This summer has been a momentous one for New Planet Beer. After our initial success in bringing great-tasting gluten-free beer to our fans in Colorado early last year, we decided to start joining the fun by visiting beer festivals and other events throughout the state. In doing so, we’ve been able to enjoy a closer interaction with new and existing fans of New Planet Beer. We’ve had a lot of fun and learned some valuable lessons for future events in the process. So without further ado, we give you the top 10 things we learned in our first eventful summer!

The Good, The Bad, and the Funny: New Planet’s First Summer of Events

1. Give them pretzels! Did you attend any of the numerous Colorado beer festivals this summer? If you did, we’re sure that you caught at least one glimpse of a gluten-free pretzel necklace-adorned New Planet Beer fans. That’s because we know that spending several hours in the summer heat tasting beer can stir up an appetite. At future events we’ll continue our practice of supplying gluten-free pretzel necklaces to gluten-free festival goers.
2. We need more swag. Festival and event-goers love to pick up swag. While supplies lasted, we were happy to provide New Planet Beer bottle openers made from recycled materials to people who visited our booth. Next year we plan on expanding our offerings with stickers as well! Also, look for more great New Planet Beer t-shirt and hat designs, soon to be available for purchase on our website.
3. Pretty decorations sometimes backfire. Not every event location is conducive to having a decorative set-up. Case in point: the Fort Collins Colorado Brewer’s Festival, where our beautiful 8-foot standing banner repeatedly toppled onto our interns in the wind. Moving forward, we’ll reserve top-heavy decor for indoor venues.
4. New Planet Beer tastes like beer! Please allow us some lighthearted joking at the expense of our fans. It was quite entertaining when someone new (especially gluten-free folks) tasted Tread Lightly Ale and remarked, “Wow! This tastes just like beer!” Thank you. Though an obvious statement, we are delighted that our fans are recognizing the fact that New Planet Gluten-free Beer is, in fact, beer.
5. Volunteers melt in the sun. In addition to making us more visible over the crowd of event-goers, having a tent next year will prevent our volunteers and interns from overheating, sunburning, or otherwise looking miserable in the Colorado summer.
6. More S,M, and less XXL That’s right. New Planet Beer t-shirts were all the rage when we initially passed them out for free and started offering them for a nominal price at events. The only problem: we didn’t anticipate how many of you would want one! We’re sorry for the t-shirt shortage and we’re working on a solution that will allow us to have more sizes and colors available in the future.
7. The possibilities are endless. We participated in 14 fantastic events this summer and had the opportunity to participate in many more. Doing so allowed us to offer samples of New Planet Beer to over 18,500 thirsty event-goers. Future event planning will include a wide variety of venues and types, with a focus on those that promote planet-friendly practices or donate to environmental programs we support, in keeping with the mission of New Planet Beer.
8. We can’t read chicken-scratch. Having our email sign-up sheet at events allowed many of you to receive this monthly newsletter. Unfortunately, some folks are not reading this because we couldn’t read their handwriting. We are exploring the possibility of making our email sign-up sheet digital as an alternative to having our interns study ancient and lost languages.
9. Kegs are heavy. Fortunately, volunteers and staff at other breweries were friendly and let us borrow their hand-trucks. Otherwise, our interns would have rolled away with our kegs on more than one occasion. Live and learn: hand-trucks are on our shopping list.
10. We love our fans. The absolute best part about being at events was meeting you, hearing your stories, and enjoying some cold New Planet Beer as friends. Thanks for supporting us at events this year! We look forward to continuing to brew great tasting gluten-free beer for you!