While the patron who wants to start fights isn’t the ideal person to have sitting at your bar, the patron who wants to stick with beer all night is definitely someone worth keeping around, especially if you have a strong draught program on-premise to keep your beer enthusiasts around longer. While spirits and cocktails are an incredibly important part of your bar’s success, having a strong beer program can bring an entirely different audience. Patrons that ask questions, try new things and come back excited to see what is on tap tonight are the ones that will make your business more successful, and none of this can take place without some of that solid malty brew.

In order to maintain a strong draught beer program on-premise, there are two main rules, without which you may have a hard time keeping people interested. A solid beer selection brings people in, and cleanliness keeps them around for more than one pint. After all, it is next to godliness.

Charlie Buettner, head brewer at Mad Fox Brewing Company in Falls Church, Virginia (www.madfoxbrewing.com), has been making beer at Mad Fox for long enough to understand what his patrons want—a solid draught program with a great selection. While the beers at Mad Fox are only found on-premise currently, their craft beer selection is well known in the Washington, D.C. area. Every Tuesday, Mad Fox has a Tuesday Tappings day where people can come and fill growlers of freshly tapped beer for half price. After a tapping that brought over 200“As a brewery, having the opportunity to create the selection, it’s important to offer something from the spectrums of what beer is,” says Buettner. “You have four main ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. I try to make sure I have something that focuses on those main ingredients.”

By offering a selection of beer that appeals to the light beer drinker, the heavier beer drinkers, the one looking for a kick of hops, or something more yeasty, Buettner is able to attract a diverse patronage. Mass-market beers such as Bud Light and Miller Lite won’t make an appearance behind the bar at Mad Fox, but for someone who wants something similar, a crisp Kolsch is always on tap.

“Selection is a huge part of a strong beer program,” says Buettner. “You have to make sure you don’t just have 15 IPAs or ten stouts. You have to be varied and touch on everything. You brew for the public, and you have to make sure that your public is satisfied with at least one of the beers that you can offer, if not all.”

Garrett Oliver, beer writer, connoisseur, and head brewer at Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, New York (www.brooklynbrewery.com), has very similar feelings about having a strong selection of beers on tap. Brooklyn Brewery, unlike most breweries, is very draught beer focused, with 50% of their beer on draught, and the other 50% in bottles. (Most bars are around 80% bottles and 20% draught). Needless to say, a strong draught beer selection is incredibly important to Oliver, as well as the avid Brooklyn Brewery drinker.

“There can be few things that are more devastating than having a bad draft list,” says Oliver. “When someone comes up to the bar, that’s the first thing they’re going to look at, and in 30 seconds they’re going to decide what kind of place you are. If you have 12 draft lines and five of them are pilsners or versions of pilsners, you will have wasted most of that real estate.”

At Brooklyn Brewery, Oliver and his staff of brewers make sure that they are constantly changing up their draught beer selection in order to keep people on their toes. While their Brooklyn Lager is an incredibly popular product, their Brewmaster’s Reserve, which is a new beer released every three months, is a unique choice for the adventurous beer drinker.

“I think a nice draft list gives everybody somewhere to go,” says Oliver. “There should be an interesting approach there, not just in sheer number, but by offering top crafts everybody knows and then putting in a few extra things—the occasional curve ball. That really gets people saying, ‘There’s someone really paying attention to this. Somebody is curating this list. Maybe I should ask them questions.’”

Click here to read the full story on draught beer"
in the Jan/Feb 2012 Digital issue of Bar Business Magazine