RIVERWEST BACKYARD HOPS

Every year, patrons would pick their backyard hops and bring them into Company Brewing for our Riverwest Backyard Hops event. My task was to brand the event each year, design the can, and build/deliver the communication around the event. Communication included scheduling multiple social posts, email newsletters, communicating event details to media outlets, creating event pages on our website, Facebook, and Linktree, and staff education. This event happened in two parts.

First, guests come in for hop drop off and our brew day. Guests weigh their hops, take pictures, and celebrate in the brewery with the brewers and staff. At this time, guests receive their yearly punch card with personalized info pertaining to many pounds of hops they dropped off, how much beer they’ll receive, and important events dates.

The second date is their beer pickup and brunch party, roughly 4 weeks after brew day. Guests who contributed hops will receive their packaged beer (dependent on the amount of hops contributed), a glass of the draft beer, and 25% off their brunch.

Our first of two email blasts of the year with important information regarding our 2023 Riverwest Backyard Hops drop off/brew date and guests gifts for their participation.

Our second of two email blasts, a follow-up email with our recap and important dates and pickup infromation.

White box photography of my can design for the 2023 Riverwest Backyard Hops can.

An infographic given to our staff to help avoid confusion when guest who participated in the Backyard Hops hop drop off return with their cards to collect their beer etc.

AN EVENING AT TONY’S

“What a beautiful night Valentine’s is. There’s a deep chill in the midwest air, two breaths expelled, floating intertwined into the endless sky, broken up only by the light of the mostly full moon. An alluring smell of a deep doughy pan pizza drifts between you and your partner, and the glistening of crisp golden cheese catches the both of your eyes. In the first gaze, within the first seconds of your two loving gazes, you notice a single strand noodle being lifted from a large swirling bowl of spaghetti and slurped between two lovers lips. You’re caught daydreaming as you watch, and think, should our dinner reservations have included An Evening At Tony’s instead of (insert lame dinner spot) we may also have enjoyed a long, single strand of spaghetti that meets in the middle with a tender kiss. Make a reservation and enjoy a lovely Valentine’s Day dinner with whoever makes you feel love, or miss it and forever wonder.“

The “An Evening At Tony’s” was en event that I concepted that ditched the traditional Company Brewing dinner menu, for a super special Italian dinner pop up. Pulling ideas from the classic movie “All Dogs Go To Heaven” and my want to turn Company Into a pizza restaurant (sort of joking).

My task was to concept and brand the event, as well as build/deliver the communication around the event. Communication included ticket/RSVP link creation, ticket/RSVP management, scheduling multiple social posts, email newsletters and blasts, communicating event details to media outlets, creating event pages on our website, Facebook, and Linktree, and staff education.

An email blast with links out to event info and ticket/RSVP information.

An Evening At Tony’s menu front and back

HOLIDAY PARTY BEER RELEASES & BLACK FRIDAY

Each Black Friday we release Holiday Party, a Rum Barrel-Aged Belgian Quad. In the years before I worked with Company Brewing, the release only involved one beer, the base barrel-aged beer.

I recognized from my experience at other breweries (Solemn Oath and Half Acre) that customer engagement could be vastly improved by adding variants built off of the base beer. In my second year with Company I suggested we design and release one variant. This was a great success, and helped in moving the beer quickly. In my third year (2023) we designed two variants. We made more and sold out as fast as the year prior.

Because we could see customer engagement through our social channels and from the year before, we expected customers would rush to purchase these new variants. We opened earlier and made more sales earlier than any past year.

