One way to manage your brewery business differently, and more effectively, is with open book management. Open book management (OBM) is a system in which employees are provided with financial information so that they can make better business decisions.

In this article, we’ll look at three steps you can take right now to keep more cash in your bank account so that you can ride out these rough seas. This information will help you survive now and thrive when the crisis subsides. And subside it will.

Planning and re-forecasting during these strange days will be an essential survival skill. In this article, we’ll review a financial re-forecasting template you can use to model out extreme changes in brewery sales, margins and cash flows.

Brewery metrics and key performance indicators are used to benchmark and compare financial performance so that you can increase profitability and cash flow. In this article, we’ll review commonly used brewery ratios and industry averages. We’ll explore how to calculate these metrics and build scorecards to present the information.

Dave Marliave of Flat Tail Brewing Co. was at the Great American Beer Festival when he learned his brewery had just won a gold medal. “I would say I was speechless,” Marliave recalled. “But the reaction was quite the opposite. I jumped out of my chair and tried to stop crying before I got to the stage.”

In this month’s Beer Business Finance column, Wormtown Brewery CFO Kary Shumway digs into the details behind craft-on-craft consolidation and looks at the key numbers that shape a deal.

In this month’s Beer Business Finance column, Wormtown Brewery CFO Kary Shumway examines at what the different products in brewery’s portfolio actually cost to make, and how to price them for the healthiest margins.

Taproom-focused breweries have emerged as one of the most popular business models in the craft beer industry, and for good reason: These small-batch, retail-driven breweries are profit machines, and they are disrupting the traditional three-tier system of brewing, distributing and retailing beer. In his latest column, Wormtown Brewery CFO Kary Shumway takes a look at how new craft brewery owners can create a solid financial plan for their taproom-minded outfits.

Wormtown Brewery CFO Kary Shumway breaks down the viability of taproom-focused brewery business models while explaining the financial and marketplace factors that can impact profitability.

In our latest edition of Brewbound Voices, Beer Business Finance founder Kary Shumway returns to discuss self distribution. Shumway has worked in the beer industry for over 20 years as a Certified Public Accountant and currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer for Clarke Distributors, Inc. in Keene, New Hampshire. In part II of his column for Voices, Shumway dives deep into the process of self distributing, discussing account and route building, proper cash flow management practices, the “hidden” costs of operating in a self distribution model and succession planning.

In our latest edition of Brewbound Voices, Beer Business Finance founder Kary Shumway returns to discuss self distribution. Shumway has worked in the beer industry for over 20 years as a Certified Public Accountant and currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer for Clarke Distributors, Inc. in Keene, New Hampshire. In part I of a two-part column for Voices, Shumway begins deconstructing the ins and outs of self distribution. He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of self distribution while profiling one brewery he believes is doing it well.

Beer distributors have been adapting to changes in the marketplace, on one level or another, for decades. When retailers asked distributors for greater levels of service, the merchandising department was created. As on-premise accounts added more draft lines, distributors were asked to clean the lines and assist with repairs or new installations. So what makes the SKU proliferation of the past decade, and the level of associated changes, different from the above-mentioned service layers?

Kary Shumway is the founder of Beer Business Finance, an online resource for beer industry professionals. He has worked in the beer industry for over 20 years as a Certified Public Accountant and currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer for Clarke Distributors, Inc. in Keene, New Hampshire. In part I of his two-part column for Brewbound Voices, Shumway describes the inner workings of a beer distributor and begins to explain how these organizations are evolving to accommodate an onslaught of new craft SKUs.