One of the best things about running a brewery tour and conducting beer tastings is meeting a bunch of great people from all over the world. Because Seattle is one of the great beer cities of the world and it was one of the centers of the Craft Brewing Renaissance, a lot of people want to come to Seattle, learn about beer and drink some of the best brews in the world. That is just fine with me, I enjoy taking people around to our breweries, introducing them different styles and having some great beers. Unfortunately, 2020 has not been the best year if your idea of fun is visiting a brewery, meeting a lot of great people and drinking a beer. Even when the breweries start to open up, the number of people who can visit will be greatly restricted. What can we do to introduce people to our great breweries?
Believe me, people in the tour industry have been talking a lot about what we can do. I have been to so many webinars, zoom meetings and online discussion groups my computer cam turns the other way whenever I enter my home office. There have been a lot of great ideas and many of my friends in the tour business are trying out some amazing things. Doing a virtual brewery tour and beer tasting does create some obstacles. For example, unlike a virtual art tour, looking at a beer is nothing like tasting a beer. Unlike a food tour, where the tour guide can FedEx the culinary treats overnight, it is really hard to send beer through mail. I know it is possible, but there are so many regulations, licenses and legal hoops to jump through, it is really not worth it.
I came up with two solutions. One is my Virtual Beer Tasting Guide. This will help you set up and organize a beer tasting on your own. You can do it in person with a small group or do a virtual online beer tasting. You can read the blogs here or download the guide here. The other solution is a virtual tour app.
Junket has nearly 250 tours in about 37 cities around the world. If you liked our tour, you should check out the others on their app. Who knows, there may be more of the world to explore than you realized. Check out the app and check out our tours. If this works out, we will add more of our tours and more Seattle breweries.