bass is now made locally and it just sucks). Long Trail is dishwater, as is, I suspect Loose Cannon. I'm surprised there's no DFH.

I actually disagree with the "business" part of your other post--there is absolutely no reason to have a large number of BMC taps, except as mark-up aides or guaranteed kickback from the distro. The list of BMC and majors here is ridiculously long. And SamA and Harpoon are "mid-majors" in the Northeast. In fact, it's so bad that I saw a mark-up board (a tourist dive near Quincy Market) with "craft beers on tap" that included about 15 different beers, of which I could only see myself drinking 90-min DFH and SNPA (Harpoon seems pedestrian now). Then, there was an added list of "others" that included 1 cider, two SamAs and two BlueMoons. In other words, even tourist dives no longer differentiate between SamA and BM--and that's not in SamA's favor. Paraphrasing Salieri's words from Amadeus, "Mediocrities of the world, unite!"

 

To the OP...

This:

And this:

I won't even attempt to name beers, because aside from those beers likely being slanted to my tastes, I have no idea what your costs are, and more importantly, I don't know who you view as your direct competitors and what they offer and for what price. Are you competing with taphouses and bottle shops? Or restaurants? What do businesses in your market space offer? How can you capitalize on a general demand within the market while also differentiating your offering from other, more-established businesses?

In terms of logistics, with 40 taps, I'd think you would only want to open up and actually use about half of them; to start anyways. In a perfect world, those additional 20 taps aren't even installed and you just have real estate to install them later. However, I still think it's better off to hold those 20 back from use and avoid wear and tear until you know better about demand and speed of tap turnover. A bottle shop recently opened in the Kansas City market that had 20 taps total that they rotated on a pretty regular basis by getting smaller kegs to start depending on which beer they ordered. Now that they've been in business for well over 6 months and have started to gauge their demand, they've installed close to 10 more.

At the end of the day, as happy as I am to share my digital hot air, I tend to agree with Providence that this is the wrong crowd to ask for this kind of question. As much as this community knows about beer, your restaurant is still clearly a regional business, and beer is such a fractured market that what will sell locally can be very different from place to place. At the very least, you might want to pose this question in one of the California-based forums.

 

The local watering hole has maybe 20 taps all craft no BMC only in bottles. Still I'd bet 75% of the beer sold is BMC in cans or, Guinness, or local drafts that are cheaper. You could put HT on tap and it wouldn't change things for the locals, Ba geeks would abound, but most would just drink what they always drink. The bar manager is your best friend, if you have a good one who knows his beer, and the area you'll have success.


My advice really is to hire the proper personnel, starting with a great bar manager, let him hire the bartenders. Let him set up meetings with distributors with you or whoever is in charge there too. Contract out for the taps to be cleaned, let a pro do it.

With respect to all don't get your advice from guys on this site on beer choices, me included, and maybe especially a guy like me, strong on IPA's, a little here and there on other styles. A good bar manager will have experience in all styles of beer, he will know the competition, and will know how to properly deliver your product. ie: proper temps and glassware. Do you want to be a bar 1st resturauant 2nd or vice versa? Do you want to make money or be a beer geek haven, you can do both with the right products, but guys on this sight are the MINORITY of beer drinkers.

 

You're installing 40 taps, but you don't know what to add? Who are you trying to cater to? The crowd you're trying to command will dictate your tap options.

 

Basically what I was getting at but in more words I wasn't advocating having 40 taps as much as I was advocating for a variety and regular rotating taps. Also covering the major styles in so much as you have more than one option when applicable. I think 40 is over kill, 15 to 20 is a lot more manageable and I can think of plenty of places that do this successfully with that number of rotating taps and variety. I do however agree with you mostly seems like people stocking their basement bar and pitching it as genuine business advice. I was just giving a general example of what I've seen work first hand. As long as your post was it was well conceived I was just too lazy too go into great detail.

 

Maybe he wants to be on bar rescue.

 

It depends on type of business. If it's a watering hole, there are a couple in the Boston area with 120+ taps (all multitap, of course). If it's primarily an eating establishment, more than a dozen is overkill. But if it's a restaurant with a separate full bar section, including bar seating, 40-50 sounds plausible, especially if the food is not too fancy. It's no blue-collar burger&beer dive, for sure. And if you relegate BMC to cans and bottles, everyone wins.

 

i can't speak for everyone but what attracts me to a bar selection-wise is style variety, not just an array of popular breweries' flagship beers. you can always tell when a bar has put some thought behind their offerings. IPAs are a given, but it's nice to see quads, stouts, scotch beers, barleywines for when I'm in the mood for something sturdy and malty (and not necessarily an onslaught of hops); tripels, saisons, and BSPAs when I'm more looking for something more lighter bodied with a bit of a fruity profile but also some zing to it... low ABV, sessionable ales... an off-the-beaten path beer I rarely run into. and it also depends on the season. nice to see berliner weissbiers, saisons, and hefeweizens in the summer months, whereas of course you want to work in your pumpkin ales and marzens in the fall. locals should be well represented. and you're going to want your servers to have at least a basic knowledge of these beers.

