Stouts to Sours: Building a Profitable Craft Beer Program

Craft beer is much more than just another beverage option—it’s a vibrant culture and an evolving opportunity for restaurants to elevate their offerings and connect with passionate customers.

By understanding the rich variety of styles—from crisp lagers and bold IPAs to complex stouts and adventurous sours—you can craft a beer menu that not only complements your cuisine but also tells a story your guests will want to be part of.

Craft beer is more than a beverage—it’s a movement.

With bold flavors, inventive brewing techniques, and a fiercely loyal fan base, craft beer has transformed from a niche novelty to a major draw for restaurants. Small, independent breweries are reshaping customer expectations and inspiring menus that go beyond the basics. From juicy IPAs to rich imperial stouts, the craft beer boom presents a golden opportunity to stand out and boost profits.

In this guide, we’ll break down the key terms, styles, and trends every restaurant owner should know to confidently curate a craft beer menu that keeps customers coming back for more.

Craft Beer

Used to describe any beer that is brewed by small, independent, and traditional brewers, the term “craft” refers to beers that are crafted, rather than mass-manufactured.

Whereas most imported and domestic mass-produced breweries place their focus on profits and mass distribution, craft breweries place a stronger emphasis on quality ingredients and traditional brewing techniques.

In the United States, a brewery must produce less than 6,000,000 barrels of beer per year to be considered a craft beer. A barrel of beer in the United States is 31 US gallons. Because any brewery that produces less than 186,000,000 gallons of beer per year can be considered “craft,” some fairly large breweries operate as craft breweries.

Styles of Craft Beer

Lager

The most popular style of beer in the nation, lagers are crisp and light in body, pair well with heartier bar fare, and account for a majority of beer production in the U.S.

Types of Lagers

Pilsner, a pale lager that is light to golden in color, with a crisp front end and a subtly sweet aftertaste, pairs well with roasted pork or chicken.

Kölsch, a lighter lager with notes of wheatgrass and lemon, pairs well with a light cheese or salad-based lunch.

Bock, a less common lager style with notably dark hues, a malty richness, and a higher ABV, pairs well with heartier dishes like a Shepherd's Pie.

Helles, like a pilsner or kölsch, is light-colored, crisp, and mildly sweet at the back of your palate, , pairs well with greasier, fried foods.

Dunkel, a dark German-style lager with a slightly higher ABV but lower IBU, which is balanced out with a roasted malt finish, pairs well with sausages and other grilled meats.

Stouts and Porters

Stouts and porters are both dark in body and heavy in malt. Both styles are also particularly pliable, allowing plenty of room for flavoring agents to color the overall brew. Just like with any other style of beer, there are seemingly infinite varieties of stouts and porters.

Stouts differ from porters because they use unmalted, roasted barley instead of malted, unroasted barley. Most stouts have higher alcohol contents and IBU scores than porters. While both stouts and porters are dry-hopped, stouts contain fewer hops than porters. Stout beer evolved from porter beer, so it resembles the typical porter color and taste.

The head of a stout should be thick and is usually tan to brown. Its body should be very dark brown or black. Stouts are typically opaque but if any light does find its way through, the beer should be clear. The nose should be grainy and can carry hints of coffee, chocolate, licorice, and molasses with no apparent hops.

Porters tend to be sweeter and earthier than stouts, which are stronger and a bit stiffer. Baltic porters often display a balance of smoke, roasted malt, and hoppy bitterness (35 to 45 IBUs) in the taste. The beers are deep ruby to black and can be cloudy.

Types of Stouts and Porters

Dry Irish Stout: Balanced and dry, relying on unmalted dark-roasted barley for its rich dark color, aroma, and taste, Dry Irish stout is a tad more bitter, with a characteristically super-dark appearance, smooth finish, and a lower ABV than other stouts (under 5%).

