Craft brewery websites: taproom hours, events and where to buy

Short answer: People visit a brewery website to answer three questions: is the taproom open now, what's pouring, and what's on this week. Build the homepage around those, keep the tap list live from the tool you already use to manage menus, and give each individual event its own page, with event markup where the event qualifies. A “where to buy” finder and a small merch shop come next; the brewing story belongs further down.

Page by page

Homepage: open now, on tap, on this week

On a phone, the first screen should show today's taproom hours (with a clear “Closed today” when that's true), an address that opens in maps, the three or four newest beers on tap, and the next event. A full-screen video of the brewhouse looks good in a pitch deck and pushes all of that below the fold.

Age gate: if you use one, keep it to a single tap, and don't let it block hours and directions for people just trying to visit. What your age gate must do is a question for your own advisers; this guide doesn't cover it.

Taproom page

This is the page Google and visitors treat as your “location”. Include:

regular hours and kitchen or food truck hours if different
family, dog and outdoor-seating policies in plain sentences
parking, rideshare drop-off and accessibility notes
private hire or group booking information with a simple enquiry form
photos of the actual space, inside and out

Keep holiday hours current on the website and in your Google Business Profile at the same time. Hours that differ between the two are a frustration you can avoid entirely.

There's even a Schema.org type for this: Brewery, which sits under LocalBusiness and FoodEstablishment and inherits properties like opening hours and acceptsReservations. It's a small, worthwhile addition to the taproom page's structured data.

Tap list page

Retyping beers onto the website every Thursday is how tap lists go stale. If you already manage menus in Untappd for Business, its help center describes a website embed with HTML or iframe code, “optimized for both full and mobile web browsers”, that updates in real time as you change the menu. You can pick which menus appear, choose one of several layouts and set colors and fonts, including a transparent background so it sits on your own design. For deeper control, Untappd points designers to its API, which its help center lists as a premium feature.

Whatever tool you use, the tap list on the website should come from the same place as the menu screens in the taproom. One update, everywhere.

Useful details per beer: style, ABV, a one-line description, and serving formats (pour sizes, crowlers, cans to go). Mark what's new this week.

Events page

Trivia, live music, food trucks, release days and run clubs give people a reason to come back on a Tuesday. Two rules:

One page per event with date, start time, price or “free”, and whether tickets are needed. A single flyer image gives visitors no readable text to scan or copy on a phone, and text inside an image is harder for search engines to use than text on the page. Put the details in the page text as well.
Mark up real, eligible events only. Google's event structured data documentation asks for name, start date and location as required properties. Its technical guidelines say each event must have a unique URL (a leaf page) with the markup on that URL, and that Google's event experience supports pages focused on a single event rather than pages that list schedules or multiple events. Its content guidelines also say not to mark business hours as events and not to dress up discounts as events (“50% off until Saturday”). Events must be bookable by the general public and take place in a physical location. A public trivia night with a date, time and venue can fit; a happy hour listed as hours or a discount generally doesn't.

Recurring events like weekly trivia can have a schedule section on one page, but that is for human visitors only. It is not a substitute for event pages. If you want a specific trivia night to be considered for Google's event results, that date needs its own leaf URL with its own markup. Special events (an anniversary party, a collaboration release) deserve their own pages in the same way. Don't put event markup on the schedule or listing page.

Where to buy (beer finder)

If your beer is in stores, bars or restaurants, a common question after “are you open?” is “where can I get it near me?”. Options in rising order of effort:

A simple list of stockists by city, updated monthly. Honest and easy.
A map built from a spreadsheet of accounts, filterable by beer or format.
A finder fed by your distributor or sales data, if your partners provide a feed.

Whichever you choose, put a “last updated” date on it. A finder that sends someone to a store that sold out in spring does more harm than no finder.

Shop: merch first

Shirts, hats, glassware and gift cards are straightforward to sell online through any standard store platform. Selling beer for shipping or pickup is a separate question: check the rules for your state before adding beer to the cart, and many breweries keep beer to “order ahead for taproom pickup” or leave it off the site. This guide gives no legal advice on alcohol sales.

Product pages need real photos and sizing; glassware needs a clear note on shipping and breakage.

About and brewery story

Founders, brewers, the building, the water, the first batch. It matters for press, distributors and job applicants. It doesn't need to be on the homepage.

Private events and group bookings

A separate page with capacity, what's included, food options and a form that asks date, group size and occasion. Route it to whoever actually handles bookings, not the general inbox.

Small things that pay off

Email sign-up offering release alerts, placed on the tap list and events pages
Instagram feed, if you post often, placed low on the page so it doesn't slow the first screen
Press and trade page with logo files and contact for distributors
Job page when you're hiring, so applicants don't message your social accounts

FAQ

Should the tap list be an embed or built into the site?

An embed from the tool you already use is quickest and stays current. A custom build via an API is worth it only if the embed's design options can't match your site, and Untappd lists its API as a premium feature.

How often should the beer finder be updated?

Monthly is a reasonable starting interval; adjust it to how often your stockists change and what data you can access. Show the date of the last update so visitors know how fresh the list is.

How do events show up in Google?

Give each individual event its own leaf page and add event structured data with the required name, start date and location. A page listing a recurring schedule is for your visitors, not for event markup. Google can then consider an eligible event for its event results, though nothing guarantees display.

What should go in the merch shop first?

Start with the items people already ask for in the taproom, usually shirts, hats, glassware and gift cards, and add more once you see what sells online.

If your tap list, hours and event flyers live in five different places, show us your current setup and we'll map out one source for each.