Beer, Google, and Untappd
How many times have you tried to find info about a beer you’ve cellared or picked up randomly at a bottle shop only to be led to the black hole of consumer reviews and ratings? Riddled with misspellings and misinformation, these hobbyist vomit forums are sadly the most common way to learn about a lot of the beers available on the market.
But no brewer — after spending all day sweating over a mash tun, losing sleep about possible temperature fluctuations during primary, and considering how oak vessels will ultimately affect flavor profiles — wants you to learn about the fruit of their labor from a 0–5 bottle cap rating.
Oddly enough, after all this meticulous attention put into the beer, once it’s in a bottle/keg/can, you see almost no effort going into telling the beer’s story in a way that’s easy to find on the internet. There’s a tragic lack of indexable content. Even the guys making good use of social media are ignoring Google algorithms on their websites completely, and letting other people be their voice.
I’m not a Joe Schmoe talking smack about breweries. I can say with some certainty that I’ve probably spent time with more brewery websites than any other human alive. A big part of launching Craftpeak was auditing brewery websites for speed scores, SEO rankings, indexable beers (individual URLs for each beer), and mobile responsiveness/support. I haven’t just taken these sites out to a nice dinner, I’ve kissed them on the neck and slowly undressed them by the thousand. As an expert on the subject of brewery websites (mom’s real proud) there’s one main question I keep asking: “WHY THE CUSS ARE YOU IGNORING HOW THE INTERNET WORKS!”
Don’t get me wrong — Untappd, Beer Advocate, and Rate Beer have done some great things to add momentum to the craft beer movement. But the fact that all of their info is provided by the general public makes them a double-edged sword. Untappd might have the most comprehensive index of beers from your favorite brewery, but its bottle cap rating system might kill a style completely! Be honest, when’s the last time you gave ANY pale ale 5 bottle caps? How about a Kolsch? An English Mild? In other words, customer reviews should not be the online authority on the liquid.
I’ll use my homies at Kent Falls Brewing Company as an example because they’re working on these problems right now. Derek and Barry have sacrificed a lot of 21st century amenities to live on a farm in Kent, Connecticut. A brewer friend of mine recently described their authentic beers as “everything I want in a beer.” Wild beers, funky beers, old beers you’ve only heard nerds your dad’s age talk about, these guys are all about it. They source as much as possible from their own farm or the farms around them and dude… there’s only farms around them. To experience the brewery and get the beers “straight from the cow,” you’ve got to make a pilgrimage to Kent. Once you sojourn down that long dirt road, you better grab all the liquid you’re legally allowed and save it for a rainy day.
When that rainy day arrives, weeks or months later, you’ll probably want to learn a little more about the bottle at hand. But your best bet getting the story behind the delicate delight is a grouchy Untappd reviewer who doesn’t like pickles, or emailing Barry himself (if you do, brace for a response with some next level snark).
People want the story behind the beer and its ingredients — and they want that story from the guys that thought it up! What hops are in there? What barrels did it rest in and for how long? How did you know it was done? What inspired this beer and moved you to brew it? Brewery fans aren’t the only ones who want to know these things. Our good pal Google, tour guide to the internet, wants to know too.
Google constantly refines its ranking algorithms and guidelines. If you follow this direction, then you — and not a mixed bag of internet commenters — will become the authority on your product to anyone who searches for it. That’s how we helped our customers at Holy City Brewing. Two weeks after the launch of their new website, it’s the first hit when you Google “Holy City + IPA”. They can share exactly what they want consumers to know about their beer:
As I’m constantly reminding brewery owners, the only place on the internet where a company completely controls its narrative is its own website. Tell your beer’s story, because bottle caps can’t. If you want your story to get to you brand evangelists, the rules are simple…
Be indexable, be fast, and content content content.
