The Baltimore Sun has a story about a Dublin native, Josh Goodman, who came to the US and created a product called the Draft Master, which essentially is a “mobile table, fitted with beer taps designed to let bar patrons draw their own brews,” that now can be found in establishments in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Las Vegas. According to the story, “The Draft Master makes it easy for a consumer to buy beer on demand. The table features two taps that swivel 360 degrees. A digital meter on the taps keeps track of the amount that's drawn. Up to two different kinds of beers can be poured.”
The system has proven successful enough that bars in in Florida, Chicago, California and Canada, looking to give themselves a differential advantage in a market where growth is close to stagnant, are planning to adopt the system.
The system has proven successful enough that bars in in Florida, Chicago, California and Canada, looking to give themselves a differential advantage in a market where growth is close to stagnant, are planning to adopt the system.
- KC's View:
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This has less to do with beer than it has to do with innovation - developing an approach to merchandising and marketing an age-old product that will give it new-age appeal. A lot of people probably would have figured that pretty much every way of marketing beer had been tried...but it ends up that they’d be wrong.
This sort of reminds me of the Enomatic self-service wine tasting system that I’ve seen in cities as close as Chicago and San Francisco, and as far away as Sydney, Australia.
