Episode 006 - Preparing the transition from self distributing to selling thru a distributor
This episode’s guest is Eric McNeil, founder of Aquanaut Brewing Company.
Aquanaut is in the Bowmanville neighborhood of Chicago.
Eric started his professional career in graphic design and has been making Aquanaut’s labels himself. After getting bit by the homebrewing bug, Eric took the Siebel Institute’s “concise” course in brewing technology and he’s spent a significant amount of time shadowing professional brewers on the job to learn his craft.
Marketing Strategy
“There’s definitely some key accounts I thought, you know, as a beer enthusiast in Chicago there are definitely some great beer bars, great restaurants, starting out with some of those places, talking to them.
Another thing that helped give us the direction is that we produce a lot of English inspired beers. We thought that a natural outlet for our beers would be a traditional pub. Which we have plenty of in Chicago.”
“You find out real quickly there’s not enough hours in the day to brew all the beer and package it, deliver it, and sell it”
Resource Eric mentioned:
For inspiration Eric goes to modern design magazines such Dwell and Metropolitan Home.
Aquanaut Brewing uses:
Since our conversation, Aquanaut has been distributing through the well known Chicago area distributor Lakeshore Beverage.
Eric’s contact info:
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.aquanautbeer.com
Twitter: @aquanautbeer
Instagram: @aquanautbeer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Aquanaut-Brewing-Company-255412274644880/
