Anderson – a brewery, an office or maybe a bar? All at once!
When I started working at Anderson, I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams what my work life there would turn into. I thought, “Well, how hard can it be to make Instagram and Facebook posts?”
The first week kicked off right away with content creation, factory sales, a Taproom quiz night, a beer dinner and a spring fair. Does anyone in this place even breathe without thinking about work?
My first posts were honestly terrifying. Like, how was I trusted with all of Anderson’s social media? I had no idea what I was doing and kept wondering if this or that was okay to post. Every photo and caption went straight into the work chat for review.
Then came the chaos of the garden party. One post every day to make sure people would come, and a giveaway on top of that. I had never done a giveaway before. As part of the prep, we cooked up a proper meal in the brewery. And you can only get the right damn pita from Prisma, so we spent days hunting it down.
After somehow surviving the garden party, the next challenge was organizing an art exhibition in our Taproom. Yeah, never done that either. I only saw the paintings for the first time the day before opening. And wow, they were awesome! The artist even gave us one as a gift and now it’s hanging on the Taproom wall.
TCBW – what even is this madness?
Just before Tallinn Craft Beer Weekend, I spent two weeks announcing our beer lineup for the event. Every day the excitement and anxiety grew until I had to jump in the car and drive there. Not straight to the event though. First we dropped off an order to a customer. I thought five crates of beer in my car was a big deal. In the end I drove from Tartu to Tallinn with about 25 crates.
If I thought I didn’t know anything about beer before TCBW, there I realized I really didn’t know anything. Grapes, spinach or ice cream in beer? Seljanka and goulash beers? They even had sour cream beer. And somehow everything weirdly still kind of worked.
But what actually happens daily in the brewery?
When you walk into the office and say hi, Sten glances up from his computer and greets you back. What is he even doing on that computer? Probably something super important. Maybe designing a new label or figuring out how to add chia seeds to beer. No one really knows. If he’s not at the computer, he’s brewing. Sometimes he sends memes about how annoying social media videos are, but if you ask, he’ll still agree to be in them.
I sit at the only free desk and across from me is Anton. He handles sales and a million other things. One day he’s in a restaurant presenting our products during dinner. The next he’s dragging crates of beer into some basement. The third day he’s knee-deep in mud at a festival. And what’s he doing there? Selling beer, of course. He also delivers stock to the Taproom and tells jokes along the way. “Tere!”
If you go from the office to the brewery and look around a bit, you might spot Kiur. This guy is always working. Brewing, bottling, grinding, cleaning, fixing and sometimes he’s even behind the bar in the Taproom. Kiur seems grumpy at first, but honestly, if I worked that much, I would be too. If you need help or have a question, Kiur always helps or explains everything in detail. Sometimes he hums a tune and offers you a beer to taste. I even once heard him compliment something I made for social media.
Somewhere nearby you’ll also find Paavo. Paavo works in the brewery. When he finishes a task, he stands with his hands on his hips and thinks. If you help him with something, he always says thank you. One day I was loading bottles into crates and he complimented my work.
You should never sit quietly in the office or Helen will get annoyed. Helen deals with numbers. The warehouse is her kingdom. One day I watched her and Paavo doing inventory and they were calling out numbers so fast it made my head spin. If needed, she’ll clean mint or label cans too. Helen doesn’t drink beer. If Hunt wrote a song about her, she would be living inside Excel.
And if after a long day you head to the Taproom, you’ll always be greeted by the friendly Viktoria. Viki is fast, but if she doesn’t make it to the Taproom by five on her day off, then she’s slow. If a customer doesn’t know what to choose, Viki will always find the right beer. Even when pouring water, she tilts the glass to avoid foam. Muscle memory. Viki is always down to be in videos. That girl is definitely going to be an actress someday. Slayyy
To sum it up
Right now my phone is full of photos and videos of beer. All my friends and family are now Andersons Brewery fans (not that they had much of a choice). I can’t sleep at night because I’m thinking about what the next video should be and which angles would look best.
A fun bonus is getting to peek behind the curtain at different places or just walk into events.
Need to go photograph a football match?
“Hi, I’m from Anderson Brewery”
“Yeah sure, go right in”
Need pictures of our beers in a bar?
“Hi, I’m from Anderson, just taking a few photos”
“Come behind the counter then”
Need to film a dinner in a restaurant?
“Come into the kitchen next to the chef and get a close-up”
And if you still think social media work at Anderson is just taking pictures and videos, then you’ve definitely got the wrong idea. Sometimes I help deliver stock to the Taproom, label cans, clean mint, fetch supplies from the store and of course, I have to pet Boomer too.
Sometimes it’s hard and not every post turns out as good as it could have. Off the record, I still don’t always know what I’m doing, but it has to get done. You learn best by doing and by making mistakes. I actually like my job. And on the days I don’t, I just go hang out in the Taproom and instantly feel better.
Let me know if you’d like this polished into a professional article or kept as-is for a blog or social post.