Marketing in craft brewing: Tips and ideas from the leaders of the Ukrainian beer business

One of the central events of the III International Forum of Brewers and Restaurateurs was the round table "Features of marketing strategy in craft brewing. Components of the success of the brewery and brewery. Well-known beer producers, restaurateurs and traders shared their experience. As this is a new business for Ukraine, the advice of those who have already succeeded, starting from scratch, is very valuable. The path to success can be divided into several stages: production development; organization of restaurant work; product promotion. True leaders go through all these stages consistently.

Sergei Kovalenko, the founder and owner of the Kharkiv family of AltBier restaurants, took advantage of a friendship with a brewer from Prague, who sent to work in Kharkov familiar colleagues - Libor Cech and Robert Crisis. From a Prague friend in the AltBier network - and basic recipes, and selected raw materials.
It is clear that beer by definition will turn out Czech even in Antarctica! This business development scheme has its advantages. It helps to avoid mistakes of formation and to start production at once. The owner can focus on other aspects of the business.

Is it kraft or not? The art of master brewers allows AltBier, in addition to the basic line, to embark on the boldest experiments in a pure craft spirit. Both restaurants regularly brew "beer of the month" according to another new recipe. As a result, more than 70 varieties have been cooked here - from historical reconstructions to IPA and the Russian imperial stout. Sergei Kovalenko wants to make it a real "beer port", and with each re-brewing RIS from AltBier gets better.

From the brewery to the restaurant

Is it necessary to have your own pub or can you manage to supply beer to other people's establishments? It all depends on appetites and plans for the future. The nature of any business is expansion. Business is a competition, and those who are content with small often either lose interest in the business or lose to more active competitors. This encourages many brewers not only to expand the geography of sales, but also to think about their own restaurant chain. In addition, if the beer is brewed regularly and in decent quantities, there is simply no other way: for sale you need either one large restaurant, or several at once.

The Kharkiv family of AltBier restaurants is an interesting example of an unusual idea of the restaurant and purposeful work on the development of the range. Today it is two restaurants with 350 and 550 seats with separate Czech breweries. The beer menu is based on 7-8 varieties: light and dark lagers, red and gold ales. In short, Czech and Belgian classics designed for the general consumer. But at the same time, as already mentioned, "beer of the month" is brewed here, which should not be "drinkable", but bright and unusual. Whether it will remain in the permanent line is decided by restaurant guests and shoppers.

About a quarter of such experimental varieties displace outsiders from the main line and take their place. Two restaurants in the same city do not compete, but help each other. Regulars argue about where the food and show are better, which of the masters cooked the Czech pilsner more successfully this month - Libor or Robert.

Elsewhere, AltBier is a very unusual beer restaurant that violates many canons. It features not only beer and beer cuisine, but also wine and haute cuisine, and a full bar line, including spirits and classic cocktails. AltBier restaurants don't force you to drink beer, but unobtrusively explain how great it is. Both the general atmosphere and the brewery working in front of the guests behind the glass wall help. Three chefs compete in skill, successfully participate in international competitions. The seasonal menu "Cuisine of the Month" is being prepared: up to 30 new dishes of Israeli, French and Italian cuisine appear every month.

But the main feature of AltBier is that beer is not the main product. As Sergei Kovalenko says, "we sell emotions, not beer." Sergei himself once played in the KVN and the theater, and he wanted to make a difficult brewery, and a show restaurant. He was the first in Ukraine to put on musicals in a beer restaurant: once a month in AltBier perform troupes of artists and musicians up to 50-70 people! The people of Kharkiv liked the idea, and now several more local restaurants are following the same path. So, the secret of the success of a craft restaurant is the same as for a craft beer: love of business, lack of clichés, bold experiments.

According to the magazine "Beer. Technology and Innovation » №2 (6) 2017