How to deal with Corkage

Many hotels & venues may create an obstacle on bringing your own beer, and from our own personal experience here are a couple of helpful tips for overcoming this:

• Let them understand that your Personalised Beer will be a limited amount, and more for the novelty factor, the product is completely different to a standard bottle of beer.

• Most likely to be used for the arrival reception than anything else.

• The venue needs to understand that this is more like a wedding favour than trying to have a freebie drinks reception.

• It should not significantly impact on the venues bar takings as a guest who specifically wants a particular drink will still purchase this; i.e a Guinness drinker will still want a pint of Guinness

• If your wedding is a “package” which includes a sparkling wine reception etc, by permitting the few cases of beer the hotel will use less of the sparkling wine, effectively balancing it out.

• If the hotel is accepting of the concept, but insist on a “Corkage Fee”, this should be no more than a couple of Euro which will mean that you’re uniquely personalised quality Irish craft beer will end up costing about the same as a bottle of standard, generic beer.

While some venues may not initially be in favour of the idea, this can be overcome as part of your wedding planning. From experience we’ve found that it’s not a major sticking point when explained to the venue!

If you have confirmed your booking, they will be making a great deal from your wedding, as well as accommodation and bar receipts for the evening; a few cases of your personalised beer will not harm their business.