Build a brewery website around the taproom and the beer list
People visiting a brewery's website mostly want to know when the taproom is open, what's pouring and what's on this weekend. Pubs and shops want to know how to stock the beer. Selling beer online is a separate question that depends on local alcohol law, so most small breweries treat their site as a taproom guide and a trade enquiry route first.
Three audiences
- Drinkers planning a visit
- Opening hours, location, food, whether children and dogs are welcome, and what's on tap.
- Beer fans following releases
- The full range with styles and strengths, new and seasonal releases, and where to buy.
- Trade buyers
- Pubs, bottle shops and restaurants looking for formats, delivery areas and how to open an account.
The homepage should send each one somewhere useful in a click: Visit, Beers and Trade are often all the navigation a small brewery needs.
Taproom details people check before leaving home
- Opening hours by day, with seasonal and holiday changes kept current.
- Getting there: address, nearest station or bus stop, parking, cycle racks, and a note on not driving home.
- Food: your own kitchen, a rotating food truck, or bring your own.
- Who's welcome: children until a certain time, dogs, private bookings.
- Accessibility: step-free entry and accessible toilets, stated plainly.
A beer list that's never stale
An out-of-date beer list frustrates the people who care most. Keep the range in an Anticode CMS collection with fields for name, style, ABV, a short tasting note, formats (cask, keg, can, bottle) and whether it's pouring in the taproom now. Each beer gets its own page, the list page shows them all, and the person behind the bar can switch a beer on or off tap from the dashboard. Core range and specials can be separate collections if you release often.
Write tasting notes in plain language. "Hazy, low bitterness, tastes of mango and oats" helps a visitor choose; a paragraph of hop varieties helps only the few who already know.
Events and tours
Quiz nights, tap takeovers, release days and brewery tours bring people in. List them in a CMS collection with date, time, description and whether booking is needed. Tours can use Anticode's booking calendar, which shows the coming days and takes one booking per day, time and tour. That suits small private tours; a public tour with twenty places is better sold through a ticketing service, linked from the page, because the calendar doesn't count places.
Age notices and selling online
Many breweries show a notice that the site is for people of legal drinking age, and some markets expect a confirmation step. Rules on alcohol marketing and online sales differ by country and region: some places allow direct delivery with age checks at the door, others restrict it or require particular licences. The brewery is responsible for its own wording and licensing.
If you can sell online where you trade, the simplest route with Anticode is a payment link from Stripe, PayPal, Shopify or another provider for a mixed case or a gift box, with delivery terms on the page. There's no cart, stock tracking or shipping calculation on Anticode sites; for a full web shop, run it on a commerce platform and link to it.
Stockist and wholesale enquiries
Trade buyers want formats, minimum orders, delivery areas and how to set up an account. A trade page with those facts and an enquiry form saves calls. If prompts above the message box don't capture enough, a custom form tied to a site function (or an app-built form) can ask for venue name, type, location, formats wanted and expected volume in separate fields. Send trade enquiries to the sales lead through a connector to HubSpot or Slack. A "where to buy" list of stockists, kept in the CMS, helps fans and reassures buyers.
Design direction
Label art usually carries a brewery's identity, so let photographs of cans and the taproom lead. Brutalist (Archivo) suits a bold, graphic brand; Editorial (Geist) a traditional or farmhouse brewery; Playful (Fredoka) a colourful, illustrated range. Choose one action colour that sits alongside the labels rather than fighting them.
Building it with Anticode
Using Anticode as a brewery website builder starts with a sentence, for example "a small brewery and taproom in Sheffield with a beer list, weekend events, tours and trade enquiries". The Architect asks up to three questions and plans the pages. Ask for the change in a sentence when the taproom hours change for summer, and recent versions stay in history (up to a number set by your plan). Neighbouring guides: distilleries and pubs.
Limits
- No cart, stock or shipping. Payment links at most.
- No age verification service. A notice or confirmation on the page isn't an ID check.
- No ticketing with capacity for events; link to a ticketing tool.
- No live tap-list feed from a point-of-sale or tap-list app; the CMS list is updated by hand.
Questions people ask
Can a brewery sell beer on an Anticode site?
Only through payment links from your own provider, and only where local law allows online alcohol sales. There's no cart, stock or shipping.
How do I keep what's on tap up to date?
Keep the beers in a CMS collection with an on-tap field and switch it from the dashboard when a keg changes.
Can visitors book a brewery tour?
Small private tours fit the booking calendar. Public tours with many places are better sold through a ticketing service you link to.