Contract/collaboration brewing

Breww has dedicated tools for managing when another company produces batches for you or for when you produce batches for another company. There are five options to choose from when starting a batch in Breww, with a standard batch being a batch you brew for yourselves in your own brewhouse:

If another company is brewing on your behalf, this is defined in Breww as being 'Contract brewed by a 3rd party', and you will be able to process the batch of beer through Breww in a similar way to your usual batches. Likewise, if you are brewing a collaborative batch at a different site, this will be processed as a 'Collaboration at 3rd party' batch.

Firstly, you'll need to set up your contract brewer(s) in Production -> View -> Contract brewers -> New contract brewer. When creating your contract brewer, you can specify all the details relating to them and how the duty on beer they produce is handled (for example, whether they pay it or you do). Depending on the options chosen, you may be prompted to enter their production volumes so that Breww can calculate the applicable duty. The duty payment option selected here will be what pulls through to the batch when processing a Contract brewed by a 3rd party or Collaboration at 3rd party batch.

Now that your contract brewer is set up, there are two last things that you will need to start a contract-brewed batch and see it through to completion: the contract-brewed beers they are producing and the products you are receiving.

The good news is that the creation process is precisely the same as for beers you produce yourself. If the contract brewer is producing a beer you already have set up for your own on-site batches, there is no need to create a new beer. Any beer you create in Breww can be produced as a standard batch you brew on-site or as a contract-brewed batch produced off-site. Our help guide: Beers/drinks and packaging approval covers the process of creating a new beer if you want to find out more.

Once your beer is set up, you'll need to create the products for it. Again, this process is identical to creating products for your own beers and is detailed in our introduction to products guide. If the contract brewer is packaging a beer for which you already have products set up, and they are simply contract brewing an existing product, there is no need to create a new product.

Now that you have done the setup, you can plan and start batches using your contract brewer. To do this, head to Production -> Actions -> New batch. You will then need to select the option to indicate that this is Contract brewed by a 3rd party or a Collaboration at 3rd party.

You can then enter your batch details, including the contract brewer you have created. You can also choose whether you're supplying any ingredients here by including a recipe and where any stock you provide will be taken from. If you are not supplying ingredients, you won't need to select a recipe, but you will still have to select a site to link this batch to for when this beer is packaged.

If you and your contract brewing partner both use Breww, you can take advantage of our batch-sharing functionality. More on this can be seen at:

Share real-time batch records when contract brewing and collaborating with other breweries

Once you start the batch, it will be presented in the same way as batches you brew yourself, in that you can log fermentation readings, plan packaging events and store notes.

Batches can be received from your contract brewer by going into the batch itself and using the Actions -> Rack (package) button. The racking process is the same as any batches you produce yourself, allowing you to specify what products are being racked & include any additional stock items from your inventory. You can create multiple racking instances from the same contract brewed batch, say, for example, that half of the batch was kegged and the remainder was canned. Stock labels for anything you've racked from a contract-brewed batch can be accessed and printed under the "Actions" tab of the batch.

Once the contract-brewed batch has been racked, it will be represented in your products list and available for sale. Depending on how the contract brewer has been configured, this will either be held in duty suspense (with duty payable by you upon delivery to your customers) or have the duty already paid by the contract brewer (with no further duty payable by you).

If you are the contract brewer, brewing on behalf of someone else, you must process your batch as a batch that is Contract brewed in-house, or if you are hosting the collaborative brew, as Collaboration in-house.

When creating a batch, you can simply select from a list of customers or other contract brewers and then apply a duty payment option on a batch level. This differs slightly from a Contract brewed by 3rd party batch, where you have the duty options set against the contract brewer, which will then get pulled through to the batch.

Once you have created this batch, you can provide a share code to the customer.

Once the contract-brewed batch has been racked, it will now be represented in your products list and available for sale. You can then raise an invoice for the customer and apply their products. If this batch is being sent back in bulk, a part-filled tank product must be created, racked into and sold to the customer. Depending on the duty options configured, this batch will either be held in duty suspense (with duty payable by the customer upon delivery to their customers) or have the duty already paid by you as the contract brewer.

The options for Duty payment options are as follows:

Selecting any of the following three options will mean the batch is considered produced under your license and, therefore, added to your production figures, and the stock will be held as duty suspended until the point of sale in which your rates will be determined by what has been selected.

Selecting that the Partner brewery is liable for the duty will mean the batch is considered as produced under another license and will not be considered in your annual production figures. It will also mean that your stock will come in duty paid and not be liable for duty when it is sold to your customers.

Your annual production figures that are reported on in Breww will be dependent on how you have configured your duty payment options for contract brewed batches. Our Annual production to date guide gives more information on how this works in Breww.