Craft Brewery Financial Training Podcast

Beer loss is often accepted as the cost of doing business, but it could be one of your biggest taproom profit opportunities. After tracking beer loss in spreadsheets, Brent Reynard discovered his brewery was losing nearly 21% of draft beer revenue every month through foam, temperature issues, over-pouring, and operational blind spots. Rather than accept it as the cost of doing business, he built Draft Control - software designed to track beer loss, uncover root causes, and help br...

Many brewery owners start the same way: brewing at home, sharing beer with friends, and hearing those words: “You should open a brewery.” But making great beer and running a successful brewery require different skill sets. In this session, I'll share what brewery owners wish they knew before opening, how to capture startup costs, measure margins, project cash flow, and truly understand those financial statements. I'll go over common mistakes brewery owners make, how to avoid them, and p...

In this episode, we dig into how financial trouble usually shows up months before it becomes a crisis, and why so many owners and managers miss the warning signs. When you’re busy fighting daily fires, reviewing financials weeks after month-end, and unsure which numbers truly matter, problems stay invisible until cash runs tight . We walk through the concept of a financial early-warning system and explain how profitable breweries shift from reactive panic to calm, data-driven decision-m...

Today, I sit down with Sean Lawson the founder behind Sip of Sunshine to unpack how careful planning, advisory boards, and a purpose-first mindset can carry a brewery through hypergrowth, supply shocks, and a once-in-a-century pandemic. Sean walks us through the early days of homebrewing, the decision to contract brew at Two Roads to meet demand without giving up ownership, and the leap to a state-of-the-art Vermont facility just 16 months before lockdowns. We explore how a high share ...

In today's podcast we show how breweries can turn recipe development and process innovation into real cash using the federal R&D tax credit, plus a clear path to claim refunds retroactively. Maggie Crowley and Devin Medrick from Leyton explain the IRS tests, missed opportunities, state add-ons, and energy efficiency deductions. • What the IRS four-part test means for brewing work • Real examples: first-batch runs, recipe changes, process tweaks • Eligible costs: wages at three leve...

What does it really take to scale a brewery without losing your soul or your margins? We sit down with Nicole Smith, co-owner of South Lake Brewing Company, to trace a path from high school sweethearts in Tahoe to a two-location operation balancing community, cash flow, and culture. Nicole shares the unvarnished story of opening a second taproom and kitchen, why owner presence matters, and how to avoid cannibalizing your original location while still growing revenue. We cover the...