Category: Events
Since we last wrote, it’d an understatement to suggest that only a lot has happened. It’s been 3 years since we added a new story here, lol, so while our startup storytelling has been ultra light, our remarkable founders continue building on all fronts. As we curate the story of FliteBrite, Sinclair has also fired up a cool community initiative (Frontier Coworking). McDougal hosts a 100+ episode podcast, keeps making a ruckus within his wild museum, and now has a second book—Brewed From Within: Energy for the Entrepreneurial Lifestyle—on bookshelves nationwide. Davidson still builds ideas into reality through manufacturing and the co-founding team remains disciplined in always having fun.
FliteBrite is now a 12+ year old quest. Can you believe that?! After the pandemic put tasting rooms and beer festivals on ice, we’ve spent the past few years wrinkling back out around North America. Our beer festival app remains fresh and activate in cool places like Iowa, Maine, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, and we’re back in California this weekend!
We’re going, going… back, back… to Cali, Cali 🎶
To peek under our hood, the California Brewers Festival is a cool example of how our partnerships can thrive. The FliteBrite brewfest app is back on tap this Saturday, so let’s use this hoppy client story to support this friendly company update. Ok, so we’ve enjoyed collaborating with the California Brewers Festival since 2023. Each year, they bring their Brewfest together and we curate a digital companion for their long-standing beer festival in Sacramento, California. Our simple system makes everything a breeze, so now we just have fun going with green lights, catching up as friends, activating the efficient tech stack, and making it easy to showcase the tasty art that everyone will be pouring at their annual brewfest. Their craft beer community, likes so many fantastic events, unites 50-75 breweries for a good causes and in this case, they have done so the past 30 years! Wanna see our brewfest app in action? Poke around http://FliteBrite.com/CalBrewfest to taste the #CalBrewfest app and as you can imagine, over time, the real-time attendee data reveals cool insights for endless storytelling.
We’ve crafted a cold tool for smart event organizers and brewers sharing their delicious creations within a community that cares. If you’re hosting beer festivals and want a cool twist to save time, we are open for growth and always enjoy meeting a new friend—let’s chat.
Along with a handful of events nationwide, our electronic serving system remains in the wings and will never stop refilling wonder. We build sophisticated with long-term IP strategies and healthy cash flow. We’re three friends with complimenting superpowers and a clean cap table. We get to build first in line, the front & center of craft beer, but also wine, cheese, and all that is fine dining. As we often joke, our customer discovery has sure been tasty. Cheers to all who have been a part of this long-term quest! Let’s keep playing to see what happens next.
Caaalifornia Looooove 🎶
Our beer festival app was back on tap at another awesome brewfest last weekend. This was our first event in California, which is a tasty addition to other events we support in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, and Maine. We collaborated with event organizers who were looking for something fresh for the 29th annual California Brewers Festival.
Brewers from throughout California were introduced to our slick vendor portal for the first time. Feedback was fantastic, as we heard many of them share how easy it was to craft their menu in minutes. Breweries, cideries, wineries, and distilleries all looked sharp, while attendees got to see all that was being poured. After gates opened, beer lovers had fun tracking a few favorites and organizers appreciated the creative support our team provided every step of the way.
“This new thing seems cool!” -Touchstone Brewing, Sacramento
Hit http://FliteBrite.com/CalBrewfest to taste the #CalBrewfest app in action. Our team had fun showcasing this beer festival through @FliteBrite on Instagram and we hope you enjoy sipping on our data-driven festival summary that celebrates all our new friends brewing magic in California.
Hosting a beer festival? Let’s chat.
The inaugural TAP 2022 Brewfest celebrated innovation as 44 Minnesota breweries poured close to 200 different craft beers and hard seltzers.
Hosted in Shakopee, this community-driven event started something special. 750+ thirsty attendees enjoyed perfect weather and this well organized beer festival. Everyone had fun and as you can see in our festival summary, attendees used the TAP 2022 app to track more than a few favorites in our beer festival app. As a tasty bonus, Otso Cycles gave away a sick gravel bike to our Best of Fest winners, Kinney Creek Brewery from Rochester! Special thanks to the City of Shakopee and all our new friends brewing innovation throughout Minnesota. Cheers to our latest Best of Fest winner, enjoy #TAP2022 highlights below, and we’ll see everyone back in Minnesota soon!
RUN A BEER FESTIVAL? LET’S CHAT.
350+ winter beers, ciders, and spirits were celebrated at the 10th annual Coralville BrrrFest!
60 Iowa breweries, cideries, and distilleries poured their creative concoctions for over 2,000 thirsty attendees. Whether it’s feeling the VIP gold rims, smelling casks being tapped, seeing friends having fun together, or hearing the roar of broken glass, brewfests are back and we’ve got the best beer festival app that saves time while bringing everything together.
This was the third consecutive time our beer festival app brought #BrrrFest to life before, during, and after this Iowa beer festival. As you can see below, thousands of people plugged into the BrrrFest app and our exclusive tap handle trophy was earned by yet another new Best of Fest Award winner. Alright, enough chatter! Let’s get to some intoxicating event highlights.
PLANNING A BEER FESTIVAL? LET’S CHAT.
62 breweries, 307 craft beers, and 3,000+ beer lovers emerged from hibernation to enjoy the 2021 Iowa Craft Brew Festival.
We’ve been waiting a looong time for in-person beer festivals to return. This made the 2021 Iowa Craft Brew Festival special. Our beer festival app was in full effect (with a few new features!) and the Best of Fest Award was up for grabs. It was great to catch up with so many friends from all around Iowa, while making a bunch of new ones as well.
The Iowa Brewers Guild has traditionally hosted #ICBF in the heart of downtown Des Moines and while the urban vibe was always cool, this year’s shift to a more spacious, natural environment was well-received. The live music was fun too! Below is our festival summary and a few photos to highlight this triumphant return to brewfests.
