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MicroBrewr 052: Share your brewery’s story with a podcast, with Short's Brewing Company.

MicroBrewr 052: Share your brewery’s story with a podcast

Joe Short started Short’s Brewing Company in Bellaire, Michigan in 2004. Today Short’s Brewing is one of the fastest growing of Michigan breweries. Their young, savvy marketing program includes a podcast.

“A large part of making people aware of us,” says Joe, “is the fact that we are always able to just tell our story through photos and blogging in the early days through our website. When we added more people to the team, we started picking up things like Facebook and Twitter. Now we’re able to work with Mike to bring us to the next level, which is the podcast.”

Short’s Brewing contracts with Mike Moran, Quarter After Productions, to produce their weekly podcast. His team of 3 editors and 2 interns works on 9 podcasts.

“This story is very honest,” says Mike, “and it’s one of the coolest business stories I’ve seen in Northern Michigan in a long time. I’m super lucky to be able to be a part of it and capture it.”

The podcast, called Short’s Cast, is a great tool to keep the brewery’s audience updated. Regular features on the podcast include:

  • Music recorded from live performances at the pub.
  • Announcements of beer releases.
  • Interviews with musicians who perform at the pub.
  • General announcements.

“We’re sharing the business story or a culture we’re creating,” explains Joe.

A podcast provides an outlet to share your brewery’s story with a worldwide audience.

“The majority of the listeners,” says Mike, “are outside of the Northern Michigan area. It reaches out to a lot of the fans who can’t be here in Northern Michigan. They use the podcast as a source of information [about the brewery].”

Brewery specs:

Kettle size: 32 BBL.

Size and quantity of fermentation tanks: 4, 100-BBL fermenters; 1, 70-BBL fermenter.

Size and quantity of bright tanks: 16, 90-BBL bright tanks and 7, 60-BBL bright tanks which are sometimes used as fermenters.

Annual brewing capacity/last year’s production: 60,000 BBL/year capacity. Brewed 34,443 BBL last year (1.067 million US Gallons or the equivalent volume of 6.44 billion melted M&Ms).

Square footage: 13,500 sq. ft.

Years in operation: 10 years at the brewpub (opened 2004). 6 years at the production brewery (opened 2009).

“A large part of making people aware of us is that we are always able to tell our story.” [Tweet This]

 

Listener question:

If you could ask one question to every brewer or brewery owner, what would you ask? Let me know.

Book recommendation:

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

Your Free Audio Book

An upcoming beer style:

Gose

Other resources:

You can reach Joe Short, Mike Moran, and Short’s Brewing Company at:

Sponsors:

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MicroBrewr 022: Expanding to... India! with Arbor Brewing Company.

MicroBrewr 022: Expanding to… India!

Matt Greff fell in love with beer while at university in Germany. He and his wife, Rene Greff, opened Arbor Brewing Company Brewpub in Ann Arbor Michigan in 1995. Since then, they opened a microbrewery in nearby Ypsilanti, Michigan and, just a year and-a-half ago, opened a brewpub in Bangalore, India!

They operate under the principle of “capitalism with a conscience.” Rather than being focused solely on profits, they aim for their business to be good for the community and good for their employees. “The best decision we every made,” says Matt, “was giving our management team a lot of autonomy.”

Do you want to open a brewery? This is Matt’s advice for you to start doing tomorrow:

  1. Develop a vision
  2. Do your homework
  3. Get experience

Matt also talks about:

  • How his love affair with beer started
  • How to use geothermal cooling to reduce energy costs
  • How being named “best brewpub in the Midwest” affected their sales

Support Arbor Brewing Company’s crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo

ABC Microbrewery Needs a Kitchen

(Deadline: September 4, 2014, 11:59 p.m.)

UPDATE: They met the goal of their fundraising campaign. Woohoo!

Listener question:

From Tanner Munro: Have you thought about pairing beer to food, as a compliment beverage to food?

Book recommendation:

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

Your Free Audio Book

An upcoming beer style:

Session IPA

Other resources:

You can reach Matt Greff and Arbor Brewing Company at:

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Support MicroBrewr

Help keep MicroBrewr on the air. CLICK HERE for ways you can help.

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MicroBrewr014: Zachary Typinski's career in craft beer culminates in a craft brewery, with Neighborhood Brewing Co.

MicroBrewr 014: Zachary Typinski’s career in craft beer culminates in a neighborhood brewery

In this episode I talk with Zachary Typinski from the upcoming, Neighborhood Brewing Co. Urbanrest Brewing Co. in Ferndale, Michigan.

Zachary has years of experience throughout the beer industry. He has worked in merchandising and retail, distribution and sales. He’s also a draft certified technician, Certified Cicerone®, BJCP Novice Judge, and an award-winning homebrewer.

Currently Zachary is the Michigan sales manager for Oskar Blues Brewery, and he is in the process of opening his own brewery.

He shares creative ideas for “getting liquid to lips,” and what it takes to bring beer “from grain to glass.”

He shares his breadth of knowledge on a range of topics including:

  • Merchandising
  • Packaging
  • Keeping clean draft lines
  • What it’s like to see his award-winning homebrew go into production and be widely distributed

Listener question:

From Eric Simon: What beer do you want to brew, but aren’t going to because it’s too risky or won’t be popular enough?

Book recommendation:

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

Your Free Audio Book

An upcoming beer style:

Patersbier

Other resources:

You can reach Zachary Typinski at:

Support MicroBrewr

Help keep MicroBrewr on the air. CLICK HERE for ways you can help.

Subscribe on iTunes             Listen to Stitcher