You're opening your own brew pub.......

[zmanzorro]

I don't think there is a one size fits all standard got all brewpubs. You have to think in terms of your brewpub.

Do you want to sell a lot at lower margins? Or less at higher margins?

Do you want to be the same as everyone else? Or do you want to differentiate?

Answer those questions, and you can narrow down a lot of what you want to serve.

 

[Infected]

IPA
Amber
Stout
Hefeweizen
Saison
Specialty

 

[madscientist451]

The preferences of the customers in a particular area will decide for you what the "flagship" beer is going to be and you need to keep on tap what sells the best so you can stay in business. Some areas seem to prefer malt forward beer compared to hop forward, for example.
You can make a peach mango sweet potato cream ale as seasonal selection, and many people will come in to see if there's anything "new" available, but to be successful any business has to listen to what their customers are saying and what it is they want to buy. 80% of all beer sold is still bud/miller/coors, does that mean you have to make a clone of their beer? I'd say no, but it doesn't hurt to have a lighter pale ale or lager in the lineup. I like a good sour beer, saisons and some high alcohol stouts from time to time, but sometimes I just want an easy drinking thirst quencher, and some of the craft beer breweries I've been to just don't want to do that.

 

[iijakii]

The preferences of the customers in a particular area will decide for you what the "flagship" beer is going to be and you need to keep on tap what sells the best so you can stay in business. Some areas seem to prefer malt forward beer compared to hop forward, for example.
You can make a peach mango sweet potato cream ale as seasonal selection, and many people will come in to see if there's anything "new" available, but to be successful any business has to listen to what their customers are saying and what it is they want to buy. 80% of all beer sold is still bud/miller/coors, does that mean you have to make a clone of their beer? I'd say no, but it doesn't hurt to have a lighter pale ale or lager in the lineup. I like a good sour beer, saisons and some high alcohol stouts from time to time, but sometimes I just want an easy drinking thirst quencher, and some of the craft beer breweries I've been to just don't want to do that.

I don't think there's a good rule on what you have to or don't have to do. There's breweries in Portland here that literally only have IPAs/pales/hoppy reds. They do fine. There's ones that specialize in just belgians, just lagers, sours etc. There's plenty of generic mixed ones as well.

I believe you need a unique angle to not just die amongst the crowds, but there's not a fast rule on what that means.