Designing a website for a brewery or bierhaus is an exciting task. The craft beer explosion is sweeping the nation, and webmasters are seeing brewery website design come up more and more. Here is a checklist of items that must go into a great brewery website:
Brewery Website Design Checklist
1. Age Verification
It should be quick to use, especially for your mobile customers. This is usually a front page or pop up that verifies that the customer is above the legal drinking age in their geographic area. This is meant to cover you against legal ramifications.
2. Tap List
To make your site easy to navigate, tap lists are important. Sites with rotating listings of what’s currently on tap will give you more visitors and higher search engine rankings than those without them! It should be quick for mobile customers as well- this is usually done through a front page or pop up that verifies whether the visitor/visiting beers at their age limit in geographic area (to avoid legal ramifications). If there isn’t one already set up then use Untappd which has excellent integration into phones so updates can easily happen on-the-go.
3. Food Offering
If your brewery does not have a kitchen, that’s absolutely fine – but make it known from the home page. Some websites have a list of nearby restaurants, or have a food truck parked nearby instead. For the convenience of your customers, let them know what they can expect in the way of food and/or snacks from the get-go, so they can plan their day accordingly.
4. Hours of Operation
This should be obvious, right? A potential visitor should not have to click anywhere to locate your hours. They should be front and center on your home page.
5. Address and Phone Number
On a mobile device, your address should launch a map. The phone number should launch click-to-call. Both should be at the top of the page, without too much scrolling.
6. Specialties and Claim-To-Fame
Are you brewing the best sours in the South? The best porters in Potomac? Share your accolades with the world. Remember, a photo is worth a thousand words.
7. Events and Entertainment
This is often done as it’s own tab. Announcing your events on social media is great, but very loyal followers will want to be able to look at your calendars in advance. Keeping an updated tab with beer releases, bottle shares, contests, beerfests, and special events is a way of keeping brewery fans excited about coming back often.
8. Bottle Finder
If your bottles are already in distribution, let your customers know where they can find them locally (subject to availability). Alternately, you can use this space for another opportunity to engage with your brand – by including a Call To Action like “Join Our Beer Club”.
9. Social Media Feeds
Keeping a live feed of your Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter somewhere on your homepage is a great teaser that entices the user to click and follow – much moreso than just having the icons there. Constantly post photos from events, inside the brewery, and new shots of your beers.
10. Store
Most breweries don’t sell their actual beer online – but that’s OK! Hats, shirts, bottle openers, and other items emblazoned with your logo are fun for your fans – especially those visiting you from out of town.
Ready for some inspiration? Check out our brewery design Pinterest board for some ways other brands have done it.
