[n3wc]

EDIT: I got enough responses, so thanks to all that helped. I was going to remove teh thread once I had enough responses but the thread ended up having some good discussion points so I thought it best to leave it.

Hi friends,
I'm in University of Richmond's (VA) brewing program and we have an assignment to collect basic marketing-type data. If you have 2-3 minutes to spare I'd appreciate the help

https://goo.gl/forms/UUam5UeTf3A3dodo2

I don't need a ton of results so as soo as I get enough I'll pull this down. thanks in advance

[denny]

You need to clarify in the entertainment questions that you're talking about a brewery visit.  I thought I'd jumped to a different survey.

[EnkAMania]

You need to clarify in the entertainment questions that you're talking about a brewery visit.  I thought I'd jumped to a different survey.

I was stumped what a tv beer was. 

[James K]

I think You should try to clarify more of what you are asking or trying to ask (maybe go for more open ended questions and perhaps use a wider scale to determine your significance (or if there is significance) in response (i.e. how do you plan on measuring the total votes for your survey) For me none of what you are asking is important when I decide to go to a brewery, what is important is good tasty beer. I have never gone anywhere because they had at good ipa, stout, lager, sour, etc. I go places because people tell me the beer is good, the vibe is good, or the staff is good, or I’ve been drinking the beer for a decade and I’m curious about what else they might have that’s not on the shelf at the grocery store. Ex: I visited two breweries last weekend I had never been to, 6 hours from home (may never go there again who knows.) I looked over the entire menus of 12+ beers each and ordered what I thought would be delicious and what I wanted to try. None of the beers I ordered would be related to your questions, and, I asked for two tasters before making a decision at one place. Ended up leaving with 4 crowlers.
If someone tells me xyz brewery has a good brown ale, I’ll try the brown ale, if someone says xyz specialized in spontaneous fermentation I’ll grab a flight and find out for myself.  Matter fact, when I go to most breweries for the first time I order a flight unless that’s not an option, and then, I’ll tell them straight up what I liked and didn’t like.
Even Russian river has more than pliney (if they even specialize in ipa), and things like consecration are delicious.
So, sorry if I was harsh but, I think the questions could be better thought out. While IPA is probably around 50% market share right now, it’s one of the last things I would order.
Also, I would recommend looking on the AHA and Brewers Association website for some hard data. I know the BA has tons of information, you may need to be a member though, but for example,
https://www.brewersassociation.org/insights/early-2018-beer-style-trends/
https://www.brewersassociation.org/insights/beer-styles-by-state/

Good luck to you.

[n3wc]

Thanks for the initial feedback, really I do appreciate it. Especially jkirkham, taking the time to put together a full response covering many angles is awesome! (especially in the internet age) The intent was simple hard preference questions to help show (or not show) preference in areas in regards to trying to bisect it with some basic demographics.

Thanks again!

[James K]

NP. I created many surveys in a graduate statistics class. If you need/want help feel free to ask. All I’d say is the size of your sample might be really small if you just ask this forum (not very significant). Have you thought about refining your questions, printing out hard copies of your survey, and going to a few breweries in your area trying to collect data? Or is that more work than needed?

By the way my masters thesis was on craft breweries from a sociological perspective and I helped my friend in grad school on her thesis related to geo location and a demographic perspective of where and where not to build a brewery.

[dmtaylor]

Not a bad survey IMO.  Short & sweet and captures the current trends... for those who care about trends.  To me personally, trends might not matter at all.  But for those developing ideas for a new brewery, current trends matter a lot.  Lure the sheeple properly and they will come.

A couple key things to keep in mind besides board games & cornhole: find a great location.  If you build a brewery in the middle of nowhere, people will still come.... but not as many.  Conversely, a really crappy brewery in a really great location will get a ton of business regardless of quality.

Cheers.

[riceral]

A couple key things to keep in mind besides board games & cornhole: find a great location.  If you build a brewery in the middle of nowhere, people will still come.... but not as many.  Conversely, a really crappy brewery in a really great location will get a ton of business regardless of quality.

Cheers.

Sorry Dave. I have to disagree.

While I agree location is important, I've seen breweries in great locations and busy areas that served crappy beers and they closed in short order.

Just my opinion.

[dmtaylor]

Sorry Dave. I have to disagree.

While I agree location is important, I've seen breweries in great locations and busy areas that served crappy beers and they closed in short order.

