Hop & Barrel

Built exclusively for craft breweries

A full year of brewery marketing, built in under an hour.

Built on 30 years of real brewery experience — opening 60+ taprooms, consulting 400+ operations, and proving the framework with $1.5M in year one and $2.8M in year two, opening in the middle of COVID shutdowns. Now powered by AI and available to every brewery for $27/month.

Start your 3-day free trial · Cancel anytime, no questions asked

7 Businesses owned
60+ Breweries opened
400+ Breweries consulted
$2.8M Revenue year two
30 yrs In the industry

Everything included

Not a generic marketing tool.
Built for breweries.

Every prompt, every output, every export is tailored to taproom culture, craft beer seasonality, and the realities of running a brewery.

🍺
Brewery Setup & Guest Profiles
Tell us about your taproom, beer styles, distribution model, and ideal guests. Every output is built around your specific operation — not a generic template.
🎯
Annual Brand Theme
One overarching narrative that ties your entire year together — from tap announcements and event promos to email subject lines and distributor pitches.
📅
Monthly Event Calendars
Day-by-day outreach calendars for each month — tap releases, mug club pushes, seasonal events, Untappd campaigns, and community programming.
👥
Operations Timelines
Week-by-week ops calendars covering taproom staffing, beer release prep, distributor check-ins, event execution, and guest follow-up for every month.
📱
25 Social Posts Per Month
Platform-specific captions with hashtags, Untappd CTAs, and visual briefs for Instagram, Facebook, Untappd, TikTok, and Google Business — tied to your actual events.
✉️
Print & Email Materials
AI-written email newsletters, postcards, table cards, event flyers, mug club scripts, review request sequences, and more — complete with Canva specs.
📝
Word Doc & Google Docs Export
Every section exports to a beautifully formatted Word document or Google Doc. Hand your plan to your team or vendor with zero extra formatting work.
📆
Calendar Sync
Export directly to Google Calendar or download .ics files for Outlook and Apple Calendar. Your entire marketing timeline, in the tool your team already uses.
💾
Save, Load & Add Months
Save your complete plan as a file. Load it back on any device. Add new months without regenerating what's already done. Your plan grows with your brewery.

How it works

A proven framework. In your hands in under an hour.

1
Tell us about your brewery
Your name, location, beer styles, distribution model, and biggest growth challenge.
2
Define your guests
Build two detailed guest profiles. The AI tailors every campaign to who actually walks through your door.
3
Set your annual theme
One brand narrative that runs through all 12 months — tap announcements, social posts, and distributor pitches.
4
Generate month by month
Pick your months. The AI writes complete event calendars, social content, ops timelines, and print materials for each.
5
Export & execute
Download your full plan as a Word doc, sync to Google Calendar, and hand your team a ready-to-run playbook.

Where this plan came from

Not a marketing template.
Thirty years of hard-won brewery experience.

7
Businesses owned
— 6 sold
60+
Breweries personally
opened
400+
Brewery operations
consulted
$2.8M
Year-two revenue
opened during COVID

I've spent 30 years in the trenches of small business — seven companies, six successful exits. Most of that time was spent in one of the hardest industries you can run: hospitality. Specifically, craft beer.

I've personally opened over 60 breweries. I've consulted more than 400 brewery and taproom operations on everything from tap list architecture to distribution strategy to event programming. I've sat across the bar from owners who were two slow months from closing, and owners who were doubling year-over-year — and the difference between them, almost every time, came down to one thing: whether or not they had a real marketing plan, or were just winging it.

One of my breweries I eventually sold to three former Coca-Cola CEOs. That's not name-dropping — it's context. These weren't craft beer hobbyists. They were seasoned business operators who could have bought anything. They bought it because the numbers made sense. The numbers made sense because we had a plan.

My business partner Jonathan is a brewery owner. When we connected, I took everything I'd built across 30 years — the guest profiling, the annual campaign themes, the month-by-month event logic, the ops timelines, the social cadence — and we formalized it into a single, repeatable plan for his brewery. Then we ran it.

"We opened in May 2020 — right as the government was mandating six-foot distances and shutting down public spaces. We navigated every restriction, maximized every revenue channel we could reach, and hit $1.5 million that year. $2.8 million the year after. Not despite the plan — because of it."

— Jonathan, co-founder & brewery owner

That's not a case study. That's us — still running the plan. We built this app because every brewery owner we know faces the same problem: the knowledge of what works is scattered, expensive to access, and takes months to assemble. We put it in one place and made it work in under an hour.

