# Know what each beer costs before you price it

Canonical: https://ledgerfox.io/industries/breweries/profitability

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.

## 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.

## 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.

## What costing covers

- **Cost of goods sold.** Ingredients, packaging, and the production costs that belong in the beer, separated from taproom labor and overhead.
- **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.

## 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.

## 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.

## Related

- [Brewery CFO advisory](https://ledgerfox.io/industries/breweries): Bookkeeping and CFO advisory for independent craft breweries.
- [Brewery cash flow](https://ledgerfox.io/industries/breweries/cash-flow): Working capital when production pays before wholesale does.
- [Taproom vs wholesale](https://ledgerfox.io/industries/breweries/channels): Taproom and wholesale, priced and staffed as different businesses.
- [Financial Reporting](https://ledgerfox.io/financial-reporting): Management reports you can use before year-end.
- [Bookkeeping Services](https://ledgerfox.io/bookkeeping): Monthly books the advisory conversations depend on.
- [CFO Advisory](https://ledgerfox.io/cfo-advisory): The general advisory relationship these industry pages sit inside.

## 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.

- [Request a brewery consultation](https://ledgerfox.io/contact?inquiry=brewery)
- [Financial reporting](https://ledgerfox.io/financial-reporting)