A VineSpring Story

Vista Brewing

Vista Brewing isn’t your typical brewery. Set outside of Austin, Texas, surrounded by 60 wineries, and among 657 oak trees, you’ll find a destination brewery that will delight all of your senses. Founded in 2018, Vista Brewing thrives on creating a holistic experience for its customers and partners with neighboring farms, wineries, and other community members to create that experience.

Besides serving their signature wine barrel-aged brews and core beers like their Dark Skies Black Pilsner and Le Saison Farmhouse Ale, Vista Brewing also hosts events and serves food grown in their organic farm. The brewer, chef, and farmers work together to create hyper-local culinary creations with beer pairings that capture the beauty of their Texas Hill Country surroundings. 

While what is in the glass is in high demand and absolutely delicious, it’s more about the experience. Vista Brewing wanted their customers to be able to bottle that experience up and take it home. 

“Our product is more than the beer, it’s the entire experience.” - Karen Killough, Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at Vista Brewing

The “experience brewery” concept stems from winery roots so launching a club model was a no brainer. There are only a handful of breweries in Texas who offer a “wine club” style club, Vista Brewing was truly a pioneer in Texas beer clubs. 

Learn more about how VineSpring works for Breweries.

The Challenge

Vista Brewing launched the Barrel Club mere few months after opening. To start, they focused on their unique barrel-aged brews. The process started out very manual. 

“It was all spreadsheets and binders at first. We tried to keep things small but our demand expanded very rapidly. We knew it was time for a new software that could make our lives easier and allow us to grow more fluidly.” - Lindsey Berset, Assistant General Manager at Vista Brewing

Vista Brewing had 75 members at their first club pickup but more customers were eager to join. It was important for them to grow slowly yet steadily for production purposes. With beers that need time to be aged, they had to balance the production with the demands of the Barrel Club, the Tasting Room, and wholesales accounts. 

To allow things to grow, and ultimately reach their goal of producing batches solely for their Barrel Club, they needed a software partner that could scale alongside the business, help them stay organized, and secure consistent revenue from clubs. 

The Solution

Vista Brewing was seeking a vendor that was familiar with breweries but also understood the complexities of wine clubs and enables them to extend the brewery experience off-premise. They wanted an easy way to communicate with customers, keep their credit card information safe, manage an online store, and organize their clubs. 

Lindsey came from the wine industry and was no stranger to club management software. 

“I’ve worked with a lot of different winery software platforms and I think VineSpring is definitely the most user friendly.” - Lindsey Berset

When Vista Brewing found VineSpring, it was the perfect fit. The balance of price and features was exactly what they needed. 

VineSpring serves breweries as well as wineries so the team is familiar with the nuances of DTC sales and what it takes to create an elevated experience, often found in wine clubs. The VineSpring platform provided Vista Brewing with an easy-to-use system to extend their brand from tasting room to table.

Once Vista Brewing signed up, they were impressed with the personalized customer support that they received and how easy it was to get started.

“Onboarding went smoothly. We now know the support team on a first name basis and they know us too!” - Lindsey Berset

With VineSpring’s various packages, Vista Brewing was able to onboard with the Starter package and work their way up to the Professional package as their clubs evolved and required more sophisticated features. It was important to Vista Brewing to make their clubs unique and have the ability to offer special perks.

As Vista Brewing’s clubs grew, VineSpring empowered them to provide a better experience for each member. Using the software, Vista was able to add additional club levels and members could log in and customize their purchases. This gave members a sense of ownership and strengthened their connection as a club member. 

“VineSpring has created an elevated guest experience, especially for our members. It’s professional, they can log in, and get more involved with the process. I can’t imagine doing this without VineSpring—it forces you to be organized. It’s been really exciting and everything has gone smoothly. ” - Lindsey Berset

Vista Brewing was also able to lean on VineSpring to help them get through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. With flexible eCommerce options and an easy-to-use interface, Vista Brewing was able to quickly pivot and develop new offerings.

The VineSpring platform, beyond hosting their custom beer clubs, allowed Vista to sell merchandise and farm-fresh food items from their eCommerce store. They added two completely new clubs with the Friends of Vista Crowler Club, which focuses on their garden style beers, and a weekly CSA Veggie Box, which allows them to utilize products from their onsite organic farm during the restaurant closure. Their customers, now loyalists, were thrilled to support Vista Brewing through any means possible. 

“Our club members mean much more to us than the money they are spending. They are our biggest brand advocates and they spread the word about Vista Brewing.” - Karen Killough

Are you looking for the right DTC vendors for your business? Enroll in our series “Guide to Choosing DTC Vendors” and we’ll walk you through what to look for when choosing email, Point of Sale, eCommerce, accounting, and compliance software.

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Learn more about how VineSpring enhances eCommerce and clubs for breweries.