The craft beer industry is going stronger than ever before. Last year profits for craft beer totaled nearly $19.6 billion, and the industry keeps growing. The craft beer drinker of today is a socially connected creature – many pubs and taprooms are full of screens, both of the flat screen and cellular variety.

This isn’t necessarily surprising – as Millennials hold the biggest market share of craft beer purchases, the immersion into our cell phones and digital lives is front and center in brewpubs that aim to capitalize on this demographic.

Many craft beer hot spots have made the connection and implemented an atmosphere that provides craft beers drinkers with social games that facilitate conversation and allow millennials to temporarily exit the safe harbor of their phones. Here are the ways that the craft beer locales are getting an entire generation geared up for gaming with bar trivia and beyond.

• Board Games – Many craft beer drinkers enjoy the community of like-minded people as much as the beer itself. Another community that’s seen a huge resurgence in the last ten years is the tabletop gaming community. Skewing away from digital immersion entirely, some craft beer spots tap into the fandom for board games as a means of helping customers connect and stay longer.Take, for instance, Dungeons & Drafts, a vegan-friendly tavern whose brand and image is built around providing a board game haven for self-proclaimed nerds and craft beer lovers alike. Designed to provide plenty of table space for board game enthusiasts, this bar serves as a hangout and makes considerable profits with a regular crowd that downs beer after beer while sparring with friends.
• Card Games – We don’t mean your grandma’s game of Gin Rummy or Bridge. Plenty of brewpubs offer card games with a raunchy or party-friendly twist that focus on the conversation more than the game itself. Games like Cards Against Humanity and Thinking & Drinking give craft beer lovers plenty of fodder for heated discussions while they drink.Other card games, like poker, are perfect for incorporating the digital interfaces that craft beer drinkers are so fond of. Buzztime poker finds its home in many a sports bar where seasoned players and newcomers alike can raise the stakes without losing any actual money. When your bar is flush with flat-screen televisions, digital card games are a no-brainer.
• Trivia Games – for the most technologically immersive options for millennials, brewpubs can’t do better than trivia that spans multiple categories and formats. With a system like Buzztime, bars can provide a reliable rotation of fun and thrilling trivia games that allow craft beer drinkers to socially compete.The addictive nature of trivia keeps players coming back week after week. Creating a community of players, whether trivia or board games or card games, is vital to convincing the free-spending generation to continue to come to your tavern or pub. Social gaming draws customers away from their smartphones and straight to your tap.

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