Case Study: Ipswich Ale Brewery achieves a reinvigorated, easy-to-manage online presence with Acquia's Drupal Gardens

Ipswich Ale Brews a New Drupal Site

Ipswich Ale Brewery, a nearly 20-year-old New England craft brewer, needed to replace a static, Dreamweaver-built site that failed to reflect the brand and relied on a single employee to post updates. Management saw the site as a missed marketing opportunity—it didn’t capture the brewery’s personality or support event promotion, community engagement, or easier content management.

The brewery hired local developer Susan MacPhee and designer Teri Maber and rebuilt the site on Acquia’s Drupal Gardens, using ThemeBuilder for rapid, WYSIWYG theming and simple content editing for non-technical staff. The relaunched site added calendars, events, and Google Analytics, shifted publishing responsibility to the marketing team, and improved engagement metrics (85% new visits, >2 minutes average visit, 4 pages per visit, 61,839 page views since relaunch), helping grow the customer base and informing a faster rollout for an upcoming brewery/restaurant site.

Ipswich Ale Brewery

Jim Dorau

Operations Manager