Milk Stouts: Thanks to the addition of lactose or sugar, Milk Stouts are a smooth, creamy beer with a soft sweetness, with a finish like chocolate milk. Full-bodied, with lower ABVs, Milk Stouts are often brewed with flavors like coffee, cacao nibs, coconut, or vanilla.

Oatmeal Stout: Adding oats to a stout gives this beer a smooth texture and creamy mouthfeel without too much sweetness.

Oyster Stout: Actual oysters that are actually used when brewing an Oyster Stout, give this beer a salty sea spray flavor with chocolate undertones.

Pastry Stout: A cake or cookie-inspired beer, the rich, sweet base makes this stout an ideal backdrop for baking ingredients like cinnamon, coconut, chiles, and cacao nibs. Often higher in ABV, which helps them stand up to high residual sugar contents, pastry stouts counterbalance acidic foods like barbecue or Mexican fare.

Imperial Stout/Russian Imperial Stout: Imperial Stouts have relatively high ABV (often above 8%) and feature intense sweetness and distinctly dark chocolate, roast, or coffee flavors.

Brown Porters/English Porters: Lighter, particularly hoppy, softer, and sweeter than most stouts, English porters are quite dark, occasionally black or with a red tint. More robust English Porters have higher ABV (4.8-6.5%) with darker and more intense flavors.

Barrel-Aged: Fermented in barrels, the interaction between the brew and the barrel often leads to higher ABV and lower IBU, making this style of beer a great complement to a dessert.

INDIA PALE ALE: IPA

Pale ales rank among the most popular styles of beer because they are widely available, often affordable, and pair well with pub fare. A subset of pale ales, IPA, a hop-forward style of beer, originally brewed for export to British colonies abroad, has taken off in popularity in the United States. There are many varieties of IPAs, from black IPAs to triple IPAs.

IPA Vocabulary

Session: Modern session IPAs usually fall below 5% ABV (although historically, the style is 4% and below). With lower alcohol comes a thinner body, which allows for more drinks in a session, hence the name.

Double/Imperial: Known as an IPA on steroids, double and imperial IPAs are essentially IPAs with a higher hop concentration. To balance all that hop flavor, the brewer uses more malt, which results in a higher ABV (usually over 7%).

Dry-Hopped: Dry-hopping is the process of steeping hops in fermenting beer instead of adding them while the liquid is boiling. The process creates a powerful aroma, amplifying the hops’ fruity, piney, and candy-sweet notes.

Single-Hopped:  A single-hopped IPA is brewed exclusively with one hop variety.

Fresh-Hopped: Fresh-hopped IPAs, also called wet-hopped or harvest ales, only come around once a year, at the peak of hop harvesting season in late August and September. To qualify as a fresh-hopped IPA, the hops have to leave the vine, travel to the brewery, and end up in the boil in under 24 hours.

Popular IPA Styles

These are classification categories for IPAs. A “style” means that an ingredient and/or technique in the brewing process or technique lends a certain flavor, mouthfeel, or appearance to the beer that consistently remains true for the style.

New England IPA: The New England IPA is the IPA of the moment. Using blends of hops that lend intense, fruity flavor, this IPA is unfiltered and hazy with extremely low bitterness. Looking like orange juice, smelling like a fruit salad (sprinkled with a bit of weed), and tasting like a fresh fruit cobbler, the New England IPA is perfect for customers who claim not to like IPAs. (They’re like the California Rolls of IPAs.)

New England IPA Breweries: Hill Farmstead Brewery, Civil Society Brewing Company, and Trillium Brewing Co.

East Coast IPA: Not actually an “official” style of beer, the East Coast style IPA is a stepping stone between the British and West Coast IPA, with an emphasis on piney hop flavor and a solid malt backbone.

East Coast IPA Breweries: Carton Brewing Company, Dogfish Head Brewing Company, and Victory Brewing Company

Oat IPA: Brewed with either flaked oats or oat milk, Oat IPAs have a lazy, lethargic, cozy mouthfeel. Described as “soft,” this is the IPA for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Oat IPA Breweries: The Veil Brewing Company, Cerebral Brewing, and Monkish Brewing Co.

