Our Story

Foundation

We were just seven (Eric) and four (Will) when we brewed our first batch of homebrew with our dad, Dwight.

Though we wouldn't actually try the finished product for awhile (pinky swear), we'd caught the good beer bug.

Why? When you brew, you're building something. You're taking an idea—something intangible—and turning it into something tangible, something to be enjoyed. You're committing to a product and continually tinkering with it, trying to make it the best it can be. In a word, it's craftsmanship.

Now, of course, we were seven and four, so we weren't thinking or talking about it that way. But as we grew, we came to understand what our mom and dad had done: from that first batch of homebrew onward, we viewed the world from the perspective of craftsmen.

Identifying the Problem

But why didn't everybody else have the craving?

We understood it as an inefficiency: given the taste, quality, and authenticity gap between macros and craft, many people drank macros because there wasn't an easy way to find something else, something better.

In other words, craft beer was at a disadvantage to the crap-peddling big guys.

So we asked ourselves: How could we help solve it?

We hit our heads against the overpriced exposed brick walls in our apartments, but nothing jumped out. We ground out the work weeks and, of course, the home-brew.

The Great Experiment

It sounds funny now but we initially viewed BeerMenus as an experiment. We knew we wanted it to exist. But did anybody else care? Were we just a couple of badly dressed weirdos?

The answer to both those questions: "hell yes."

In 2008 we launched in New York City, and were flooded with positive feedback. The most common: "When are you coming to my city?!" and "I had the same idea!"

The take home: even then, beer drinkers desperately wanted BeerMenus to exist. If the beers were there, they would come.

But that brought up a larger concern: would businesses keep their menus up to date?

With the hugely positive response from craft beer fans, we knew there had to be a way to make it work. Our intuition was right. When many of the newer craft beer-focused bars in New York began finding us, we knew we were onto something big.

These early partners—people like Patrick from Rattle 'n' Hum and Bill at East Village Tavern—understood the deep value from the beginning and quickly saw and felt the result: their reactions when BeerMenus customers came in—sometimes from hundreds of miles away—were amazing.

Subscriptions it is

So we wanted to be a sustainable business. That's great, but how?

We experimented with a few directions, but it quickly became clear that subscriptions were the right fit: they aligned our interests with those of our customers. Additionally, subscriptions enabled us to grow predictably, which was extremely important for sustainability.

But while we prioritized sustainability (and still very much do), our vision of BeerMenus was always inclusive. We wanted to enhance the craft beer community, and that very clearly meant we would not be pay-to-play.

This is why all businesses who sell beer will always have access to a free basic page on BeerMenus. We are not a pay-to-play organization, and we're proud of it.

"Free" doesn't sound like much. But the principle living inside the offering is huge.

More than anything else we've done, we believe this inclusivity shows our true colors: we're genuine about loving beer and we care about the community. And despite all the acquisitions, mergers, and money flowing through the industry these days, we're holding fast to an inclusive idea of craft beer. The hell with a private equity mentality.