Corona restaurant gift certificate

Unique beer service strategies abound as restaurateurs respond to the public's love for exotic brews.

Beer is entering a heady new age of respectability as an image maker and differentiator of restaurants. Banish the mental images of the Coors "beer stud" at the ballpark and the Miller Lite "twist-to-open" guy from recent television commercials, because those couldn't be further from the truth at restaurants, which are introducing exotic brands at cocktail prices to dining and bar patrons.

From haute cuisine to casual dinnerhouses, operators are matching beers to their menus, often using brews as cooking ingredients in recipes and as accompaniments to specific-flavored entrees. Some bring in microbrews to add a zest of individuality to their offerings. It's easy to see how the likes of Laughing Skull, Fat Tire, Wild Goose and Honkers Ale can enliven a menu or a mundane steak or salmon dinner.

Blackhawk Lodge in downtown Chicago serves only domestic beer in keeping with its American cuisine theme, offering four microbrews on tap and 12 in bottles. "They bring a small, unique experience that's part of America," says Stefanie Gerken, general manager. "Microbrew patrons are more discriminating and specific taste-wise, and they're more experimental. Because we don't carry imports, we give people alternative tastes."

To encourage trial and feed into the cult of microbrew fans, Blackhawk offers a sampler of 5 ounces of each of its four beers on tap for $6.50. Currently they include Golden Prairie Blond Ale, Bells Oberon Ale, Left Hand Porter and Sprecher Weiss. These offerings as well as the bottled brews are rotated twice a year by head bartender Anne Ybarra, who uses her palette to guide her selections. "I also listen to our management and waitstaff about what people want, but I don't use incentives because that pressures you into keeping a beer for as long as the supplier wants you to, This way it's up to me if it sells or not. It's about moving product.

"I like the freshness of the microbrew, that they can change every year. Every batch is different," says Ybarra. "If you want to drink the same thing, drink water."

While friendly with brewmasters, she's aware that most people don't know much about small craft beers, so she sells Rolling Rock and Samuel Adams Boston Lager too.

Within walking distance of the docks in Oyster Bay, N.Y. is the bustling Canterbury Ales Oyster Bar and Grill, which offers more than 100 different beers to attract the spectrum of drinkers - and induces repeat visits with a novel membership club. Patrons pay $10 to join The Passport Club, intending to drink brews from around the world. Once they drink 50 beers they get $25 returned in the form of a gift certificate. After 100 beers they earn a T-shirt and a cap sporting the name of the restaurant.

The variety is 70 percent imports and 30 percent domestic, with prices ranging from $2.75 for Schaefer up to $16.95 for Chimay Grand Reserve, a Belgian beer. An average froth is $4.75. The restaurant also brings in a microbrew as the beer of the day, and features it on the menu.

"Trying anything different is usually exciting. We get people from all over because our variety is so unique. People can boat over from Connecticut," says bartender Alyssa Zucker. "We often hear this is the only place people can find certain beers. We even get a lot of visitors from England in the summer."

More than 90 percent of the beers are in bottles, with nine served on six rotating taps. "The waitstaff is experienced and trained, and they taste beers at shift meetings so they can describe flavors and suggest-sell beers with foods," adds Zucker. "People aren't blindly looking at our lists. We do the same with wines too."

Meanwhile, the Tony Roma's chain is promoting mainstream beer brands with signature menu items through vendor-supported tabletop flip charts as part of a 1998 campaign which rotates themes monthly. The program in May was "A Wing and a Beer" featuring Budweiser with chicken wings as well as the restaurant chain's own branded sauces. July was a "Best Ribs/Best Beer" theme highlighting Samuel Adams Boston Lager with baby back ribs. In October Coors Light will be promoted with onion loaf in a "Crispy & Light" theme.

The flip charts "build momentum and focus us on increasing sales. It's good for our top-line sales and profitability, and it helps vendors move more product," Alison Brushaber, director of research and development at Tony Roma's, told Nation's Restaurant News recently.

Efforts like these are at the crest of a major trend across the nation where restaurants use beer-particularly craft beer-to broaden their client base, increase visit frequency and enlarge the average check.

"Consumers expect to pay more for craft beers or microbrews just as they expect to pay more for an import over a domestic," says David Edgar, director, Institute for Brewing Studies, a division of the Association of Brewers. "Microbrews also open up possibilities for carrying certain foods with certain styles of beer, tailoring special events and making specialty items like beer ice cream or beer chocolate desserts using a stout or a porter. It can open you up for more culinary creativity."

He noted that the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, N.Y., is one of a growing number of culinary schools developing seminars and a greater aptitude for cooking with beer. "It's still a very new art and science," Edgar adds.

As for drink, in cities such as Denver, Seattle and Portland, which lead the craft-beer trend, "patrons expect at least two microbrews on tap wherever they go," Edgar observes,

Indeed, the promotional inventiveness of some brewers is not to be denied. Boston Beer, the maker of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, has run more than 1,000 themed beer dinners, including such tony sites as The Pump Room in Chicago, the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC., and Aquavit in New York City.

"The best restaurateurs run four winemaker and beermaker dinners a year," says Brian Hughes, director of on-premise national accounts for Boston Beer. "The brewmaster or sales specialist conducts the dinner to educate and entertain guests. The hour event often ends with a cigar and beer pairing.

"To do it right requires 50 to 75 patrons," he notes, "More than that and intimacy is lost. At $50 to $100 per person, it's incremental volume while the rest of the restaurant operates."

Success comes most readily when the chef is involved in deciding on the menu, and plays off his celebrity by actually presenting the entree. In addition, Boston's extensive beer training of the waitstaff a full month before the event helps them sell the idea.

Moreover, Boston has created more than 100 different food recipes for its beer in appetizers, entrees and desserts. The brands include the Samuel Adams family, Oregon Original beer and ales, and HardCore cider.

It has also built a database of 300,000 people who've attended these dinners in the past. The list is grouped by ZIP code for direct-mail promotions when a restaurant plans such an event.

Beyond the beer dinners, however, Boston offers its Table Talk initiative, which helps restaurateurs drive volume through recipe creation and menu card printing; waitstaff training; consulting on house specials; special events and promotions; and consulting on better beers. ACNielsen figures through May show the best-selling premium beers are Corona, Heineken, Samuel Adams, Guinness and Bass.

For its part, Guinness Import Co., the maker of Guinness, Bass, Harp, Woodpecker and Red Stripe, ran a table-tent promotion with Hyatt Hotels where patrons poured their own half and half. "Two customers sit at a table and order one drink between them. They get a bottle of Harp and a glass of Guinness, each representing half a portion. They pour them into the same glass, and Guinness layers on top of the Harp because it's lower in weight than lagers," explains Terry Connaughton, director of key accounts-Eastern zone, Guinness Import Co.

The three-week promotion in 60 hotels sold 24,000 units, or 12,000 servings of half and half at $6 to $8 each, depending on the hotel.

For Guinness in particular, the company maintains a network of 46 draft specialists in key markets across the country to help operators pour the product properly, examine and overhaul dispensing systems, train the waitstaff on beer in general, and run exclusive seminars for each location. "We see a 25 percent sales lift within 30 days of each seminar," Connaughton says, "and operators benefit because educated waitstaffs tend to stay where they are."

The company also runs a "Win Your Own Pub in Ireland" contest for St. Patrick's Day each year, where consumers write in to describe their most memorable pint of Guinness.

Taking a different tack, Heineken USA Inc. relies on movie and professional sports tie-ins to help boost on-premise sales. Its "Tomorrow Never Dies" promo began last Christmas and resulted in the brand's biggest single month in its history.