A Mobile Passport App for the Texas Craft Brewers Guilds

When the Texas Craft Brewers Guild tapped Daruma Tech to build a mobile passport app to attract craft beer aficionados to its member breweries, its initial goal was to bring more foot traffic to Texas taprooms. Then COVID-19 hit, and the guild doubled down, successfully leveraging the app to promote take-out sales and build brand visibility for its members.

Client Overview

Founded in 2009, the Texas Craft Brewers Guild supports the interests of over 300 craft breweries throughout the state as well as related businesses.

Client: Texas Craft Brewers Guild
Location: Austin, Texas
Industry: Museum/Education
Daruma Tech services: App design, development, and maintenance

Challenge

Among the longstanding goals of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild is to help member breweries increase sales and raise their name recognition. They’d seen the success of Daruma Tech passport apps made for craft beer guilds elsewhere in the country and realized an app of their own could be a smart way to support this goal. When COVID-19 hit and shut down most breweries in the state, they knew they’d have to pivot, and decided to use the app to promote online and take-out sales.

Discovery

Daruma Tech learned that the pandemic made development of the app even more of a priority for the Texas Craft Brewers Guild and its members. The guild wanted an easy-to-use and engaging app that would help craft beer lovers find and learn about breweries near them, see what’s on offer, and plan their trips. Above all, they wanted a way to keep member breweries front of mind even when their taprooms were closed.

Solution & Implementation

We identified our streamlined but powerful Trail App platform as a cost-effective but high-impact solution for the guild. The app allows each of the 225 participating breweries to post its own information (such as hours of operation, special promotions, and beers available for takeout sales) in real time, and allows users to see breweries near them, map out tours of breweries, and earn points towards prizes for checking in at participating locations.

Results

The Texas Craft Brewery App has been a hit with Texas craft beer aficionados. From the time of its launch in September 2020 to November 2021, it has been downloaded 4600 times, and has registered over 19,000 passport stamps. Participating breweries not only found it effective for promoting sales but discovered that app analytics (such as the number and times of check-ins) were a useful source of marketing intelligence that could be leveraged to boost sales and name recognition.