Launching Savannah Craft Beer Week

Craft beer is one of my passions. My love for discovering new beers, making road trips to visit favorite breweries and even making my own beer was the impetus for creating Brew / Drink / Run, an online magazine devoted to homebrewing, craft beer and running - the intersection between decadence and fitness. 

Over the last few years, Brew / Drink / Run has seen moderate growth thanks to the continuous stream of beer reviews, feature articles, Connect Savannah partnership and our podcast. What I've been most proud of are the Savannah connections we've fostered with local breweries, bars and the craft beer support community. That group of unsung heroes led to my next local beer project, SAVCraftBeer.com. 

This new site's primary function is to promote Savannah Craft Beer Week, which is August 24-31, 2014. The week features more than 30 events at venues spread throughout the area. While this has been an unofficial string of happenings in the recent past, the goal here is to make it an "official" set of events, giving a unified face and front to help promote all of the venues involved.

The logo for this year's festivities was inspired by the mermen in the iconic Forsyth Park fountain. Replacing their conch shell horns for beer bottles was a simple enough task. The mobile-responsive website design is primarily an off-the-shelf Wordpress theme. This is out of character for me, being a web designer by trade; but by taking this route, the site went from concept to launch in 7 days, despite a calendar packed full of client work. A custom design to promote the 2015 Beer Week is already in the concept phase as are dedicated smartphone apps.

It was important for me to allow the community to be vested in the site, so I solicited donations for sponsorship levels and have a simple process for new events to be added to the calendar. 

The response to the project has been outstanding, which great exposure provided by local media outlets and promoters like Visit Savannah. Check out the site and begin creating your itinerary for Savannah Craft Beer Week. While you're out, be sure to thank these amazing local venues for their support of craft beer.