Brewing experiences: introducing craft beer to an unfamiliar audience
Helping people navigate a product category they didn’t yet understand.
When I moved from Belgium to Lugano, I discovered something unexpected. In a region with a strong food and wine culture, craft beer was almost absent. Most consumers were familiar with industrial lagers, but the diversity of styles, flavours, and traditions that defined craft beer elsewhere remained largely unknown. Opening a bottle shop wasn’t the difficult part. Helping people understand why they should care was.
Context
As a Belgian, beer culture had always been part of my life. Moving to southern Switzerland exposed me to a market where beer occupied a very different position. Wine dominated cultural conversations, while beer was largely viewed as a simple commodity rather than something to explore.
I saw an opportunity to introduce a different perspective.
What started as a specialised bottle shop quickly became something broader: an attempt to build curiosity, knowledge, and community around a product category that many people had never seriously considered before.
Challenges
The challenge wasn’t attracting experienced craft beer enthusiasts. They already understood the value of the product.
The challenge was helping newcomers navigate an unfamiliar world.
Terms that felt obvious to experienced drinkers (like IPA, Saison, Dubbel, Porter) meant little to most customers. Asking someone to choose between styles they didn’t understand often created uncertainty rather than excitement.
The question became: how do you design an experience that makes exploration feel approachable rather than intimidating?
Approach
Before launching the business, I organised a series of informal tasting sessions with friends and family to better understand local preferences. These sessions helped validate demand, reveal expectations around pricing and flavour, and identify potential barriers to adoption.
Once the shop opened, customer conversations became the primary source of insight.
One pattern appeared repeatedly: experienced beer drinkers talked about styles; new customers talked about flavours. Customers rarely asked for a Saison or a Tripel. They asked for something fruity, refreshing, strong, or easy to drink.
That insight led to a change in how products were presented. Rather than relying exclusively on traditional beer categories, I began organising recommendations around flavour profiles and drinking preferences. The goal wasn’t to simplify the product itself. It was to make the first step into the category easier.
The same principle shaped tasting events.
Rather than focusing exclusively on technical brewing details, sessions were designed as guided journeys that connected flavour, history, brewing traditions, and personal preferences. Feedback from participants continuously influenced future formats, themes, and product selections.
Over time, the business evolved from a retail space into a learning environment.
Outcomes
What began as a niche bottle shop became part of a growing local craft beer community.
Through tastings, collaborations, public events, and involvement in a local beer enthusiasts association, awareness and appreciation of craft beer gradually expanded within the region.
The most valuable outcome wasn’t a sales metric. It was seeing people who initially viewed beer as a single product category begin discussing flavour, style, brewing traditions, and personal preferences with confidence.
The project also reinforced an important lesson: expertise can sometimes create barriers. What feels obvious to experts often requires translation before it becomes accessible to newcomers.
Reflections
The domain was craft beer. The process was design thinking.
Understanding who the audience actually was, rather than assuming. Finding the real barrier, which was language and familiarity, not product quality. Iterating based on what people said and did, not what seemed logical.
You don’t need a screen to design an experience.