Starting again in January gives me pause to consider the future of this website. I am hoping to get your input as well on this moving forward.
The overall idea behind the website is to create a space for homebrew clubs to post content in their private groups, as well as building a community for homebrewers to connect via forums, post comments, brewing calendars for seasonal styles, etc..
Homebrew clubs would have their own group page (similar to Facebook groups) that could be private or public depending on their settings. Their members would be able to post text, videos, images, events, etc.. for their group. There would also be a public page for all non-private club posts and events.
The revenue model for this concept was to offer a limited "free trial" level for homebrew club group leaders to try it out and see if it's worth the cost. There would be a monthly fee somewhere around $5-25, depending on how many members your want in your club.
For the back-end admins, the idea behind SOTB was to have a few OG brewers publishing interesting homebrew content and build a core of interesting articles relating to some of these general topics:
Seasonal Brewing Styles and Ideas for homebrewers
Beer stories, whereby we discuss & review our own beers
Equipment reviews
Methodology & Process Topics
Website database of beer styles and their seasonality
Beer Travel
Currently the site is the 4 or 5 main SOTB brewers posting when they have time. It essentially is our online Homebrew club presence for our group of brewers. Personally, I have found it be quite useful and worth my time. It's nice to see what everyone is brewing and thinking regarding homebrewing. It would be nice to see more consistent posts from everyone.
As you all likely know, the hobby of homebrewing has taken a dip and is losing popularity. Why this is, I do not know. Perhaps it's so easy these days to get beers of many many different styles from many different breweries (both regional and nationally) that it's just easier to buy them rather than brew them... For me, this has caused me to focus on trying to dial in 4 or 6 core recipes for my brewery that I enjoy as much or more than commercial examples. This means being realistic, knowing that I likely can't brew a west coast IPA as well as Russian River or Pizza Port!
So launching the site as a for-profit homebrew club entity currently may not be worth the effort. There are around 2000 homebrew clubs in the USA. Even if we could get 10% of them to subscribe (which is unlikely), this would amount to $1000 - $5000 per month. However, based on my past subscriber online site Radioindy, we expected around 2% market share. So for SOTB, this would mean $200 - $1000 monthly revenue. Not gonna be able to retire any time soon, but still might be worth it for a hobby.
Alternatively, John and I have discussed creating a website that acts as a resource for those traveling to a new city and want an unbiased review of the top say 5-10 breweries in the area that consistently put out good beer. We would need to get some level of Cicerone certification. This could become a reliable source for the best breweries in a particular city or region. It would also include all other breweries in the area, including their content from Instagram, Facebook, X, Untappd, Etc... It would be a one-stop place for the serious beer traveler or craft beer aficionado. I'm not sure how the revenue model would work. On a positive note, it would mean every vacation you ever take moving forward would be a tax write-off because you would need to review breweries!
This would be very similar to the Texas Top 50, which rates and lists the top 50 BBQ joints in Texas. They charge members $2 per month for unlimited access to the site.
So please comment below, let me know your ideas on SOTB. Even if we just keep it as is, I am OK with that. My costs to maintain the site are under $300 per year so it's not too cost prohibitive, but that cost would grow radically if we became successful. Some of the things we can do include the following:
Leave it alone, it's fun to have our homebrew club small and mostly private
Leave SOTB as is, start another site for top breweries
Leave SOTB as is but start to send emails to attract homebrew clubs but make everything free for a year or two to see if there is any value in the content
Shut it down :(
Any Other Ideas?
I've been thinking about this too. I think the reach out to homebrew clubs is worth a shot. Maybe if we get enough to sign up, we could start selling ads to homebrew supply shops. We likely need both subscribers and ads to make it worthwhile. I think doing something related to top breweries would require a new website and fresh start...not sure it would be worth it.