Hazy IPAs: Also known as a New England IPA, Hazy IPAs use hops that produce a dense body, tropical flavor, and juicy finish. Hazy IPAs pair well with dishes that are rich and crisp.

Milkshake IPA: Milkshake IPAs, also known as cream or Lactose IPAs, do not contain milk, and they are not shaken. Using lactose or milk sugar in the fermentation process, Milkshake IPAs are low in carbonation, creamy, and frothy, with slight hints of bitterness. Like a lighter milk stout, Milkshake IPAs pair well with steak, barbecued meats, or smoked foods.

Milkshake IPA Breweries: Tired Hands Brewing Company, Omnipollo, and Other Half Brewing Company

West Coast IPA: The West Coast IPA explores the rowdy, fruity flavors in hops while shedding some of the bitterness. West Coast IPAs pair well with spicy foods like Mexican and Tex-Mex.

West Coast IPA Breweries: Fieldwork Brewing Company, Half Acre Beer, Pipeworks Brewing Co.

British IPA: Malty, bitter, and one-noted, British IPAs are appreciated by those with a certain beer preference, but they are generally not the most popular beer.

British IPA Brewing Companies: Great Lakes Brewing Company, Yards Brewing Company, and Samuel Smith’s Brewery

Belgian IPA: Belgian yeast provides sweet, bready, warm notes to Belgian IPA.

Belgian Style IPA Breweries: Central State Brewing Company, Brouwerij De Ranke, and New Belgium Brewing

Sours

Sour beers are intentionally tart, with a fermented style. For brewers, crafting a sour beer is treacherous, as it involves wild yeasts to ferment, which, if not carefully administered, can infect their entire brewing system, thus souring all of their other beers as well. Due to that risk, sour beers are comparably rare but are rising in popularity.

Craft Flights

Creative Promotions for Boosting Craft Beer Sales

Ready to turn your craft beer selection into a profit powerhouse? With so many unique brews and passionate fans out there, the right promotions can elevate your restaurant’s vibe, bring in new customers, and keep regulars coming back for more.

From tasting flights to trivia nights, here are some tried-and-true ideas to help you pour profits into your beer program.

1. Craft Beer Flight Nights: Offer curated flights featuring a selection of local craft beers. Pair the flights with small bites or tapas to encourage tasting and upselling.

2. Happy Hour Craft Beer Specials: Feature discounted craft beers during happy hour to attract after-work crowds. Rotate the selections regularly to keep customers curious and coming back.

3. Tap Takeovers: Partner with a local craft brewery for a “tap takeover” where the brewery’s beers dominate your draft list for a night or weekend.

4. Loyalty Program Perks: Create a craft beer loyalty card or digital rewards program—after purchasing a certain number of craft beers, customers get a free pint or merchandise like branded glassware.

5. Limited-Edition Seasonal Releases: Promote exclusive, limited-run craft beers available only at your restaurant. Build buzz with social media teasers and countdowns.

   
   

   

   Tapas & Beer Pairings

   
   

6. Tapas & Beer Pairing Events: Host special events where each course is paired with a complementary craft beer style. Highlight unique flavors and educate customers on why the pairings work.

7. Craft Beer Trivia Night: Combine fun with beer education by hosting trivia nights focused on beer knowledge, brewing techniques, or local breweries. Offer prizes like free pints or discounts.

8. Bundle Deals: Offer combo deals like “Burger + Craft Beer” at a special price, making it easier for customers to try your beer selection alongside popular menu items.

Take Away

Incorporating a craft beer program into your menu invites exploration and repeat visits, driving loyalty and boosting your bottom line. Whether you’re highlighting a local brewery’s latest release or pairing a rich imperial stout with a decadent dessert, embracing the craft beer movement allows your restaurant to stand out in a crowded market.

So tap into the creativity and authenticity of craft beer. Your bottom line will thank you.

By Eileen Strauss