By James Feichtner
For the past few years, craft micro-breweries have been exploding all over the Midwest, especially in Indiana. With so much going on in Indiana’s craft beer scene, it may seem impossible to keep up with the constant growth. Fortunately, one Fishers-based company has a solution for those seeking to stay informed.
Indiana On Tap is a revolutionary digital medium that is allowing Indiana craft beer fanatics to engage in the craft beer community like never before. Starting out of Launch Fishers, IOT uses their website to provide a plethora of information on Hoosier breweries, craft beers and events.
“We identify ourselves as the state’s largest crafter, news, events and information website,” Justin Knepp, IOT’s founder and president, said. “The website portion of what we do; we are the largest. We have the largest trafficked and social media audience than of any type of craft beer news and information and events website.”
After only a year and a half, IOT has already gained the support of more than 55 Indiana breweries as well as positive feedback through a social media audience of more than 15,000 through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
“It’s been exciting for us how quickly the breweries support us and how quickly all of the craft brew fans all over the state support us,” Knepp said. “We knew that what we were doing was going to address a need in the marketplace, but I think even we under estimated how much of a need there was.”
But their website is only a fraction of what makes the company so unique.
Just premiered from IOT in July is the Tasting Society Marketplace membership program. For just $50 a year, members will receive coupons and incentives via mail that are acceptable at dozens of participating breweries with savings of over $500.
“The whole goal is to introduce craft beer fans to breweries that they’ve never been to before; beers they’ve never tried before,” Knepp said. “It’s an incentives based program. Not only is it creating a great experience for [members], it’s a platform for them to go experience all these new beers. There’s nothing like it that’s ever been produced, not only in Indiana, but, from what we can tell, anywhere. For people in Indianapolis alone you’re going to get your money back after two or three or four visits to breweries.”
Similar to a Bourbon Trail, IOT expects the Tasting Society Marketplace to encourage competition among members to travel across the state to see how many breweries they can visit.
“For a lot of people it’s going to be the challenge to go and see how many of these Marketplace partners can they visit in a year. One thing that we are going to be adding very soon is basically a Tasting Society Marketplace Hall of Fame where we’ll actually recognize the people on the website for how many of market place partners they visited; how many days it took them to do it. We really expect it to become a competition or challenge,” Knepp said.
Coming in September, IOT is also organizing an event with the town of Whitestown called Whitestown Brewfest where featuring Indiana breweries as well as a home brew competition where the winner will have their beer produced professionally.
To learn more about Indiana On Tap or its Tasting Society Marketplace, visit www.indianaontap.com
