---
title: "In-depth Industry Analysis: Common Problems and Solutions for Brewpubs"
description: "About four years ago, a large number of brewpubs specializing in craft beer began to emerge in China. For instance, in 2018 alone, over 300 craft beer pubs opened in Chengdu. In the past five years, more than 8,000 craft beer-themed dining establishments have been built nationwide. The proliferation of craft beer pubs signals a shift in nightlife preferences: from competitive, binge-drinking, and carnival-like venues to more integrated, joyful social spaces. This new model represents a more mature, rational, and self-aware consumption pattern."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2020-08-26"
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# In-depth Industry Analysis: Common Problems and Solutions for Brewpubs

> About four years ago, a large number of brewpubs specializing in craft beer began to emerge in China. For instance, in 2018 alone, over 300 craft beer pubs opened in Chengdu. In the past five years, more than 8,000 craft beer-themed dining establishments have been built nationwide. The proliferation of craft beer pubs signals a shift in nightlife preferences: from competitive, binge-drinking, and carnival-like venues to more integrated, joyful social spaces. This new model represents a more mature, rational, and self-aware consumption pattern.

About four years ago, a large number of brewpubs specializing in craft beer began to emerge in China. For instance, in 2018 alone, over 300 craft beer pubs opened in Chengdu. In the past five years, more than 8,000 craft beer-themed dining establishments have been built nationwide.
**The proliferation of craft beer pubs signals a shift in nightlife preferences: from competitive, binge-drinking, and carnival-like venues to more integrated, joyful social spaces.** This new model represents a more mature, rational, and self-aware consumption pattern.
Looking at Western countries, it seems clear that **small community-based brewpubs are the future of nightlife scenes**. A brewpub serves as a social platform, and beer is the best social medium, allowing people to relax, engage in pleasant conversation, and spark inspiration without the burden of heavy drinking.
Because the social function of brewpubs is highly appealing to contemporary people, and the entry barrier is not as high as the multi-million-yuan investments typical of traditional nightclubs, and operating a brewpub is less exhausting than other food and beverage businesses while also offering opportunities to make friends, opening a brewpub has become a top choice for many young entrepreneurs.
However, any venture carries risks. For example, as mentioned, Chengdu saw over 300 brewpubs open in 2018, but more than half closed within a year. Thus, there are certain basic thresholds to opening a brewpub.
Today, we will analyze common problems faced by new brewpubs:
**-01- Location**
**In the early days, due to the small number of brewpubs and limited audiences, they were often located in remote areas, yet they could still attract a specific customer base.** Today, with the rapid development of craft beer pubs, location has become a critical issue.
For instance, in the early years (2010), Beijing's Great Leap Brewing, Slow Boat Brewery, and NBeer Pub were all located in hutongs (alleys) and were already quite popular. When they expanded to commercial areas like Sanlitun and Wukesong, their business multiplied. The same brand, same products, same management company, but the improved location boosted revenue severalfold.
**Many new brewpubs, due to financial constraints or risk aversion, often choose low-rent locations, but many examples show that location plays a significant role in a brewpub's success.** Of course, this does not mean that high-rent locations guarantee success. High-rent venues require higher customer traffic to cover daily expenses, so they demand greater brand awareness, service efficiency, and operational models.
Newcomers often lack the knowledge to quickly attract large customer flows and thus choose low-rent locations. Remote stores, lacking visibility, need time to build a customer base—often six months to a year—wasting money and energy.
Choosing a remote location is not inherently problematic, but it requires strong brand recognition to quickly gather crowds. In such cases, considering franchising or brand licensing can help leverage an established brand for rapid growth. For example, a franchise fee might be 300,000 yuan, but it can shorten the store-building period by six months and achieve profitability faster, making it a viable option.
**-02- Renovation and Design**
Some new stores invest heavily in trendy, Instagram-worthy decor. While it may look fashionable at first glance, customers quickly lose interest or move to even trendier venues. **Stores should first clarify their positioning: whether they are a nightclub or a beer-themed social platform.** If the goal is a relaxed social venue, there should be common areas for strangers to become friends and private spaces for intimate groups to avoid disturbance. Renovation should prioritize comfort and functionality over mere trendiness. Such designs require a deep understanding of brewpub operations. While there are many famous designers, few understand brewpub operations and functionality. As a result, money is spent, but the space feels uncomfortable and unwelcoming. Once heavy investment is made in renovation without clear positioning, it becomes difficult to recoup costs. This requires professional calculation and evaluation.
In summary, clear market positioning is essential before considering design style and investment.
**-03- Selection of Beer Dispensing Equipment**
Many new brewpub owners do not know which beer dispensing equipment to choose, so they simply copy what others use. The equipment industry is also mixed. Choosing poor equipment not only wastes money but also leads to unstable beer quality, with beer spoiling within days of tapping;
slow dispensing, taking minutes to pour a pint, causing customers to wait and leading to low per-customer spending and negative reviews; high beer loss, with one keg yielding only 30 pints compared to 38 from others, resulting in nearly 20% loss and wasted profits. Poor equipment may seem to save money but actually wastes more.
When installing dispensing equipment, it is advisable to hire professional service and design teams and heed their advice. These teams provide not only equipment procurement and installation but also ongoing support. Although their service fees may reach tens of thousands of yuan, they are worth it in the long run compared to DIY efforts.
Let professionals handle professional matters!
