Retailer of the Year: Half Time Beverage

Our second 2016 Retailer of the Year award winner recognizes that a business must deftly balance size and customer service. It’s no easy task. Between two New York locations (Poughkeepsie and Mamaroneck) the craft beer chain Half Time Beverage stocks about 6,000 SKUs. Rows and rows of shelves and freezers contain brews of every style and nationality.

Beer novices would be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed during their first visit. Of course, Half Time is not content to let customers walk around confused. Employees are well prepared to serve as guides, since education is a critical component of the Half Time experience.

Half Time Beverage Fast Facts:

• Owners: Alan & Jason Daniels
• Founded: 2002
• Locations: Two (Mamaroneck and Poughkeepsie, NY)
• Size: 9,000 to 20,000 square feet
• Offerings: Beer, cider and accessories
• SKUs: More than 6,000
• Specialties: 22-tap growler bar, 50-door cooler

Match.com for Beer

“We have five to ten employees on the floor at all times, asking if they can help,” says Jason Daniels, COO of Half Time and the son of its founder, Alan Daniels. “They’ll ask customers, ‘What kind of food do you eat? What macro beers do you like to drink?’ And they’ll think about similar spices and elements.”

The goal is for staff to deduce something definitive about customers’ palates.

“We really do try to get to know every customer that comes in,” says Mitchell DeSimone, a certified cicerone and Half Time employee. “It’s like Match.com. Based on what you know about a customer, you can find them the perfect beer.”

This can include how someone likes their coffee. Black? Bitter? With a lot of milk and caramel? Or, how does someone feel about roasted malts? Caramel? IPAs?

These are all helpful hints toward which beers customers will likely enjoy. After all, many shoppers who visit Half Time don’t know every product on the shelf. Or they’re afraid to try new things – until gently prodded in a new direction.

“As you get to know customers and what they drink, you can see them develop,” DeSimone explains. “One guy came in all the time for Oscar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale. He’d just buy it and buy it and buy it. And then one day he said to me, ‘I feel bad that I’m always drinking this beer. There are thousands and thousands here, but I only buy this one. I want to try something new.’”

“This happens more and more every day,” DeSimone adds. “You help a customer branch out.” DeSimone led that customer to Half Time’s mix-six section, where customers create their own six-packs from a selection of singles. This encourages experimentation, so if some beers connect with a palate, shoppers have new brews to keep them coming back.

Vision and Execution

Half Time also serves a great deal of craft connoisseurs, who travel in from surrounding states to purchase hard-to-find beers. For the discerning drinker, Half Time is a craft mecca. That doesn’t mean macro staples aren’t available. The store carries all those brands, along with its massive selection of micro. A place for all beer was the vision of founder Alan Daniels, shared with his son Jason.

Opening Half Time 15 years ago, Alan was well ahead of his time. The 9,000-square-foot Poughkeepsie location opened in 2002 with about 600 SKUs. Craft beer was just then becoming an industry-shifting trend.

Alan remained at its forefront. Along with the Poughkeepsie store, he built up one of the largest beer distribution businesses on the eastern seaboard. He then sold Liberty Distribution in 2007 to spend more time on retail. Five years later, he and his son opened the second Half Time location. At 20,000 square feet, the Mamaroneck store claims to have the largest craft beer selection in the world.

“Our cooler in Mamaroneck has 50 doors,” Jason says. “It’s the largest cooler of its kind in North America.”

Jason, at age 26, was prominently involved in launching Mamaroneck. With a background in real estate, he selected an ideal location: a dilapidated industrial building in a densely populated, affluent neighborhood.

He oversaw the building’s transformation from blight to business, raising awareness about the new location with a beer fest that matched the store’s scope.

Big Store, Big Festival

In 2014, Jason organized the first annual Harbor Island International Beer Festival, selling over 5,000 tickets. This year’s festival was again a great turnout. Thousands of attendees packed shoulder-to-shoulder under huge tents. There were 150 breweries sampling 350 beers. Products came from as far away as Iceland and Japan.

The festival also featured live music and food trucks, plus premium ticket packages. VIP passes gave access to a tent with a food buffet and dozens of special beers. These included products by Clown Shoes, Brooklyn Brewery, Dogfish Head, Bad Seed Cider and the Goose Island vintage series.

For the craft connoisseur, there were Brewmaster Reserve tickets. Rare beers in this tent were the types that have enthusiasts lining up for hours, or traveling across states to buy.

