Thoughts on a bar serving tons of craft as well as macro?

No I haven't but I rarely have free time to go out. I do know they sell as well or better in bottle/cans as cider. It would seem odd that bars/restaurants would be blocked from providing draft Hard Seltzer given it's recent growth.

 

Your life seems so difficult. Though seriously FFF has PBR on draft I think. You'll be fine

 

The type of person that shuns your establishment for your beer selections as describe is probably not the type of person that you would want in your establishment.

 

I just don't think that I've ever even heard of it being an option. Can't think of a reason why it couldn't be an option....

 

Having represented restaurateurs I've learned just enough to say it's a tough game with very long hours and lots of personal sacrifice. The ones that thrived did so by giving the customers what they want so let that be your guide. I wish you well.

 

I don't know - I think when talking about on-premise retail, the industry terms of "Craft" "Macro" and "Imports" (used to describe breweries/ownership, rather than beer/beer styles) are sort of useless. Otherwise, an establishment's beer list could look like this by segment:

MACRO
Lagunitas Little Sumpin'
Ballast Point Sculpin IPA
Founder's Porter
Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
Saint Archer Mosaic IPA

IMPORTS
Bass Ale (brewed in NY)
Beck's (brewed in MO)
Foster's (brewed in TX)
Labatt Blue Citra (brewed in NY)

CRAFT
BBC Truly Spiked & Sparkling Rosé
SN Sierraveza
Yuengling Premium
Boxer Ice
Utica Club

 

I'm not in business, but I don't see an issue with this. I'll point out that a local craft beer bar that was adamant about not serving macro, either through a tap line or from their cooler now has one tap line and two rows in the cooler dedicated to macro beer.

Diversity is key. It will alienate a small percentage of people on the fringe of either side who loathe craft or macro, but will otherwise open the door for those who enjoy either side of the beer spectrum.

The only thing I'd be considered about is how fast your Belgium tap lines are going to move. Eight seems like a lot (although I wish more would do that around here). I know when a place around here taps something Belgium, there will be no line or wait, and I could pop in as late as a month later and still get it; meanwhile, they've already blown through 3 kegs of a local IPA.

 

It's been bothering me since someone pointed out above that the OP said that 80 percent of the customer base would be macro drinkers. That may be saying that craft beers aren't going to sell very well at this restaurant. It sounds like the OP will have to respond to what his customers want, like @squire said above. This may me a hard call to make up front.

 

John, that may indeed be the case? I wonder if @jesskidden has some data here?

I am old enough that I drank beer before the craft revolution really took off and in those early days I drank a fair bit of AAL beers. At that time I had a personal preference for drinking them on draft if available since the draft AAL beers are not pasteurized. I noticed a flavor difference (albeit subtle) between the 'uncooked' draft beers vs. the 'cooked' bottled/canned versions. Needless to say but this positive flavor advantage (for my palate) could be 'offset' by poorly maintained beer lines. It was not too common but there were times I started off drinking draft at a bar, said "yuck", and then switched to drinking bottles/cans.

Cheers!

 

Where in PA?

 

I regularly drink craft beer with friends and family who are "macro" folks. If we went to a "craft only" place, they may not accompany me. So I would think having both would be a very good idea. Furthermore, having some "macro" taps does not (in my experience) drive away any craft lovers like me. Like I said, it helps everyone who walks in find something they like. A few years ago I was in Montreal for the F1 Grand Prix. We walked into Le Saint-Bock (a brew pub near the university) and ordered from their wonderful craft menu. Another group of Americans walked in shortly after and, after they glanced at the long list of craft beers on the chalk board, asked the waitress if they had "anything like Bud Light?" The waitress said, "no," and the group left immediately. Perhaps the pub didn't care if they lost customers, but I'm sure the group would have stayed and spent money, had they carried one or two "macro" style beers.

 

Yeah. I've noticed many bars and restaurants around me have a line or two dedicated to a local craft cider.

