Budgeting may look straightforward on a spreadsheet, but the lived reality varies wildly depending on a multitude of variables, including geography, scale and your brewery’s operational model. Forecasting may be one of the least glamorous parts of running a brewery, but the way owners set those guides and timelines — and how often they’re willing to revisit them — can determine whether a financial target guides growth, or quietly undermines it.
For Meadowlark Brewing’s Travis Peterson, the horizon has to stay conservative. Operating in a sparsely populated region like Billings, Montana forces him to assume slower movement, even when peer breweries in larger markets post more rapid gains.
Early on, he tried to benchmark against breweries succeeding in denser cities, but Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas simply don’t offer the same population base he told Brewer.
“I have to assume the ball is always going to roll a lot slower,” he said, which makes long-range forecasting an exercise in restraint rather than optimism.
Charlotte’s Birdsong Brewing takes a different approach, mapping out a one-year forecast and reviewing it quarterly. Managing Partner Chris Goulet doesn’t categorize the process as aggressive or cautious; the goal is accuracy. That regular cadence gives the team enough time to correct course without overreacting to short-term fluctuations while Great Basin’s forecasting sits somewhere between long-range planning and nimble adjustment.
Director of Operations Nick Meyer said the Nevada-based team writes a full calendar-year budget well in advance. In fact, 2026 is already complete. Then they revisit those budgets each month about a week before it begins. Meyer said they aim to stay conservative, avoiding revenue projections that set unattainable internal goals or expense cuts that ignore realistic needs. Because team bonuses hinge on hitting certain metrics, overly confident forecasting can do more harm than good.
“We don’t like to be too aggressive with our revenue projections, because that will usually set us up for failure,” he said.
So, it’s less about picking a specific forecasting window and more about matching the cadence to a brewery’s market conditions, operational structure and internal incentives. Whether the timeline stretches a year out or arrives in monthly tune-ups, you can treat forecasting as a living discipline rather than a hopeful guess made once a year to build plans that your team can actually execute.
Managing a budget often comes down to controlling just a few categories that consistently dominate spending. Three areas rise to the top most likely, including labor, cost of goods and fixed or maintenance-related expenses.
Labor is a universal constraint, but each brewery that shared with Brewer their insights view it with a different operational lens. Meadowlark prioritizes wages and benefits as a core business value, even though it requires constant monitoring of part-time staffing to align with food-driven revenue.
“I try to pay a living wage the best I can and I provide insurance to full-time,” Peterson said, adding that part-time labor percentages are adjusted weekly to stay on target.
Birdsong sees payroll as one of its big three expenses as well, with Goulet noting simply that “payroll, COGs and rent” demand the closest scrutiny. At Great Basin, labor management is tied directly to production output rather than cutting shifts.
“For us, we have a small crew, so ‘cutting’ labor is not really an option,” Meyer said. “If we are producing enough beer to supply our brewpubs… then we will cover our labor.”
For Great Basin, maintaining production schedules is critical because “messing up a batch of beer is detrimental.”
Cost of goods sits alongside labor as another major category that requires disciplined oversight. Coulet lists COGs firmly in its top three expenses, while Great Basin expands on the granular work required to keep them in check. Meyer emphasized meticulous recipe costing and smart ingredient utilization.
“We have to make sure that every batch of beer is costed, and priced appropriately… so that we can get the most out of our yeast and other ingredients,” he said.
Meadowlark frames cost control through margin management, with Peterson saying, “We focus a lot on margin both on the production side and the restaurant side.”
The third major category varies slightly by brewery but ties back to the cost of staying operational.
Meadowlark’s fixed costs — especially building and equipment debt — remain unusually high due to pandemic-related construction delays.
“Our building and equipment loans are substantial and are higher than my business plan forecasted,” Peterson said.
Rent rounds out Birdsong’s top expenses and gets close attention. Great Basin cites repair and maintenance instead, underscoring how staying ahead of equipment failures is essential to protecting both budgets and production timelines.
Meyer noted that proper cleaning and routine maintenance may add labor upfront, but it “helps us avoid bigger issues at a later date that might cost more money, or worse, mess up our production schedule.”
The financial metrics each brewery tracks align closely with their biggest cost centers. Meadowlark zeros in on sales and margin; Birdsong digs into channel-specific sales, gross margin percentages and COGs at multiple levels; and Great Basin evaluates overall revenue and cost per barrel.
Each brewery may categorize its expenses differently, but they share a common understanding: labor, materials and the cost of staying operational are the financial pillars that determine whether the rest of the business can succeed.
Creating the annual budget is rarely a one-person task. For most, it’s a cross-functional effort that blends financial discipline with operational insight. How brewery leaders structure that process (and how openly they share the resulting targets) shapes not only the accuracy of the budget, but also how effectively their teams execute it throughout the year.
