Hilltop Lager

Redefining a Legacy

Hilltop Lager started years before the Columbus brewery started to distribute it to local bars and stores that surround the campus of The Ohio State University. It actually started with two college buddies making beer in the closet of their apartment. The homemade concoction caught on with friends, and eventually the two students traded in their books for brews, and they opened up a brewery. Hilltop Lager was brewed as the perfect after-work beer, and it wasn’t long until the locals were talking about a neighborhood beer that was perfect anywhere. Hilltop Light arrived soon after, and before you knew it, a legend was born.

Our Challenge

The Hilltop Brand was associated with a brewery in Columbus and was relaunching the beers on their own for retail sale. We were tasked with capturing the branding elements of the beer and coming up with a site that felt like cracking open a Hilltop with friends rather than browsing online. The site needed to be scalable so that there was a possibility to add e-commerce for merchandise at some point, and possibly an app-style locator once more retail establishments were added. Mobile optimization was a must as well because people were likely to use this site as a reference en route to stores, bars, and events where Hilltop Lager would be featured.

The site was built via an easy to use interface on WordPress. It is clean and image heavy, making it visually appealing, but the simplicity with which it is was built makes it very fast on mobile devices. The merch page links to a Facebook store for now, with the option to scale up to a full e-commerce store down the road as the brand expands. The Hilltop Locator page is a list that provides complete tracking for all retail and bar locations that are carrying the brand today and it is very easy to update as more opportunities arise. The site builder enables the team at Hilltop to make adjustments, additions, and changes down the road, and they were given all of the tools they need to manipulate the site as they continue to grow.

Immediately upon the launch of the new site, Hilltop Lager began receiving messages inquiring about locations where people could buy the beer and merch. The site gave them a tool to use to find it and also established the relaunch of the brand. The next step is expansion beyond the Columbus area and into Cincinnati and Cleveland.

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