Namely: long lines and wait times. In today’s craft beer climate, it’s not at all unheard of for customers to wait for hours at a time to pick up cans or bottles. For particularly special releases, people have even camped out overnight to ensure they get a taste. And this all says nothing of the reality of waiting for hours only to go home empty handed when a brewery sells out of beer, which happens more often than anyone would like, including brewers.

Welch believes this is unsustainable. He points to other industries by comparison and suggests if one had to wait three hours in a retail outlet to buy a pair of jeans, said retail outlet would go bankrupt. “But people do that all the time [for beer] and don’t even bat an eye.” As such, the company hopes this app will provide customers—as well as fellow brewers—with a new perspective on how sales can and should work.

“If you give someone an opportunity to recover three hours of their Saturday afternoon, to repurpose and reallocate toward some other productive purpose, they would gladly do that,” Welch tells GBH. “Once you give people an experience, and you show them they can have all of the benefits of having super-fresh beer right from the source without having all the inconvenience and inefficient nature of the way that retail is currently configured, once you give them that value proposition, they’re not going to want to go back.”

Welch envisions the app will eventually eliminate walkup sales at Sixpoint entirely, but the initial rollout will be limited while both the company and customers get acquainted with the process. Further, the beer sold through the app will only be available through the app to ensure purchased product isn’t also sold to walk-in customers.

“If you bought the beer online, you have it guaranteed,” he says.

As for the app itself, he says it will boast other features to help customers learn about the beer and track its process from tank to can. “Like you’re purchasing from Amazon or Dominos Pizza or whatever,” Welch says.