The process for Meadowlark begins with history and expands outward. Peterson builds budgets from the brewery’s own performance, using past sales and expenses as the foundation before bringing individual department leaders into the discussion.
“It starts with me and our bookkeeper and then each division has a budget specific; restaurant, brewing, distillation, sales,” he said. This year, he’s taken it a step further by developing sales budgets by wholesaler, an approach that compares regional revenue and expenses to sharpen planning territory by territory.
Birdsong uses a similarly collaborative model, though with a more formal annual cadence. Goulet compiles the final draft of the budget that he’ll present to the brewery’s ownership group each January, but not before gathering detailed input from the Director of Sales, Production Manager and Business Administration Manager. Each contributes their own segment, creating a unified plan that accounts for the realities of production, distribution and administrative operations.
Great Basin starts its budget where many brewpub-focused operations must: with internal demand. Meyer said the team begins by analyzing how much beer their brewpubs sold over the past year, using those numbers to forecast the following year’s production needs and revenue.
“We will then take that revenue, and base the rest of the budget off of those numbers,” he said. The process brings in the ownership team, Brewmaster and Regional Operations team, ensuring that both the culinary and beverage sides of the business help shape the financial outlook.
Budgets are only useful if employees understand them.
“I can’t hold them responsible for their budget if they do not have all the information,” Peterson said, emphasizing ownership of departmental performance.
Birdsong follows a layered transparency model, giving managers direct access to financials and providing monthly updates. For frontline staff, Goulet shares top-line numbers and year-over-year comparisons to keep them engaged without overwhelming staff with details. Profit and loss information is shared only when it meaningfully impacts the team.
READ MORE: 3 Reasons Why ESOPs Work for These Breweries
Great Basin takes the most expansive approach, practicing Open Book Management. Meyer is clear about the rationale.
“We believe in Open Book Management… If they are not on the same page as we are regarding the financials, it won’t work,” he said. Their philosophy ties financial literacy directly to operational performance and team cohesion.
It’s important to note that navigating a capital-intensive industry with tight margins, a reserve fund isn’t just a safety net, it’s a stabilizing force that can determine whether a brewery survives unexpected expenses or stalls when opportunities arise.
How breweries structure those reserves can vary, but prioritizing such a fund is essential to long-term financial health and disciplined budgeting.
Peterson approaches reserves with specificity rather than a single general pool for Meadowlark. He maintains separate funds earmarked for major recurring costs — silo fills, can loads and emergencies — each with roughly $20,000 set aside.
“Typically 20k siphoning toward each fund so the expense is covered by the time we get there,” he said.
That targeted approach ensures that large, predictable expenditures don’t disrupt cash flow or force the brewery into reactive decision-making.
Birdsong takes a cash-flow-driven stance, maintaining reserves based on operating days rather than fixed dollar amounts. Goulet explained that they hold enough for 30 to 40 days of expenses in most market conditions, with a ceiling of 60 days that combines cash and on-demand credit.
“Above that number we will distribute excess funds or eliminate installment debt,” he said. The model balances liquidity with efficiency while keeping enough money available to handle volatility while avoiding letting idle cash drag down the business.
Great Basin opts for a larger buffer. Meyer keeps three months of overhead and labor in reserve, a philosophy shaped by the unpredictability of running multiple brewpubs. This wider safety margin protects against fluctuations in demand, equipment failures and staffing needs, while giving the leadership team breathing room to adjust strategy without panic budgeting.
What each operator shares is a belief that a reserve fund only works when budgeting is executed with intention. They also see recurring mistakes that undercut a brewery’s ability to build and sustain that reserve.
Peterson identifies a trap many breweries fall into: overspending on growth before sales justify expansion.
“Expenditures for growth that exceeds sales” are common, he said, especially in an industry that demands equipment and infrastructure long before it pays for itself. He also warns against scaling without systems to control that expansion, another way reserves can disappear quickly.
Goulet points to missteps in pricing strategy, particularly when breweries attempt to assign overhead allocation directly into the cost of a keg or case.
“This is a bad idea and it leads to weak competitive positions and low wholesale volumes,” he said. Instead, he argues breweries should base pricing on competition and marginal cost, keeping reserves intact by avoiding artificially inflated price points that stall sales.
For Meyer, the most damaging mistake happens even earlier.
“The biggest budgeting mistake… is not even having a budget,” he said. Too many operators set loose revenue goals without pairing them with expense targets, resulting in monthly financials that “are like throwing darts in the dark.”
Without a structured budget, building a reserve fund becomes nearly impossible.
Financial stability doesn’t come from the reserve alone, but from the habits that make the reserve possible. When planning your next fiscal year, look to define a reserve strategy that fits your scale, commit to a budget that supports it and avoid the pitfalls that drain resources before they can accumulate.
Be the first to comment