“HOLIDAY PARTY 2024

Ready for pickup at 9am, our kitchen will be open too!⁠
This Black Friday, beginning at 9am (and every Black Friday at Company), kick-off your holiday season by kicking back with a four-beer Black Friday release! All beers are available on draft, 4pk(s), and by the case.⁠
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To make things a little easier for you on your early morning beer excursion, we'll be running the 5-3-2-1-2 Riverwest Brewery Syndicate Brewery Shuttle from 10am-3pm. The shuttle will make a 35-40 minute loop, stopping at each of the five Riverwest breweries; Amorphic, Gathering Place, Black Husky, Company Brewing, Lakefront, and back again.⁠
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CHECK OUT OUR BLACK FRIDAY BEERS!⁠
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🎉🍺 HOLIDAY PARTY 2023⁠
Rum Barrel-Aged Belgian Quad - 10.4% ABV⁠
Aged in Barbadian rum barrels, this year's batch is loaded with aromas of rum-raisin, toffee, and vanilla, while the warming sensation from the substantial alcohol content emphasizes flavors of bananas foster, nutmeg, and molasses.⁠
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🎉🍺 HOLIDAY PARTY WHACK AND UNWRAP⁠
Rum Barrel-Aged Belgian Quad with Orange Peel & Chocolate - 10.4% ABV⁠
Aged in Barbadian rum barrels, this year's Whack and unwrap Holiday Party variant is loaded with aromas of chocolate, orange peel, rum-raisin, toffee, and vanilla, while the warming sensation from the substantial alcohol content emphasizes flavors of bananas foster, nutmeg, and molasses. Whack and Unwrap, and make it a holiday favorite!⁠
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🎉🍺 HOLIDAY PARTY / THOUSANDFOLD BLEND⁠
Blended Belgian Imperial Stout Aged in Rum Barrels - 10.2% ABV⁠
Holiday Party 2023 Belgian Quad and Thousandfold Imperial Stout, blended and aged in Barbadian rum barrels. This blend is loaded with aromas of rum-raisin, toffee, bakers chocolate, and vanilla, while the warming sensation from the substantial alcohol content emphasizes flavors of bananas foster, mocha, nutmeg, and molasses.⁠
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🎉🍺 THUNDER THIOLS (The weird Turn Pro series)⁠
Dry Hopped Thiolized Lager - 8% ABV⁠
Mega Motueka, X25, experimental 09326 hops⁠
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🎉🍺 HOLIDAY PARTY MIXED PACK⁠
Four pack with 2x Holiday Party 2023, 1x Holiday Party Whack and Unwrap, 1x Holiday Party/Thousandfold Rum Blend⁠
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Cheers to Black Friday beers!”

YEARLY BEER RELEASE CALENDAR

Part of our decision to create a yearly beer release calendar spawned from our need for better communication between General Beverage, our distribution partner. Their sales crew were unaware of when and what we were releasing, and were having issues with recognizing our, in my opinion, very obvious new brands. In speaking with upper management at GenBev, we found that the product, timeline, and quantity they were asking for, and what we were able to provide was differing. One issue was the data that they were delivering was very generalized and not proving totally true. Both GenBev and us were making sales decisions based on past years brand releases and production schedules.

In order to gain better insight and begin developing a plan, I began collecting physical depletion numbers via weekly reports. I collected and entered these weekly numbers into a spreadsheet that more closely tracked their inventory, as well as our in-house Front of House and brewery cooler inventory numbers. With three years worth of numbers, we were able to determine what beer styles our guests were asking for and when they were asking for it. We could also more accurately predict how much product to make of our off brands, in order to move higher volumes to our core beers, and more.

With this information I developed this calendar for our guests, for our staff, and for our sales crew for better transparency into each year’s releases. We could now sit down at the end of each year and develop a plan for the next based on known customer drinking habits and preferences. We saw that we could sell much more beer with our big releases if we design and spread out beer across variants. We were able to promise more and deliver on those promises to our distro partners. Our staff was better educated and equipped, knowing what beer to expect much before the release date. And much more.

SPORTS BALLS

We were having issues with engagement during sports games. We knew we didn’t want to rely on giving away a free drink, or deep discounts. Our product was great, it was worth the spend. Okay, well we did offer $3 select beer until the opposing team scored… we worked to concept an event that was a little different and promoted camaraderie between guests.

Our chef and I sat down and came up with an outlandish bar snack that was too wild, folks had to try it. The result were Sports Balls, 2 Jumbo, House-made Fried Mac and Cheese Balls, a cheese curd snuck in there, and Blue Heat Taki Dust on top (and they were vegetarian!).

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“Sunday Night Football is upon us. It's Kansas City Chiefs at Green Bay Packers, kickoff is at 7:20pm. Along with Sunday night football fun, we're servin' up some real crispy Sports Balls and some amazing draft beer specials.⁠”

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“Just yell out "SPORTS BALLS!" and "BEER ME" and we'll bring a couple a' crispy balls and a $3 beer special right over to your seat. Okay, if you're not at the game, use inside voices and ask your server politely. ⁠
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Tonight is Thursday Night Football. Detroit Lions are at Green Bay Packers, Kickoff is at 7:15pm.”

SportsBalls_PackersGame_1-14-24 copy.jpg

NIGHTMARE ON CENTER STREET & HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS

Nightmare On Center Street was an existing event that lost steam after Covid hit. I knew we needed to come back strong so we built the event back even larger than in the past. I redesigned the poster, worked in a daytime block party with massive bounce houses, DJs, vendors, kids and pups costume contests, and began booking bands to do cover sets late into the night.

This past year we also concepted, designed, and sold preorders of a Milwaukee beer box called Drink-or-Treat, which included 24 different Milwaukee and surrounding area breweries.

To help sell these boxes and raise awareness of our halloween happenings, again I build/delivered the communication around the event through scheduling multiple social posts, email newsletters, communicating event details to media outlets, creating event pages on our website, Facebook, and Linktree, and staff education.