Two kegs from Hill Farmstead Brewery were on tap all day — Double Citra and Brother Soigné — an unusual abundance of small-batch beer. Hourly tastings in the Brewmaster Reserve tent included other top-ranked brews: Heady Topper, Sip of Sunshine, Founders Kentucky Bourbon Stout and Cantillon sours.

Beer Innovations

Half Time tapped into the building craft fervor in 2002 in part by adding a novel feature. “We pioneered growler fills in the store,” Jason says.

Although many competitors have since caught up with their own growler stations, the feature is still popular at Half Time. The Mamaroneck store boasts 22 taps, bringing in $5,000 in monthly revenue.

“A lot of people want to taste something fresh,” Jason explains. “And a lot of breweries make their names based on freshness. Our growler programs are unbelievable ways to get fresh beers into customers’ hands.”

Modern drinkers treat growlers the way they would a bottle of wine. “They want to share it at a party,” Jason says. “It creates a romance between the person bringing the growler and the people they share it with.”

“When you go to dinner, you want to taste the wine before you spend $50 on a bottle,” he adds. “Our growler taps act similarly in a retail sense.”

A number of in-store tastings each week also helps expose customers to products before purchase. With the stores’ large size, tastings allow for a more-personal relationship between brewer and drinker, while helping pinpoint what types of beer appeal to each person.

Staying Fresh

Half Time can’t expect to educate consumers if the store doesn’t maintain knowledgeable staff. “The most important thing is market research,” DeSimone says. “We have to keep up with new beers.”

To keep abreast, staff members utilize the stores’ features. “When we get something that we’ve never had before, we’ll put it on a growler tap and give it a taste,” says Joseph Buddo, Director of Operations in Mamaroneck.

It’s no simple job. The craft beer category is expanding so rapidly that Half Time must make room nearly every week

for new SKUs, Buddo explains. The stores will stock as much as they can. Deciding between SKUs is a matter of reputation and demand.

“We’ll base a lot of it on scores and reviews,” Buddo says. “We’ll look into what has a lot of hype and what’s gotten big on social media. We give a lot of new beers a shot. If they don’t move well, we move them out.”

Half Time also collects customer information for waiting lists on new products, which are ordered when there’s enough interest.

Especially hot right now, Jason says, are sours and barrel-aged beers. Foreign products are also on the rise. “Customers will come back from a country and want to know where they can buy that country’s beers,” he says.

Cider, too, has seen a sizeable uptick. The Mamaroneck location has a cider aisle 100 feet long. “I think hard cider is a gateway to other alcohol,” Jason says. “Whether the drinker is female or just someone who hasn’t hopped into craft beer yet, cider allows everyone to get some great-tasting stuff.”

Well-Rounded Staff

“Anyone who comes on board must have either a very good knowledge of craft beer, or a very good knowledge of hard work,” Jason says.

Keeping up to date with beer is just one part of the employee equation. A well-rounded skillset is necessary, so staff go through three weeks of training before beginning in stores.

“A lot of craft beer places want to hire a lot of craft beer geeks, which of course we do too,” Jason explains. “But we also want someone who understands retail and customer service.”

Some customers want to explore the store on their own. Some people want to have long talks about beer, or spend an hour going through every country’s offerings. Others will come in and out in a hurry. Half Time employees are well
prepared for all scenarios. The personal reward is in experience and fellowship.

“If you want to work in the craft beer world, then you can work for one of the largest craft beer retailers,” Jason says. “We’ve had employees from day one, who’ve now been here for thirteen or fourteen years.”

“This is a family business, and everyone working for us is like family,” he adds. “We have holiday parties together. We hang out and volunteer together on the weekends. Whether you’re at work or off work, there’s a camaraderie that exists among everyone.”

What’s Next

Considering Half Time’s past and present, it’s no surprise that the company intends to expand. Additional Hudson Valley locations are planned for coming years.

The chain will also grow digitally. According to Google, Half Time already has the internet’s most visited beer website, Jason says. The goal is for the website to become more of an e-commerce platform. It will sort beers into easily searchable categories, further helping customers narrow down to what they like.

Half Time will also produce beer of its own. The company recently purchased Matthew Vassar Brewing Co., a major U.S. brewery from the 19th century. The aim is to restart
production soon.

Opening a brewery would be another considerable undertaking for a business that excels at both large-scale projects and attention to detail. With lofty goals backed by a knowledgeable staff and a dynamic father-son duo, the future looks bright for this growing chain.

Kyle Swartz is associate editor of Beverage Dynamics Magazine. Reach him at kswartz@epgacceleration.com or 763-383-4447.