Why A “Year in Review” Recap is Worth Your Time

The effervescent Kate Bernot joined our recent #CraftSocialMedia workshop to share her insight on the Year In Review with a journalist’s lens. She also penned this article about why you should plan a year in review this (and every) year.

Thank you Kate!

No one is looking for another item to add to their to-do list, but a “year in review” recap for your brewery is a worthwhile investment.

As a journalist, I’ve been on the receiving end of these recaps and can testify to their utility in your media relations plan—more on that shortly. But these reports aren’t just press release fodder; done right, they can be a powerful internal and external strategic tool. 

A year in review recap is a chance to reflect, organize, and communicate. It’s an archival snapshot of your business, one that is useful now and years into the future. When life moves at breakneck speed and it’s a challenge to even remember what month we’re in, there’s immense value in accurately cataloging your business’ milestones at the end of the year. You’re likely to understand your own brewery more deeply, and to help share important achievements with stakeholders like staff, media, distributors, retailers, community partners, and the public.

First, let’s discuss the year in review as an external communications tool. I cover the business of beer, which since the pandemic has not been smooth sailing for many companies, large and small. Amid the varied challenges breweries face, I’m still always looking to tell success stories. They certainly exist, but are perhaps not as obvious as they once were. Particularly when I’m writing for a trade publication, I need data points—everything from sales volumes to competition medals—to justify why I’m spotlighting a particular brewery.

Breweries can help me uncover these bright spots by sharing their wins, and their challenges, with me at the end of the year. How else will I know that your company launched two new seasonal beers into distribution, or grew own-premise sales, or paid for 100% of taproom staff to become Cicerone certified, or committed to local malt across its core beers? All of those are potential angles for media coverage, either now or in the future. Having them bundled in one easily digested report is a reporter’s dream. Attach the report to an email and send it once it’s ready— timing is less important to me than clear, organized information.

But members of the media aren’t the only external shareholders. Share your year in review with wholesalers, key retailers, and your nonprofit or community partners. Think of the year in review as your family’s holiday card: It’s a reason to reconnect with people you haven’t talked to in a while, update them on your milestones, and keep yourself top-of-mind as those partners are planning for the year ahead. (… Maybe send that email in advance of spring resets?) You may also want to disseminate some aspects of the year in review on social media and your newsletter. Turning core accomplishments into content is a way to highlight your wins and remind your fans of great times they’ve had with the brewery over the past 12 months.

Finally, and perhaps even more importantly, embrace the year in review as an internal exercise. At the management level, examine your brewery’s mission statement alongside your year in review. Do your most important moments of the past year reflect what your brewery stands for? Are there areas of the mission statement that weren’t operationalized? Are there emerging areas of importance over the past year that should be integrated into your mission statement? Finally, make sure your staff sees all or part of your year in review. Keeping employees connected to your mission and celebrated for their role in it is core to maintaining morale. Shout out the people who took the lead on major projects, and use achievements as a reason to celebrate the whole team. 

There are few tools within a brewery’s kit that offer this kind of multifaceted return— and cost almost nothing to implement. 

Written by Kate Bernot