Or craft taps depending on what is selling best, because "all money is green" afterall.

 

I'm not following your logic here. Why would a place "more geared towards a restaurant" need more macro pale lager tap lines than a "taproom?" Even if you come from the school of thought that says the ideal beer for pairing with food is a pale lager, it can still come from a bottle or can. What am I missing?

Also, I agree with @Harrison8 that the Belgians are likely to be slow movers unless you market yourself as a place to drink Belgian beer (which would demand that you rotate the Belgians and not just rely on the same initial eight that you listed) or perhaps heavily push the Belgian beers for pairing with food. Most newer craft beer drinkers (who make up a majority of the craft beer consumer segment) never have developed a taste for Belgians nor perceive them as cool, unfortunately.

The OP wrote, "I live in an area that about 20% of the population loves craft the rest drink the mass produced stuff." That's a well above average portion of the population that is into craft beer, if accurate, in which case the concept seems fine. The OP's later comment that "the coal region is a tough crowd" makes me question that figure, however.

 

Regardless, be diligent with keeping those lines clean.

More and more I’m finding that (what seems like) a majority of establishments are negligent in their line maintenance.

 

You might think about doing 6 Belgians instead of 8, put them on a rotating schedule. Will keep them fresher. Also, as someone else mentioned, you need to have 1 tap of craft root beer or something N/A, and maybe 1 tap for Cider.

 

I'm a huge beer nerd, but would serve macro if I owned a bar. Maybe not 8 out of 36, but I'd serve it. "It doesn't pay to be sane if everybody else is crazy."

We have one of the preeminent beer bars in the country (or world) in town. They claim 262 beers on tap, and many more bottles. They have a spot on weekly local radio, and he's always bringing in prestigious brewers from around the world. And he says Bud Light is his best selling beer.

Now part of it is that there are so many choices, you skew the numbers. But if he sells BMC, I would too.

 

I'm moving to PA so please keep us all updated, but first round is on you

 

I was in the same boat as OP 7 years ago. Wanted to open a brewpub, but ended up opening a craft beer focused restaurant instead because I didn't have enough money for the brewery out of the gates. My restaurant is in Middle-of-Nowhere Texas, and I didn't have a clue as to how craft beer would be received. In a town of 100k, we had no breweries. Someone had opened a craft beer bar (no wine, no liquor, no macros) about 6 months prior to my opening, but that was it.

I had 23 taps, and dedicated 4 of them to macros. I asked my distributor what sold best and put those on (BL, CL, ML, and Ultra). I also had Guinness, but all the rest were non-conglomerate owned craft. Ultra was my best seller for the first year, but by year 2, Weinstephaner Hefe became my best seller and I couldn't have been more pleased. Soon thereafter, Blanche de Bruxelles became my number 2. By year 3, Ultra was the only BMC in my top 5 best sellers.

Three years after I opened, in 2015, I was able to convince the bank to loan me enough money (along with plenty of reinvestment) to install the brewery. The moment that I released beers of my own was when I took all of the BMC beers off of the wall, which was a somewhat frightening move, but went for it anyway and decided to still offer them in bottles. As it stands, I usually have between 6 and 10 taps of my own stuff, the rest being indie craft, save for 1 of the 23 converted to CO2 for purging purposes. Tap sales of my beers are pretty much always 70-80% of my overall tap sales, my record high being 83%. We still sell plenty of BMC, Dos, Shiner, etc. in bottles, and I probably only have one or two walk-outs a year because we don't carry someone's favorite light beer on tap. Jackass move of the century.

In areas of the country where craft beer hasn't caught on yet, I believe it's essential to be inclusive, because the main goal in business is to make money so that you can stay open. Get as many people in the door as possible, then you've got a captive audience. Don't worry about how you are perceived, because no matter what you do, you'll never be able to please all of the people all of the time. Business first.