Latest popular hotel amenity: a brewery

It seems the latest boom area for craft beer is luxury hotels attracting guests with in-house breweries on-site.  But it’s certainly nothing new.  Long before the jet-age or advent of the internal combustion engine—when the most luxurious form of travel was literally several horse-power with suspension and comfort a far-off dream—pubs, inns and small breweries doubled as coaching houses offering accommodation and a flagon or three of in-house produced ale.

Even during the past 100-years, traditional country pubs and inns also offered bed-and-breakfast at a time when business hotels and the large hotel-chains were confined to big cities.  The last couple of decades have seen pub-chains purchasing flagging hotels in order to lure weekend-breakers into their new pub-cum-hotel establishments.  City-centre boutique hotels bolted onto pubs, bars and other nightspots are also de rigueur.

The establishment of craft beer breweries inside hotels is the trend’s natural conclusion.  Any luxury or boutique hotel worth its salt (or malt) would like to have its own brewery; and any beer-loving guest is unlikely to refuse free craft beer at Check-In and room-service delivering growlers on-demand.

On the flipside are the larger breweries that add hotels to their portfolios—there are some well-known multinational breweries that may legally list hotelier as their scope of business.

It is the USA, of course, that is leading the rediscovery of hotel-breweries, with Japan following close behind, although luxury or boutique hotels with their own breweries can be found in all corners of the globe.

We just wonder if it’s irresponsible of a hotel to commence a Hotel-Brewery Loyalty Program, although we’d be first in line for the Platinum Card that!