Marketing for BOPs

By Ray Schavone

As a Brew-on-Premises, the most common concern expressed by clients and potential clients is, 6 cases of beer is a lot; 1.) My spouse would kill me if I brought that home, 2.) I don’t have room to store it, and 3.) What if I get bored with it?

To turn these issues into a business opportunity, we created Half Batch Variety Night. The concept is simple; once a month we have HBVN, and brew six different beers.

We take 12 reservations for the event so everyone gets a half batch of 3 cases of beer made up of 6 bottles from each recipe. The event is held on a night we’re not normally open, typically the last Monday of the month.

The recipe selection usually consists of 2 new recipes, 2 seasonal recipes, and 2 of older recipes. This gives our customers a good cross-section of the beers we brew, and gets them to try something they may not have picked to brew themselves.

We publish a monthly email newsletter where we let people know what beers we’ll be brewing that month. This information is also on our web site.

HBVN has worked out well for us. Customers like having a variety of beers to take home. Several customers have gotten together with other friends and created their own HBVN on a regular night!

Ray Schavone is owner of Deja Brew, which was the first dedicated Brew-on-Premise in Massachusetts. The store is located at 510B Boston Turnpike Road, Shrewsbury, MA, 01545. Phone: (508) 842-8991.