Craft Beer Working Group: Digital Innovation for the Competitiveness of Craft Beer

The Craft Beer Innovation Hub will include: a description of its functional structure, governance model, membership criteria, and basic digital support platform, following a multi-stakeholder approach; an initial catalog of digital and collaborative services offered to craft breweries, including consulting, shared digital and logistical tools, training, and marketing resources; a public launch; industry outreach; and an open call for new breweries. Links will be established with regional and national agri-food and digital innovation networks, positioning the hub as a leading resource in the sector.

The HICA framework will include: functional and technical requirements for the framework's tools, prioritizing digitization, necessary logistical capabilities, process management, recipe replication, and marketing needs. It will also include the front-end and back-end architecture of a modular, secure, and scalable web platform that serves as the central hub for HICA and the foundation for module deployment. Interoperable standard technologies will be used. Tools such as user management, management and maintenance interfaces, and key performance indicator (KPI) analysis will be included. Finally, the framework's main modules will be developed and integrated with functional prototypes in a test environment: a public website, user dashboards, eCommerce platform, collaborative spaces, and event management.

Digitization of processes, logistics, and a pilot plant for innovation in the craft brewing industry, which will include: Digitization architecture for key production and logistics processes in craft brewing and distribution at the GO breweries, considering data on workflows, times, materials, and resources used, with the aim of identifying bottlenecks and digitization opportunities. Processes and strategies for energy savings in craft beer production. Development and integration of processes for the effective digitization of the value chain. AETCM-Lab pilot plant as an intermediate validation tool for replicating GO craft recipes under controlled conditions. This plant will allow verification of the consistency of the production process and the final result before scaling production to other breweries. Evaluation of the impact of digitization on defined key indicators: logistics efficiency, production times, error reduction, and traceability.

Digital marketing for the competitiveness of the craft beer industry, which will include: Identification of the data sources where users comment on beers, and a system for the continuous extraction of these sources, allowing for the monitoring of evolving trends and user opinions within the beer sector. Natural language processing techniques to: i) detect relevant entities for competitive intelligence analysis; ii) identify the aspects that most influence user evaluation; iii) automatically extract a specific vocabulary from the Spanish-language beer domain; iv) develop a sentiment analysis system to determine the value of each aspect, facilitating product adaptation to consumers and tracking promotional campaigns. Development of a specialized and configurable beer assistant to manage the online sales experience for breweries. Development of an assistant to facilitate and automate key social media management tasks in the beer sector.

Social Innovation and Policy Impact, which will include: A training strategy for craft brewers on the various aspects of the project. Multiple training materials will be developed at different stages. An internationalization strategy for HICA's activities and the proposed technologies, aligned with European policies. Funding strategies will also be explored to enable brewers to adopt the proposed technologies and processes in a way that is economically viable for their businesses. Various private alternatives, including public-private partnerships, will be examined, as well as European support for Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs). Models for exploiting the proposed technologies and processes will be developed to incentivize entrepreneurs to implement business models for the digitalization and training of craft breweries at the national and European levels. The internationalization of the technology (dashboard, content) will be explored, along with the legal and business aspects that must be considered for adaptation at the European level.

Testing at the group's factories: During the first phase of testing, initial versions of the technologies and tools developed at HICA will be tested. This first phase will validate compliance with the initially defined technical requirements, gather incidents and iterative feedback to make adjustments and improvements, fine-tune processes, and plan the second phase of testing.

Testing at other factories and with the consumer: Final testing of GO technologies and processes will be conducted, including with external producers. The iterative feedback and improvement process will continue, testing incremental versions of the deployed technologies and processes until the final version is reached. A final report will be prepared detailing the tests performed and a thorough analysis of the results obtained.

This website provides access to the HICA digital platform to share its vision, objectives, and achievements with all stakeholders in the value chain, as well as the general public. It will feature an exclusive section for members, offering secure access to digital and collaborative services, downloadable resources in Spanish and English, and will aim to create a multiplier effect by linking to relevant web channels (such as EU-FarmBook and DIHNET.EU) and the group's own channels. Furthermore, it will strive for high SEO visibility for searches related to the GO's value proposition: craft beer, process digitization, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, joint manufacturing, integrated logistics, and laboratory testing and validation.

Social media: creation of dedicated accounts and management of four social media platforms, two using text and images (X and Instagram), and two using video (YouTube and TikTok). These will be used to interact with the target audience (industry professionals and consumers) and obtain feedback to evaluate the outreach plan and make adjustments and improvements. Promotion is also included in the specialized publication factoriadeverceza.com, a leading source of information for the brewing industry.

Collateral and promotional material: creation of various collateral and promotional material to be used in the different actions of the dissemination plan, from the design of the GO logo, the infographic of its value proposition, brochure of digital and collaborative services, to the preparation and management of an e-Newsletter, including the recording and editing of demonstration videos to show the use cases to the target audience.

Scientific and sectoral publications: dissemination of new scientific knowledge generated in conferences and open access journals, with a co-authorship strategy to maximize impact, and of new market knowledge acquired through a European-level technical report on craft beer, as a contribution to the roadmap for the digitalization strategy and CAP policies. This activity includes the "EIP-AGRI common format" report at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the project, and the dissemination of the Operational Group and its results through EU-FarmBook.

Training: webinars and mentoring sessions conducted by the group's specialists for both GO factories and other Spanish factories identified in phase 2 of testing, to transfer the knowledge generated and train in the use of the new production, marketing and sales processes, and to inform about the catalog of digital services and new exploitation models of HICA, as a platform for concentration, joint optimized manufacturing and integrated collaborative logistics.

Promotional events: organization and celebration of 3 own events in strategic locations in rural Spain for the craft beer sector: (i) in the municipality of Burgos or Burgos city (Castilla y León), between August and October 2026, to present the Operational Group; (ii) in the municipality of Cuenca or Cuenca city (Castilla-La Mancha), between July and October 2027, to publicize the first results of the project; and (iii) in the municipality of Madrid or Madrid city (Community of Madrid), between June and October 2028, as the location for the final promotional event, which will have as their target audience both consumers and professionals, and will promote the philosophy of aggregating capabilities and efforts to be more competitive, and the visit to breweries as a relevant element for rural tourism.

Participation in industry events: holding co-sessions and presentations dedicated to the GO project at major national and European industry events organized by third parties, with the aim of promoting HICA's services through stands, presentations, gamification, and interactive experiences for visitors. Nationally, we will focus particularly on specialized trade fairs promoted by Beer Events (promoter of (i) Barcelona Beer Festival (BBF), (ii) Barcelona Beer Challenge, and (iii) InnBrew: The Brewers Convention), and by the Lerma Fair organized by DIGIVIT (Digital Innovation Hub of Burgos). Internationally, we plan to participate in the Hopen Braga Festival (Braga, Portugal), Oktoberfest (Munich, Germany), and the Smartagrifood Summit, a digitalization and sustainable innovation event for the agri-food chain, typically held in Spanish cities, with the goal of connecting with European manufacturers to boost exports and collaborative activity beyond Spain.