Cost of goods sold
Ingredients, packaging, and the production costs that belong in the beer, separated from taproom labor and overhead.
BEER COSTING
Know what each beer costs before you price it
Brewery profitability starts with cost of goods sold and cost per barrel, not a single gross profit margin for the whole company. Production cost, raw materials, packaging, and product profitability change by brand and by package.
THE PROBLEM
One brewery-wide margin hides the beer that loses money.
A flagship, a seasonal, and a packaged SKU do not consume grain, time, or packaging the same way. Draft and cans do not either. When everything lands in one cost-of-goods number, the taproom can look healthy while a distributed brand is giving the margin away.
Owners then price from the competitor's board or from last year's average. Inventory sits at a value nobody can explain.
WHAT WE DO
Cost and margin by beer, in language the brewhouse recognizes.
We work from your books toward a usable cost: ingredients, packaging, and the production costs that belong to a batch, expressed so cost per barrel is a management number and not a trivia statistic. Gross margin is shown by brand and package when the records support it. We do not invent an industry-average cost per barrel and tell you to match it. Inventory costing is explained in plain language so the balance sheet and the cooler are talking about the same beer.
COST
What costing covers
Cost per barrel
A batch-level view you can compare across brands without pretending every barrel costs the same.
Gross profit margin
Margin by brand and package, so a blended brewery margin cannot hide a losing SKU.
Raw materials and packaging
What moved in price, and which beers feel it first.
Inventory costing
Finished beer, packaging, and ingredients valued in a way the monthly close can repeat.
DELIVERABLES
What you receive
Product cost view
Enough detail to see which beers fund the brewery.
Package split
Draft, cans, and other formats kept from collapsing into one margin.
Inventory tie-out
A costing approach the books can carry month to month.
FAQ
Common questions
Do you publish a standard cost per barrel we should hit?
No. Cost per barrel depends on your recipes, package mix, and how you staff production. We calculate yours. We do not hand you someone else's average.
Is this brewery accounting or advisory?
Both, in one relationship. Accurate cost of goods sold is bookkeeping and inventory work. Deciding what to brew, package, or price is the advisory layer on top of that number.
Can you cost a new brand before we brew it at scale?
We can build a cost from the recipe, expected yield, and packaging you describe, and then compare it with actuals after the first production runs. It is a planning view, not a guarantee.
Does this include taproom labor?
Labor in the taproom is usually a channel cost, not part of the beer's production cost. We keep those apart so a busy bar does not get buried inside cost of goods sold. The channel page covers that split.
Price from your cost, not from the brewery next door.
Tell us how you package and which brands you are unsure about. We will look at whether the books can support a real cost per barrel.