I hope you are right, honestly.  I do think competition and market dilution is probably an even more critical factor than quality.  If your brewery is the only one in town (Crescent City in NOLA in 2003, I'm talking to you), then people will flock there regardless of quality.  But, if there are 2 or 3 or 10 breweries in close proximity, and some are serving stellar beer while others are serving crappy beer, then of course the crappy ones are going to lose.

Meanwhile, for ~15 years, the Courthouse Pub in Manitowoc was the only brewpub or microbrewery in the county where I live.  And their beer is --- honest-to-God --- UTTER CRAP, friggin undrinkable.  No one I know ever went there for anything but the FOOD, NOT the beer.  They fully deserve their reputation for bad beer.  HOWEVER, fortunate for them, the food is very good, which has kept them alive; and also, until more recently, the average joe around here didn't care about the difference between Busch Light and fizzy extract water as long as it gave them a buzz.  But now, finally, a new nanobrewery has just opened (PetSkull) and another is almost ready to rock (and I've already tasted it, Sabbatical), and FORTUNATELY, both are making fantastic beers.  So finally we will have someplace to flock for beer.  And, like I say, we are (finally!) fortunate that they won't all suck.  But even if I'm wrong and one of the latter two ends up only being mediocre instead of stellar, they will still have regulars at both as long as they're not utter crap like that other one.  In the end, all will remain in business, albeit for different reasons.  All 3 are in pretty decent locations downtown, and I think that definitely helps, especially for the Courthouse Pub.  If on the other hand they were surrounded by old abandoned warehouses and/or in a shady neighborhood... might not be successful.  Now........ if 15 more breweries are built in this county in the next 5-10 years, I cannot promise that all 15 will be successful.  With that many to choose from in a small community, there would certainly be winners and losers.  In a bigger city, though, it wouldn't matter quite as much.  So many factors.

But anyway.

Cheers.

[James K]

A couple key things to keep in mind besides board games & cornhole: find a great location.  If you build a brewery in the middle of nowhere, people will still come.... but not as many.  Conversely, a really crappy brewery in a really great location will get a ton of business regardless of quality.

Cheers.

Sorry Dave. I have to disagree.

While I agree location is important, I've seen breweries in great locations and busy areas that served crappy beers and they closed in short order.

Just my opinion.

Location is definitely a factor for success, but overall both food and beer lend to success. I live in a town with 7 breweries, one brewery supposedly has the best beer in the state, an IPA. One brewery makes 100 different beers a year and could care less about what people really like, they seek creativity over consistency. I used to hate that brewery because it wasn’t consistent. Now I love them because where else am I going to get a fruited Berliner, or find 3 barrel aged beers on tap at once? I rarely go to the IPA bar now. However, both these breweries are in the downtown area along with 4 other breweries (all serving food) and I never go to the other breweries for their beer, I go for their food. All these breweries are lucky we hare a high traffic tourist town an hour from the Grand Canyon. People from all over the world come through Flagstaff.

Another point. There are two breweries that are not downtown. One specializes in Belgian beer, they have funky things going, but are consistent with repeating production. The only IPA they have is a red IPA that has a nice toffy character and is lightly hopped.  It is a seasonal style they brew because, well, people do want an IPA. The other brewery that is not downtown is the production location for one of the breweries downtown (actually they aren’t a brewery downtown, just a taproom that a bunch of tourists go to, no one goes to the actual brewery because it’s far away and doesn’t have good food.

Lastly we have a “brewery” that doesn’t make beer yet, they are waiting on their licensing and still call themselves a brewery but are basically a restaurant that sells everybody’s beer. ( still waiting to see if what they end up making is actually good) hopefully it is, it’s not downtown either but is close to the university.

There’s some more food/beer talk for thought.

[Pope of Dope]

Done  . For me beer style doesn't matter at all as long as it'd well done. IPAs, stouts, lagers -- not a necessity to have on tap, but I will say that I like consistency. For example, there is a brewery near me called Enegren. They focus on German style, and though sometimes experimental (they do offer a mosaic IPA) their beer has a cogent concept that they stick to--Germany. And they have a flagship brew, their fantastic altbier, which I think is important. They have gotten this beer into Trader Joes and around town, which works to bring people into the brewery--on tap sales in the brewery account for 60% of their income (based on a conversation I had with the brewmaster).

TV's, outdoor/indoor games, etc aren't that important, you don't need me standing around playing cornhole, you want me buying beer. Food availability and family friendly is important, while I would love to go and drink beer all day at some brewery, but if I am to find the time I will have to bring the fam. Location is important, and ideally for me if a brewery is a stop over near other errands making it a pit stop rather than a destination.