**-04- Layout**
Since many novice bar owners lack experience and the designers they hire also lack bar operation experience, they often copy others, resulting in designs that fail to meet efficient operational needs.
For example, the kitchen and bar are separated, requiring two teams for serving beer and food; the beer bar position is unreasonable, preventing a single server from overseeing the entire area; equipment placement within the bar is poor, with the glass washer and beer tap too far apart; the flow within the brewpub is unclear, causing conflicts between server movement and customer movement. These seemingly minor layout issues not only reduce service efficiency but also make customers uncomfortable.
**A good layout enhances customer comfort and staff efficiency.** Many famous beer bars, such as Haidilao's beer bar, have invested heavily in professional design teams to minimize unnecessary chaos, maintain bar hygiene, and improve staff productivity.
**-05- Inventory Management**
Many new brewpubs often do not know which beers to stock. They may carry over a thousand bottled beers plus a dozen draft beers. If they stock a thousand bottled beers, at an average of 300 yuan per case, that ties up 300,000 yuan in inventory and requires significant storage space.
The most troublesome issue is that beer has a shelf life. When approaching expiration, they must discount, which not only affects normal sales but also devalues the store, eventually turning it into a discount bottle shop. This blind purchasing also leads to significant waste from expired beer.
The optimal inventory should be 10-20 beer varieties, ensuring diversity while enabling good inventory management and reducing tied-up capital. If a single supplier can be secured, it may be possible to obtain lower-than-market prices, increasing profit margins.
**-06- Marketing Strategies**
Many newly opened brewpubs initially rely on friends for customers. After three months, they find they have no friends left and no new customers. Lacking a stable method to acquire customers, they resort to spending money on various advertisements until funds run out and they close.
**In addition to personal networks, a social venue should maintain a social group of about 500 people for daily engagement and have a reputation or word-of-mouth effect that continuously generates new customers.** The first two may be relatively easy to achieve; savvy owners can create fresh content to attract friends to the store. However, word-of-mouth is difficult for many novices unless they buy ad space or distribute flyers, which often yields poor results.
The best approach is to leverage third-party resources to continuously create topics and drive traffic. In the information age, online databases can accurately attract customers. Platforms like Meituan and Ele.me can provide these resources, but they are expensive, potentially accounting for 20% of revenue. Store owners need to learn how to convert these platform customers into their own and reduce the platform's commission share.
**-07- Lack of Effective Human Resource Management**
Unless they have prior experience in the food and beverage industry, many brewpub founders do not know how to manage their teams or establish effective performance-based incentives to reward excellence and motivate employees. As a result, passionate employees gradually lose motivation, and overall service quality declines.
In conclusion, opening a brewpub may seem easy, but achieving success requires attention to all the above details. For a novice, mastering all these aspects is extremely challenging. Therefore, choosing an effective resource partner seems to be a more efficient business model.
Master Gao Brewing has solutions to all the above operational issues and has begun recruiting store agent cooperation models.
Founded in 2008, Master Gao Brewing is a pioneer in China's craft beer industry. It enjoys high domestic recognition, a comprehensive product line, stable production capacity, and seven years of experience operating its own brewpubs. Master Gao Brewing has always built its brand influence through cultural strategy and is a leading advocate, practitioner, and promoter of the craft beer movement in China. The Boston Globe has called it "the father of China's craft beer revolution." The term "craft beer" (精酿啤酒) was coined by founder Gao Yan. It is beloved by the public for its contributions to the beer industry and its support for the music community.
Master Gao's products cover almost all beer styles, with international-level R&D and brewing capabilities. Several products have won international awards, including a gold medal at the 2018 Brussels Beer Challenge in Belgium. In 2019, it was named Chinese Brewery of the Year at the Melbourne Beer Awards.
Through 12 years of development, Master Gao Brewing has achieved stable production capacity, with products distributed through almost all supermarket channels and tens of thousands of restaurants nationwide. Since 2017, its products have been exported to the United States, the European Union, Southeast Asia, and South Korea, making it a pride of China's beer industry. Its "Baby Fat" series of beers is almost household-name famous.
Since 2014, Master Gao Brewing has opened its first brewpub, and now operates 12 brewpubs in Nanjing, Xi'an, Zhenjiang, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Ma'anshan, and other cities.
It has accumulated extensive operational experience in brewpub design, bar design, equipment selection and installation, and staff management, establishing comprehensive store management systems. It can provide services such as store design, bar design, and equipment procurement and installation, helping novices avoid detours.
Master Gao Brewing's greatest strength lies in its multiple online platforms, including Tmall, JD.com, and Youzan, which have accumulated hundreds of thousands of users nationwide. This can quickly help new stores acquire customers locally and gain a foothold.
This year, after the pandemic, all Master Gao stores except one in downtown Nanjing quickly resumed operations and achieved profitability in April. By June, some stores had surpassed last year's figures. By July, some stores reached record sales. This demonstrates that Master Gao's social store strategy is successful, with strong resilience and profitability.
Since July this year, Master Gao has fully opened its brewpub cooperation model. According to Master Gao's vision, each store should become a local cultural high ground, fully experiencing the Master Gao beer platform.
Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan upon publication.


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