Get involved and support independent beer and venues

The aim of Beer Today is to support independent British brewers and venues. Here’s what I’m up to from my Cornwall base.

Beer Today Guide beer

Where I am

The premise is very simple. Online, daily news updates, seven days a week. Full stories, news in brief, event listings. And that very particular focus on supporting our great independent businesses. Unique monthly users number around 20,000.

It costs money to run, of course. The answer would be to cover the site in advertising, but I’m not sure that would be appreciated. Instead I’ve taken a different route.

The core of Beer Today’s income is its Patreon support scheme. This is open to readers, who can pledge as little as £1.50 a month, and commercial supporters, for whom the cost is more, but only to a maximum of £13 (depending on size). I want to use this support to unlock a relationship that works for both sides. Commercial Patreon supporters can:

  • Sell their beer and merchandise via the Beer Today shop.
  • Promote competitions and offers via Beer Today and its social media.
  • Have ‘advertorial’ features on Beer Today.
  • Get priority use of press releases on Beer Today.
  • Get regular priority sharing of social media content across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads, and X (formerly Twitter).

Become a commercial supporter here!

Current projects

The Beer Today online shop will launch any day now. Beers will be listed, categorised by style, with listings such as this:

BT shop beer promo
Note: this a dummy beer selected at random from the dozens I’ve featured on the site. For now, it’s for display purposes only!

The whole box is clickable and links directly to the beer’s presence on the brewer’s own webshop. It’s that simple. The order of beers on a page will be constantly rotated for fairness.

There will also be sections for merchandise, though, and brewing supplies, services etc. The shop will be regularly boosted on social media, with new products featured.

The Christmas Gift Guide

Advertise your Christmas specials here. At the moment, it’s all about Advent calendars, but feel free to advertise whatever (within reason!). The cost is £14.99 for the period of the Guide (until 22nd December), or free to commercial Patreon supporters.

The newspaper

Newspaper press

There’s a Beer Today newspaper coming in 2024! I think there’s a good slice of the beer-loving demographic who miss beer news in print. This will be bi-monthly, 24 pages, postal subscriptions available. You can subscribe here, but Patreon supporters will get it for free. There will be advertising space available in the newspaper. More details about that soon. Or drop me an email to express interest in being a founder advertiser!

I’ve been working on newspapers since 1979, as a reporter, feature writer, sub-editor, and editor, so I know a bit about print. This is a really exciting project for me. Come and join in!

Thanks for reading!

I love working on Beer Today every day, literally every day, supporting and promoting independent brewers and venues. I’d love to carry on doing it, but that’s down to the support of the industry. I know times are tough, but if you can come on board, please do. Let’s keep great beer and great venues alive!

Darren Norbury
Publisher