What a brewery website needs

What visitors are looking for

Most people land on a brewery or brewpub website with a simple question. Where are you? Are you open now? What is on tap? Can I book a table? If those answers take more than a few seconds to find on a phone, they will check a delivery app or a map listing instead. You lose control of the first impression.

So the homepage should answer those questions near the top: address with a map link, today's hours, a link to the tap list and a booking button. Everything else is secondary.

The age gate and the legal basics

Most brewery sites put a simple age confirmation on entry, asking visitors to confirm they are of legal drinking age, which varies by state in India. It does not stop a determined teenager, but it shows intent. Beyond that, alcohol advertising is restricted in India, so keep the site informational: what you brew, where you are, what is on. Avoid discount offers on beer and anything that encourages heavy drinking. Our guide to alcohol advertising rules in India explains why. The rules change, so check the current position.

Include a privacy notice if you collect emails or bookings and a simple contact page with a phone number.

A tap list that is actually current

The tap list is the page people return to most. It is the page most breweries let go stale. A guest who travels across the city for a beer listed on your website, only to find it ran out last week, will not trust the site again.

The practical problem is simple. Kegs run out on Friday nights, when nobody is thinking about the website. Make updating the list part of the keg change routine, alongside checking the gas and pulling a test pour: whoever connects the new keg updates the board and the site from a phone in under a minute. If your system cannot do that, show a shorter list of core beers that are always on, plus a line pointing to your social account for rotating taps.

For each beer, show the name, style, ABV and a one line description. Our guide to writing tasting notes that sell covers how to write that line.

Pages worth having

• Home. Location, hours, what is on, book a table.
• Beers. Core range and current specials with descriptions and photos.
• Food menu. As text, not a blurry photo of a printed menu.
• Events. Dated, with past events removed promptly.
• About. Who brews the beer and why. This is where your brand story lives.
• Private bookings. Corporate groups and parties are valuable, so give them a form.
• Contact. Phone, email, map and parking information.

Speed, mobile and maps

Most visitors will be on a phone, often on mobile data. Compress images, avoid autoplay video and test the site on an ordinary phone on a slow connection. Put the phone number where a thumb can tap it to call, because many guests would rather ring than fill in a form. A beautiful site that takes ten seconds to load loses people before they see it.

Your map listing is often seen more than your website. Keep the address, hours, photos and website link correct there. Update holiday hours, including dry days, in both places.

What you can skip

You do not need a blog that nobody updates, a long history page or a slideshow on the homepage. You probably do not need online beer sales either, since online alcohol sales are restricted or not allowed in most states and the rules change. Check what your licence allows before anyone builds a shop. A simple sign up for news and events is usually enough, as long as you only send people what they asked for. A small brewery website with five pages that are always correct beats a big one with stale events and a tap list from last month.

What you do need is a clear brand. The colours, fonts, photos and tone should match your labels, taproom and social accounts, so the site feels like the same brewery a guest meets at the bar. Our guide to beer brand positioning helps define that before you brief a designer.