MicroBrewr 029: Selling more beer through your local craft beer store

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Tiffany Adamowski and her husband have been operating 99 Bottles beer store in Federal Way, Washington for the past 7 years. She tells us how to work with a craft beer store like hers to sell more beer.

99 Bottles has over 1,200 labels of craft beer in stock from over 40 different countries. They also have ciders, meads, and a gigantic selection of beer kegs. They do growler refills and they offer tasting flights every day.

99 Bottles has won a bunch of local awards like “best beer selection,” “best beer store,” and “don’t miss” bottle shop.

This a long episode, but stay tuned through the whole thing because Tiffany gives tons of super detailed advice on how to sell more of your beer at retail outlets like her beer shop.

Some of her tips:

Email before you visit a store, don’t stop in unannounced.
Use customer relations management (CRM) software to keep track of your contacts and to pass the information on to the next sales person.
Drop off samples with a business card, and a flier about your brewery.
Provide basic information about each beer including: ABV, IBU, description, format, shelf life, storage temperature.
When you go to brewer’s night at the shop, be sure to mingle with the customers.
Be careful about thin beer bottles, especially for bottle-conditioned beer, you don’t want your product exploding on the store shelf.
Bring extra labels when you visit a store, sometimes bottles arrive unlabeled.

SPECIAL BONUS:

Ask Tiffany any question about working with retailers to sell more of your beer.

Leave your questions in the comments section below.

Tiffany will keep watching the comments for the next 30 days to answer as many of your questions as she can.

Be sure to connect with 99 Bottles beer store and thank Tiffany for being on the show and for helping us out with questions.

UPDATE: Thirty days is up, Tiffany is no longer monitoring the questions here. You can still reach her through the links below.

Listener question:

From Jon Tiffany: What is an upcoming brewery that we should our eye on?

Book recommendation:

Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery by Sam Calagione.

Check out the entire list of recommended books, click here.

An upcoming beer style:

Scottish ale

Other resources:

50 Scottish beers with the best names, Caroline Young, herald scotland, January 31, 2013.
Fremont Brewing
Black Raven Brewing Co.
Building relationships with your local craft beer store, Tiffany Adamowski, MicroBrewr, November 7, 2014.
Selling more beer through your local craft beer store, Tiffany Adamowski, MicroBrewr, November 12, 2014.

You can reach Tiffany Adamowski and 99 Bottles beer store at:

Tiffany’s blog:

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