 

I usually will try my hardest to come up with an answer to these questions, but I can't help but to say that if you don't already know what you should fill those lines with than perhaps you shouldn't be taking on that big of an expansion. Only you know your customers. What are your numbers? Is there an overwheming outcry for this expansion, or are you just seeing a business opportunity? I understand capitalizing on a boom, but only if you have the customers who will support this. You could get someone to rattle off 40 craft beers/breweries that you should carry but what do you replace them with when something kicks? or when seasonals come and go? or when a limited release comes around people are looking for? If you are going to tout yourself as a craft bar/restaurant you will probably have people looking for this sort of stuff. You need to be able to answer these question for yourself if you want this expansion to be as successful as you're looking for it to be. Best of luck! I hope everything works out for you. Sorry I couldn't help with specifics but there are too many variables for me to rattle off a list of what I would put on tap if I were in the same situation in my state.

 

Know your clientele. And even more importantly; know yourself. A couple years ago I took over a wannabe craft beer bar that really had no true identity (knowing absolutely nothing about beer, let alone craft beer). The first step was defining what the bar is going to be. If right now your sales are all BMC products; it may be a tough sell...you very well may lose more customers than you gain. Even though craft beer nowadays is a growing business; it can still be difficult to guide your bar through the transition.
My advice is to set standards for yourself. While I was new to beer, I generated hundreds of pages of notes on everything imaginable, kept logs of every keg I put on tap, and just generally went crazy. But it paid off. I looked at 6 months worth of logs as to how long a keg lasted before it kicked; and could get a great snapshot of what my customers loved, based on what they drank. I also became a very, very devoted BA reader. I researched every single beer I put on tap. I read as many reviews as I could, rather than looking strictly at ratings. And that paid off as well. My first year, using our 8 taps, we had 100 unique beers. The following year, we had over 300 unique beers. Number of taps isn't as much of a factor as careful, thoughtful selection.
And from a business aspect; getting rid of BMC products (on tap at least) is a lucrative decision. Yes, the profit margins won't be as high...but look at bartender productivity and sales-per-hour, and just sheer revenue. In one year I had a draft beer increase of something like $14k, while only selling 137 beers more than the previous year.
Put in the time, energy, and focus...and you could have an awesome thing going for you!

 

Depends on:

A) What type of food you are serving?
B) Where are you are located?
C) How much are you willing to spend? (what's your budget)
D) Who is your target market?
E) When are you open? (what are your restaurant/bar hours)
F) Why do you want to offer 40 beers on tap? Will you be serving bottles?


Honestly...40 tap lines can be quite expensive. You will need to make sure you can afford the overhead of just the deposit on each keg of beer assuming you will have more than 40 kegs on hand at a time (you'll need back up kegs). each keg you purchase has a deposit on it of anywhere from $30 to $40 each and above. $30x 40 kegs = $1200 that will just be floating around in financial cyber space...In addition to that, you will need to make sure you are actually selling the product, because not all beer is able to be aged and will eventually oxidize and go bad, so if your restaurant does not do a ton of volume, you may want to reconsider this 40 tap move. You need to determine if you will carry bottles also, and what bottles you will carry vs draft and/or both. You will also want to get an awesome marketing team together to design a bad ass beer menu with tasting notes on the beer. Lastly, I recommend reading over the micro-matic beer serving, cleaning, and line cleaning manual 10-15 times and not only installing a beer saver tap system, but learning how to clean the system inside and out. This also includes glassware cleaning, how to clean your bar cgassware for beer, why it is important, and what it actually does for the beer. If you REALLY want some SERIOUS help on this, send me a message and I'd be happy to elaborate on everything...

Cheers,
WB

 

My biggest suggestion? HIRE SOMEONE WHO KNOWS BEER!

Not to offend you, but theres ton's of young BAs who know way more about whats "in" and whats "out" in the beer scene; many of which probably would love a job slinging beer while having the privilege of managing the tap menu.

You probably don't have the time to be on BA following beer releases and keeping up with which beer is the current rage, so hire someone that does. Make sure they can handle the responsibility of updating social media pages and BAM, you are the proud owner of the BA choice bar in the neighborhood.

 

If you want a good Imperial Stout then the first thing you should do is get some North Coast Old Rasputin and put it on nitro. I would also recommend Green Flash Double Stout, Young's Double Chocolate Stout on nitro, and Deschutes Obsidian Stout and Black Butte Porter (and for a real treat try and get a keg of the Anniversary Black Butte). For IPAs I would recommend West Coast IPA from Green Flash, Sculpin from Ballast Point, Mongo from Port Brewing, Ruination as well as the regular IPA from Stone (and possibly Sublimely Self-Righteous from them as well), Double Jack from Firestone Walker, and if you can (which may be tough), anything from Alpine Brewing. For Belgians? I would say Delirium Tremens, Gulden Draak, Piraat, St. Bernardus Abt. 12, Rochefort 10, and Chimay Blue. They may be pricey but they'll draw in the crowd you seem to be looking for.