Introducing LoyalBrew

LoyalBrew was created by Storyware, a digital agency co-owned by Todd Wickersty and Page Wood. We’ve helped several beverage companies, such as Starr Hill Brewery, Random Row Brewing Company, and Coffee For Wellness, with their web presence and visual identity in recent years. In addition to our digital experience, Todd and Page co-founded the Charlottesville Ale Trail, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit to support the local breweries on the trail.

Like many other trails, we launched a paper passport program with the Charlottesville Ale Trail in 2018. Beer, wine, cider, and distillery trails serve as tour guides for out-of-towners to enjoy the local craft beverage scene and regional culture on their own schedule. Passports motivate those tourists to visit additional breweries, wineries, cideries, and distilleries, thus pumping more money into a local economy.

Sitting at the intersection of technology and craft beer experiences, we realized that the passport program had a lot of potential.

We discovered that most passports today are:

• Either paper-based or lackluster mobile apps that require assistance from wait staff to complete.
• Not designed for locals, thus leaving potential revenue on the table.
• Lacking the creativity to connect the brewery experience with the online experience.

And then came COVID-19.

Thankfully, almost all of the breweries on the Charlottesville Ale Trail have survived the pandemic. In addition, it gave us time to cement our ideas around building a digital passport not only for the Charlottesville Ale Trail, but for any craft beverage trail in the US.

Enter LoyalBrew

LoyalBrew is a new digital passport solution for the craft beverage industry. Launched on March 10th, 2021 for the Charlottesville Ale Trail, the initial version enables customers to claim passport stamps through location-based verification on their phone.

Built as a responsive web application, LoyalBrew is:

• Contact-free, so it doesn’t require assistance from brewery staff.
• Easily accessible via QR code or web address.
• Simple to sign up by only requiring a phone number and zip code.
• Built to expand into a scavenger hunt-like experience.

The (Near) Future

We’ve already started down our road map for expanding the use cases of LoyalBrew. In the very near future, we plan to add some neat features that will enable breweries, wineries, cideries, and distilleries to use LoyalBrew as a different (and we think better) kind of loyalty program focused on experiences and events that generate revenue. If you are interested in using LoyalBrew for your organization or just want to learn more, please reach out to us. Cheers!