PatrickAnalyze Beer Color To Help Your Brewery
People drink with their eyes first
We tend to drink with our eyes first. As petty as it sounds, the color of beer remains a critical factor in what types of beer people choose to drink.
It's common for breweries to track and analyze volumes.
How much did we brew this month?
How many gallons of blonde ale did we sell?
But it's less common to ask similar questions from the perspective of color. Analyzing beer color can render interesting insights into your brewing and sales trends.
Quantifying color
The visual below was created using Keg Punk and shows the total volume in gallons of each color of beer that this brewery has sold.
This information is interesting on it's own, but is more useful when coupled with the rate at which these beer colors were sold.
The visual below shows the same data but with the "Show Rate" option activated. The green line shows the average gallons per day that the corresponding color was sold.
Analyzing color rate
So how is this helpful?
In the visual below, take a look at the farthest left (palest) color. The brewery has only brewed 10 gallons of this color but it has a rate of 10 gallons per day. This color has a low volume but a high rate - this could be an indication that the brewery should produce more beer of this color.
Alternatively, look at the farthest right (darkest) color below. The brewery has sold a lot of this color but the rate is very low compared to the rates of other colors.
Putting things in perspective
You have to put things in perspective when analyzing beer color however. For example, what was the ABV of the dark beer(s) that made up that far right column? If it was very high, say 10%, this explains why a beer of this color might have high sales but slow sales rate.
This type of analysis is a tool, not a solution. It's intended to give you more business intelligence.
If you think this color analysis might help your brewery, or if you just think it's cool, check out Keg Punk Pro - a software application that helps breweries with inventory, taproom management, and analytics.