That framework — built from 30 years opening and consulting 400+ brewery operations, proven in the worst operating environment this industry has ever seen — is what's inside this app. Not a template. Not AI making guesses about craft beer. The actual thinking, codified and put in your hands in under an hour.

The question I get asked most

"Is $27 a month really worth it for my brewery?"

Here's how I think about it: one well-promoted event — a tap takeover, a seasonal release, a trivia night with real marketing behind it — brings in what this tool costs for a year. I've watched this framework turn empty Tuesday nights into standing-room crowds. I've seen it help nano breweries punch well above their weight against much larger operations with full marketing teams.

The honest answer is: the $27 is never the question. Whether you'll actually use the plan — that's the only question that has ever mattered. Every brewery that's closed did so with a drawer full of good intentions. This tool removes the excuse of not knowing where to start.

3-day free trial · No commitment · Your exported plans are yours to keep, always

Simple pricing

One plan. Everything included.

Less than the cost of one hour of a marketing consultant's time.

Brewery Pro
$27
/ month
3-day free trial · cancel anytime
  • Unlimited plan generations
  • All 10 planning steps
  • 25 social posts per month
  • Word Doc, Google Docs & CSV exports
  • Google Calendar & Outlook sync
  • Save, load, and add months anytime
  • New features added regularly

🔒 Secure checkout via Stripe · Cancel anytime, no questions asked

From the taproom

What happens when you work the plan.

"We spent years winging our marketing month-to-month. Hop & Barrel gave us a full year in a single afternoon. The social posts alone save us 4-5 hours a week."

— Head Brewer, Southeast Craft Taproom
12-tap taproom, self-distributing

"The ops timeline was the surprise feature for me. Having week-by-week tasks for every department, tied directly to our events calendar, finally got our whole team rowing the same direction."

— Taproom Manager, Midwest Brewpub
20-tap brewpub, food menu

"I handed my brewer the ops timeline and my marketing person the social calendar. Both said it felt like it was written specifically for our brewery. The AI knows craft beer."

— Owner, Mountain State Nano Brewery
6-tap nano, mug club focused

Questions

Before you start.

Who built this, and why should I trust it?
Hop & Barrel was built by two partners. One brings 30 years of brewery industry experience — personally opening 60+ taprooms, consulting 400+ brewery operations, and selling a brewery to three former Coca-Cola CEOs. The other is Jonathan, a brewery owner who opened in May 2020, implemented that framework from day one, and grew to $1.5 million in year one and $2.8 million in year two — in the middle of COVID restrictions. They're still running the plan. This isn't a marketing agency's best guess at what works. It's a framework two operators built, proved in the real world, and are still using — before they ever made it available to anyone else.
Does it actually know craft beer?
Yes. Every prompt is brewery-specific — referencing taproom culture, Untappd, mug clubs, keg tapping schedules, distributor dynamics, and seasonal beer releases. This isn't a generic marketing tool with "brewery" swapped in. It was built from the ground up for craft beer operations.
How long does it actually take to build a full plan?
About 45-60 minutes for your first complete plan. Most of that time is reading and refining the output, not waiting. Social posts generate in the background while you continue to the next step, so nothing blocks you from moving forward.
Can I edit the output?
Everything exports to Word or Google Docs where you can edit freely. The app also lets you regenerate individual sections — so if the January calendar doesn't land right, you can regenerate just January without touching anything else.
I'm a small nano brewery. Is this too much for me?
Not at all. You can generate plans for as few months as you want — even just one month at a time. The tool scales to your operation, whether you're a 2-barrel nano or a 20-tap regional brewpub.
Is my data saved?
Your plan is saved in your browser session as you work. You can also download a complete plan file (.json) to your device and reload it on any device at any time. We don't store your plan content on our servers — it stays on your device.
What happens after I cancel?
Your subscription ends at the end of the billing period. Any plans you've already downloaded or saved to file are yours to keep — you don't lose your work. You just won't be able to generate new content after the subscription ends.

Your taproom. Your plan. Your year.

I've watched hundreds of great breweries struggle with marketing — not because they made bad beer, but because they didn't have a system. This is the system.

Try it free for 3 days. If it doesn't feel like it was built for your brewery, cancel. No questions.

3-day free trial · Cancel anytime · Your exports are yours to keep