PLANNING A BREWFEST? LET’S CHAT.
With social gatherings on pause, we’ve been talking about virtual beer festivals with a lot of event organizers. These online experiences can be a great way to support local craft breweries while keeping a tribe of beer lovers connected. Many aspects of a normal brewfest still exist within an online experience, so let’s look at what make these virtual beer festivals special and how you can host more great events.
#BrrrFest was a blast.
We returned to Coralville, Iowa for their 9th annual winter beer festival. Our beer festival app was back in action and easier to manage than ever. Event organizers spent no time herding tigers, yet 100% of the 61 vendors had their BrrFest beer lists looking sharp! This allowed 3,000+ attendees to rate any of the 300 craft beers being poured. In fact, before the doors even opened, 3,323 beers were added to wish lists, which continues to prove our platform builds hype, sells tickets and is appreciated by hop heads planning their own brewfest experience.
Once the doors opened, our team enjoyed sharing stories of our good friend Dan from Firetrucker and celebrating endless good beer with a community of beer lovers and the artists who brew them. Attendees rated more beers than last year’s event and after a tight race that saw beers going up and down the leaderboard, the Iowa Brewers Guild was proud to deliver our Best of Fest Award to Big Grove Brewery. Here’s the milestone moment and a few words from our winners on video, as well as, our full 2020 festival summary and highlight photos. Cheers!
HOSTING A BREWFEST? LET’S CHAT.
The 2019 Festival of Iowa Beers featured 49 Iowa breweries who served up 197 different craft beers to 1,200 beer lovers. Here’s the FoIB app and let’s peek inside this 15th annual event with a look at the data generated from within our beer festival app!
The 100th brewery just opened in Iowa and this chill gathering continues to feel like the industry’s chance to celebrate together. Our team really enjoys #FoIB, which hosted at Millstream, the state’s very first brewery, and it was a treat to once again collaborate with the Iowa Brewers Guild to activate our beer festival app. It’s exciting to see how our slick platform continues to unlock new levels of attendee engagement, while saving serious time for event organizers and providing valuable data for everyone.
It was also neat to see our Best of Fest Award create more fun competition between brewers, who are all passionate about the beer they brew. Jack and Lucas from Flix Brewhouse came into this event with a clear goal of taking home the hoppy hardware and by actively encouraging attendees to rate the beers they sampled, this team was able to create all sorts of hype around their beers. After their DDH Nebulas IPA won Best of Fest, we all celebrated together and actually decided to visit their a brewery for a post-event tour in Des Moines! This award is just so much fun, so thanks to everyone who used our Vendor Portal to showcase their beers in the beer festival app, congrats to Flix Brewhouse (Instagram/Twitter) and we’ll see all you beer lovers again soon…cheers!
75 breweries, 361 remarkable brews and over 3,000 thirsty beer lovers came together for a hoppy good time at the 2019 Iowa Craft Brew Festival.
Our team once again collaborated with the Iowa Brewers Guild to activate our beer festival app. Since 2018, we’ve optimize the event organizer’s experience to save time, expanded how vendors manage their own beer lists and unlocked new ways attendees can plan, track and share their brew fest experience. This commitment has resulted in an affordable platform that does everything it needs to do, without unwanted fluff. As you can see from this ICBF summary, our event app fuels meaningful engagement and all sorts of interesting analytics for event organizers, vendors and the community overall.
One new element we brought to life was our “Best of Fest Award”. Our tap handle trophy was given to the brewery with the beer that received the highest/most ratings within the FliteBrite app during the event. This award was fun to make and had brewers excited as well.
We tracked all the data in real-time and enjoyed a random reveal (see video below) as everyone scattered after the event. It was neat to see how much our award winners (Franklin Street Brewing Company from Manchester, Iowa) appreciated the award and we had a great time celebrating with them afterwards. With so much interesting data at our finger tips, we’re excited to award more of these at future events!
After this remarkable event, we’re ready to collaborate with brew fests nationwide. If you’re planning a craft beer festival and want something fresh, affordable and fun, let’s chat!
#BrrrFest was a sold out winter beer festival and a hoppy good time.
We had a blast collaborating with the event organizers, breweries and over 2,500 thirsty beer lovers before, during and after this event. We’re proud to share our beer festival app worked flawlessly and fueled fresh industry data that was fun to analyze. Organized and well executed by a team of volunteers, this 8th annual beer festival united 61 Iowa breweries, cideries and distilleries for an awesome brewfest experience. Here’s our BrrrFest summary!
This was the third full implementation of our beer festival app and we’re thrilled to share it was a milestone event. Our new Vendor Portal received 100% adoption from 61 different breweries who each setup their own vendor profile beforehand and agreed the app onboarding was easy as key lime pie. It was also a pleasure collaborating with the BrrrFest organizing committee, the City of Coralville and once again, our good friends at the Iowa Brewers Guild.
One of our favorite data points from this event, was the pre-event traffic and user research. As you can see above, 3,961 beers were added to a wish list prior to the doors opening at this beer festival! After three different types of events, it’s clear using FliteBrite to showcase a beer festival’s vendors and beer list allows organizing teams to connect with thirsty attendees as they tap into events. Here’s one more peek at the BrrrFest app:
Along with enjoying this FliteBrite app for our own adventures (Ben tracked 100% of the 25 beers he tasted!), we love watching beer enthusiasts track memorable brews that used to be forgotten amongst the malty madness. Key takeaways were that BrrrFest is a blast, but beyond just a great time, the FliteBrite beer festival app is now easier than ever to implement, fun for everyone and we’re now ready to scale!
HOSTING BEER FESTIVALS? LET’S CHAT.
