The Brewer’s Association defines a craft brewer as small, traditional and independent. Thus, independence is a widely important trait of any craft brewery, and is what sets craft breweries apart from big beer. According to craftbeer.com, more than 6,000 operating breweries exist in the U.S., and 98 percent are considered small and independent. This is such a huge deal…
Read More
Last week, Brewbound hosted their final Brew Talks for 2016 in Framingham, MA at Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers. We heard a lot of discussion on Jack’s Abby’s brewery operations as well as on the state of the beer industry in Massachusetts. Here are some of the highlights of this Brew Talk! Top 3 Things We…
Read More
Consumers are thirsty for knowledge. Nielsen’s consumer market report for the alcohol and beverage space noted that 80% of craft beer drinkers are “health conscious” and favor quality over calorie. Craft beer drinkers see the value in understanding what they are consuming. Independent brewers use little to no “chemical additives,” something that big beer cannot…
Read More
Problem Changing requirements around labeling in the craft beer space has created added pressure on reporting, tracking and overall transparency throughout production processes to produce consistent quality products for end consumers. The nature of a brewing environment indicates that there will be variations in process, with inputs, outputs or both. Without visibility into your production…
Read More
Transparency in the Craft Brewing Space: What is truly all in one software? Our VicinityBrew team attended Brewbound Sessions Brooklyn this past June and Keynote speaker Andy Thomas, CEO of the Craft Brewers Alliance opened the event with some: “Questions, not answers. Thoughts, not conclusions. Observations, not opinions” His first topic centered around being “trustworthy”…
Read More
There are a number of software solutions on the market that claim to be “Brewery Specific” – they speak in brewery terms like barrels and brew logs. They have educated their sales people to say all the right things and make all the right promises. But are these systems actually brewery specific software – and…
Read More
Does your brewery have a handle on your Cost of Goods Sold? In most breweries accountants have limited access to actual production data and the data they have is in various sources such as excel, calendars, word and paper. Getting this data centralized in a meaningful way is very time consuming and error prone. Because…
Read More
When to implement and make a software selection? As your business evolves, challenges will present themselves along the way. You will be faced with making strategic decisions to support growth and prioritizing obstacles will be a difficult job. Making a software selection and investment at the “right time” can save your organization more than just…
Read More
While Excel is a great tool for analysis and to represent data–Excel is an awful database for breweries. Have you ever spent hours scrolling through excel spreadsheets? There are a lot of nice things about Excel for Breweries: It’s convenient- if you have Microsoft Office, you already have it. The odd’s are you’re familiar with it from past…
Read More
When does a brewery outgrow QuickBooks Online? VicinityBrew QuickBooks integration enhances your inventory control options! Most companies in general, including breweries, start off using QuickBooks as their main business tool for managing their finances. However, you will quickly realize that this solution does not cater to brewery operations–particularly around inventory. You know you’ve “outgrown QuickBooks”…
Read More