• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Brewery customer attitude survey: will visits drop when the temp drops?

October 26, 2020Andrew Coplon

Beer drinker survey

Two-thirds of 2020 has been spent trying to survive a pandemic. We are still trying to figure out what works best, and each day we are continuing a path of unknown. Unknown how long the pandemic will continue, unknown how long we will operate with restrictions, unknown how our customers will behave. But as brewery owners and entrepreneurs, we do not give up.

As the weather begins to get colder, it’s even more important that you are maximizing every customers’ on-premise visit. Many of you have been fortunate enough to have your communities come behind you in overwhelming numbers to support you thus far. We cannot take their purchases for granted and need to continue running our best businesses possible to beat the cold.

I conducted a study to get a better gauge of current consumer attitudes and spending habits. This research includes 2128 unique submissions. 51.6% of respondents identified as male, 47% as female, 0.8% as non-binary, and 0.6% preferred not to say. The average age of respondent is 40.1 years old. All data was collected October 13 to 20, 2020.

And don’t forget to fill out the CBB Reader Survey. It takes 1 minute and will enter you in drawing for a gift card and free consultation.

Here is a breakdown of the geographic location of respondents. We define each region as the following:

Midwest: OH, MI, IN, WI, IL, MN, IA, MO, ND, SD, NE, KS

Northeast: ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA

South: DE, MD, VA, WV, KY, NC, SC, TN, GA, FL, AL, MS, AR, LA, TX, OK, DC

West: MT, ID, WY, CO, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, WA, AK, HI

We first asked respondents, “How often are your visiting breweries compared to before COVID-19?” Nearly two-thirds are visiting breweries less frequently compared to before the start of the pandemic.

With regard to their visits, 58% stated that more planning is going into their brewery visit compared to before COVID-19.

When asked to choose the 3 most important aspects of planning a brewery visit, slightly over 62% of respondents included “the brewery’s current beer menu.” This was closely followed by “how well the brewery is showing adherence with COVID-19 protocol on social media” then “an outdoor space.” According to the Bart Watson’s insight and analysis from “Q3 Survey Shows Improvement, But Sales Still Depressed,” the average brewer estimates that 64% of their onsite sales occurred outdoors. The importance of an outdoor space is validated in this study as being included as one of the top 3 criteria.

What are the 3 most important aspects of planning a brewery visit?
The brewery’s current beer menu62.4
How well the brewery is showing adherence with COVID-19 protocol (i.e. cleaning, sanitation, social distancing, etc.) on social media57.0
An outdoor space56.7
Distance from my home42.8
Food options on the menu30.7
A positive prior pandemic experience at a brewery29.2
Ability to bring children9.7
Table service7.8
A negative prior pandemic experience at a brewery4.2

Despite the importance of an outdoor space, we are currently seeing nearly half of brewery goers willing to enjoy a beer indoors. Once the temperature gets cooler, 33% of respondents say that they will not enjoy a beer indoors, while nearly 40% state that they will enjoy a beer indoors. 27% remain in the middle.

Nationwide, 32% of respondents state that they will visit breweries less frequently once the temperature gets cooler. Nearly half of those surveyed plan to visit breweries at the same frequency. However, this data gets quite interesting when we break it down by region. 44% of guests in the Northeast plan to visit breweries less frequently. 38% of guests in the Midwest plan to visit less frequently. 28% of guests in the West plan to visit less frequently. 21% of guests in the South plan to visit less frequently.

Once the temperature gets cooler, I plan to visit breweries:
 MidwestNortheastSouthWest
116.820.48.412.0
221.623.613.016.5
346.243.850.048.4
412.48.519.315.7
53.03.69.37.3
1 = Much less frequently, 5 = Much more frequently

With guests visiting breweries less, we now look at how much guests are spending when they do visit. On a positive note, 63% of those surveyed are spending equal to or more than they were compared to before COVID-19.

What does all of this mean? Brewery visits are becoming more intentional. The majority of brewery goers aren’t visiting at the frequency they were pre-COVID and these numbers are only going to drop as the temperature continues to get colder. It is important that we safely, maximize each brewery visit, continue to promote and encourage beer to go, and do everything we can to remain fresh in our guests’ minds.

Andrew Coplon is a founder of Secret Hopper, a mystery shopping company for craft beer businesses. Check out all of his CBB articles here.

craft beer consumer tastes
Craft Beer Consumer Habits in February 2021: Are on-site attitudes changing?
COVID19 coronavirus mask money
Why you need to maximize engagement during a pandemic
opening a christmas gift
Craft Beer Consumer Habits Poll for Winter 2020
winter merchandise craft beer
Holiday sales push: 10 outside-the-box craft beer merch items for winter

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Craftpeak launches Square integration within its digital storefront
  • Why (and how) Cabarrus Brewing will stick with online sales post-lockdown
  • Marketing Idea of the Week: CraftHaus Brewery’s scratch ‘n sniff cans
  • Portland Cider Co. donates $12,500 to Hunger-Free Schools

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • libdib online beer distributorWhy (and how) Cabarrus Brewing will stick with online sales post-lockdown
    February 25, 2021
  • craft beer consumer tastesCraft Beer Consumer Habits in February 2021: Are on-site attitudes changing?
    February 24, 2021
  • No and low alcohol beer grew 30+ percent last year, now enjoy some big haps in the NA beer sector
    February 23, 2021
  • How to Seduce a Distributor: The importance of branding, common misconceptions and automatic disqualifiers
    February 22, 2021
  • I would totally sit in a hot tub of hops and drink chill pints at this new beer spa in Denver
    February 18, 2021
  • truly hard seltzer‘Truly’ crushing it: Boston Beer nets over $1.7 billion in 2020 revenue
    February 18, 2021

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2021 · CBB Media LLC

Continue ...

sponsored by