Rockstar Brewers Need to Invest in Public Relations

Last week, Trillium Brewing faced yet another embarrassing moment in the spotlight, where a former employee dished out some dirt regarding their employee compensation practices as well as some questionable remarks surrounding production and retail practices. This is not a unique situation for the beer industry, you can find an upset and vocal former employee in every field there is. Shortly after shit hit the fan, Trillium co-owner JC Tetreault felt pressured into casually responding to the unfavorable allegations on Facebook, before giving another casual statement on BeerAdvocate message boards. I am not here to judge or scrutinize how Trillium runs their operations, however this is not their first unfortunate public relations disaster. Earlier this summer, a contracted laborer was tragically burned in their brewhouse. Again, accidents in the workplace are not unique to beer. Accidents happen at Disneyland and other high-profile places that people love. Unfortunately, Trillium was called to the carpet for not responding properly in the public eye, and keeping operations going on while a man suffered a near-fatal accident.

While many new beer geeks won’t be familiar with this, Lost Abbey spent a few years wiping egg off their face time and time again. Reports came in that their then-expensive Bourbon and Brandy Barrel Aged Angel’s Share was either gushing or showing up flat. Instead of saying sorry, refunding and providing hope for improvement, they sent their company figurehead Tomme Arthur online to make statements to the along the lines of “Barrel aged beer is unpredictable,” or “We wanted this to be wine like, so it’s supposed to be flat.” More recently, but still eons ago in beer geek years, was the nearly week-long Duck Duck Gooze bottle sale blunder that involved multiple botched online sales using a homegrown ecommerce system and on-the-fly rule changes coupled with not-so-well thought out online communication. While Lost Abbey still commands a premium price for their limited sour ales, this is still something brought up each time.

Toppling Goliath has some of the most sought-after stouts and IPAs in the country. Everyone in the industry that knows the owners and management have told us that they are nice, salt of the earth people. Unfortunately, they too have dealt with a few notorious PR blunders over the past few years. They offer their rarest beer for in-house consumption for the cost comparable to what the secondary/black market is charging. That seems reasonable and smart from my perspective. Sadly, they charged someone $200 less than they were supposed to and emailed the customer to come back and square up. So far, I’m with paying for what you are bought. When this customer called out Toppling Goliath, TG responded less than favorably at first. If you have time, you can Google around about TG all the way up to their responses on the $100 bottles of 2018 KBBS and you will know that they brew much better than they provide public responses. So, what am I getting at here?

Rockstar Brewers Need to Invest in Public Relations

Rockstar brewers and perhaps all brewers need to invest in public relations and a social media handler trained in public relations and customer service. It’s been my experience that Facebook and Instagram have presented themselves to the average person that anyone can do a great job at social media. Post a picture, fork over some cash for a boost and boom, you are a social media expert who doesn’t have to spare the extra cost of a part-time or full-time worker. I’ve said it for years, especially when watching Lost Abbey’s early blunders is that a great brewer does not make a great PR person.

Accidents happen, mistakes happen, brewers struggle to grow into their big britches from an operations standpoint. There is no need for a brewery owner or a Head Brewer to put their foot in their mouth online. It doesn’t matter how good your beer is, there are too many options out there, and less-than-stellar customer relations will eventually wear on even the most loyal customer base.

If you are a high-profile brewery like Trillium or Toppling Goliath, and you are charging what the market will bear, you should have a budget for someone who will go on the front line and battle the worst of the trolls on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Their weapon of choice should be world class customer service which entails understanding, empathy, and a razor-sharp sword of pleasantness.

If you are a new brewery with limited cash flow, this might actually be more important. One foul PR move could put you under, where as a company with a large rabid following can rebound from a few blunders. If you are tight on cash, see if your local community college offers a social media marketing course and if all else, go study the best in the business. Look at Firestone Walker, Allagash Brewing and The Bruery if you want to know how to engage with your customers in the nicest possible way, even when the deck is stacked against you.