Category: Software Systems
The Featured Topic Software explores how software can benefit the brewer all aspects of the brewery business including production, marketing, business management and beyond.
Expert Topic Considering Automation In Your Brewhouse
Brewing is often a physical job, one involving interactions with hot elements, slick surfaces, and heavy machinery. Craft brewers have long touted the “hand-crafted” nature of their lower volume operations, suggesting it somehow improves the flavor or character of the beer. When it comes to most brewery operations, however, the intense manual labor involved in moving liquid around a brewery just stresses the bodies of workers rather than improves a beer’s body or nose.
(more...)
Expert Topic Assessing Lab Needs, What You Need, What To Wish For
Starting a brewery is an exciting, nerve-wracking, whirlwind experience for many, with much of the focus on finding the perfect location, keeping costs down during buildout, and crafting recipes and brand identities. Breweries also need to keep an eye on beer quality as the competitive beer marketplace won’t support off-flavors and aromas for long. That means focusing efforts on critical but less visible operations, such as testing your brewery’s beer.
(more...)
Software Systems featured expert topic supported by Lotus Beverage Alliance
Lotus Beverage Alliance unites expert manufacturers and suppliers to empower your craft beverage business. We are allied to be the complete resource for equipment, ingredients and parts supply – all backed by exceptional service. Meet our alliance: Alpha Brew Ops, GW Kent, Stout Tanks and Kettles, Brewmation, Twin Monkeys, and Automated Extractions.
Managing a Brewery’s Social Media Accounts
Managing the morass of social media apps can be anxiety inducing for even the average user. When it comes to running business social media accounts, however, the pressure ratchets up. Navigating different campaigns across a half-dozen or more idiosyncratic platforms can border on the absurd. There are tools and tricks to help you more effectively engage your audience online.
(more...)
How Artificial Intelligence Can Help With Recipe Formulation, Naming Beers, and Beyond.
Human beings have dreamt of artificial intelligence (AI) for at least the better part of a century. Scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers imagined how machines and eventually computers and software could develop non-human intelligence to perform everything from basic to complicated tasks. The early thinkers probably never considered that brewers would one day use AI to create beer recipes.
(more...)
Using Artificial Intelligence to a Brewer’s Advantage
There is a lot of talk when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it can shape the world around us. The beer industry is not immune from the technology and it is showing up in an increasing amount of ways from the front office, to the brew deck, and the tap room.
(more...)
Sponsored QC, Scheduling & Flexibility: Software Strategies for Success with Randy Smith of Vicinity Software
In the beginning of a brewery’s life span, the ownership and employees juggle several tasks and responsibilities across departments. Using the proper tool to store your data will take you a long way in your growth. But what you started using in the beginning may be missing the mark now.
(more…)
News BA to Offer New Online Training Center for Brewing Professionals
The Brewers Association (BA) has launched a new online training center to support training and development needs for industry professionals. The training center features online courses that can be completed in short sessions via a computer, tablet, or mobile device. The BA will be rolling out new content and feature releases over the next year, including training modules on beer quality management, beer ingredients, and human resources.
(more...)
Sponsored Documenting Beer Flavor for the Professional Brewer
No matter how often we drink a beer, it’s not often we actually taste it. Our palates are the most critical instrument at our disposal, yet they are often underutilized or misused. How can you use lab techniques and instrumentation in conjunction with your senses to develop a quality assurance program for your brewery?
(more…)
News Six Craft Brewery Equipment Suppliers Merge into Lotus Beverage Alliance
Six U.S. craft beverage equipment suppliers have merged in a $100 million deal to create Lotus Beverage Alliance. The six merged companies are Alpha Brewing Operations, GW Kent, Twin Monkeys, Stout Tanks and Kettles, Brewmation and Automated Extractions.
(more...)
Expert Topic Beyond the Basics in Brewery Sanitation
By now, anyone even remotely associated with the brewing industry should know that sanitation is the key to success. Not only does it show a commitment to quality but it also keeps customers safe. There are tried and true standard operating procedures that good breweries follow to keep unwanted germs and microbes at bay, but what does the future of sanitation look like?
(more...)
Selecting the Right Brewery Process Management Software
Brewing Process Management software can be a godsend for breweries of all sizes, helping track nearly every part of the process and keeping operations on track. Like anything else with a brewery or small business, picking the right software is critical to getting business done and to ensure it will be able to grow with a brewer that chooses to do so.
(more...)
Expert Topic Security Steps to Keep Your Brewery Safe From Cyberattacks
Nearly every aspect of running a small business is online these days and the amount of bad actors trying to access information has never been higher. Brewers are well served by following basic tips to ensure their online resources are well protected.
(more...)
Expert Topic Budgeting for Brewery Software with Audra Gaiziunas
In this digital world software plays a big role in running a small business. Breweries are still creating a “handcrafted” product but increasingly relay on software and technology to run the day to day, minute-to-minute aspects of the business.
(more...)
Expert Topic Identifying a Point of Sale System That Works for You
Brewery taprooms are the front line experiences for customers and a major source of income for most breweries. Having access to a smartly designed point-of-sale (POS) system that manages all your customer service needs along with providing access to insights and data are no longer mere luxuries, they are business necessities.
(more...)
Sponsored Choosing Brewery Equipment: Lightning Round with Kevin Weaver of Brewmation
When selecting your brewing equipment, there are a number decisions to make that might not be obvious. Great beer can be brewed on any virtually any system, but selecting the right equipment for your brewery is dependent on your processes, your beer, and your budget. In this webinar, we’ll cover a range of topics to consider when shopping for your brewery equipment.
(more…)
Expert Topic The Brewhouse of the Future (Part 2): Packaging
After a recipe is developed, the ingredients are carefully selected, a beer is brewed with care, and fermented properly, it is time for packaging. Brewers put a lot of thought into their packaging, not only design but function, durability, and how it takes care of the beer.
(more...)
Expert Topic Tips For Brewery Automation
In an industry that revels in terms like “craft” or “handcrafted” there is also a fondness for automation. For brewers that started on small manual kits that required constant hands-on attention, there is celebration when budgets allow for pro-equipment where the machines are of the Ron Popeil school of thought.
(more...)
Sponsored WTF, Data?! Numbers = Profits! w/ Pulkit K. Agrawal of The 5th Ingredient
Almost every brewery is tracking their data – whether it’s in a spreadsheet, paper logs, or an electronic brewery management system. As breweries start scaling, there are two key areas that brewers and owners start looking at for their products — (1) making consistent quality beer and (2) improving costs over time.
(more…)
Sponsored How Does Raw Material Forecasting Increase Your Profit and Production?
As a brewer or brewery owner, there is a lot to consider when it comes to brewing your next batch of beer. What ingredients do you need? Where are you going to source your hops, malt, yeast, etc.? How much do you need of each? Without the right tools and processes in place, all these little tasks can build up into one big headache, especially when considering that ordering too many materials, the wrong ingredients, or low-quality ones can seriously hurt your bottom line and your final product.
(more…)
News How Breweries Can Curb Fuel Consumption and Save Money at the Gas Pump
Small brewers have spent the last three years jumping from one business crisis to the next. Inflation is the current hurdle that most are struggling to clear, and that has been coupled with gas prices that were around $5 per gallon for most of the country and even higher in certain cities and regions.
(more...)