protecting my recipes

[wayne]

I am about to enter into a new business and I want to protect my recipies.
I know usually when you work for a coporation what is yours is theirs.
How much is a recipe worth? What is a good starting point for negotiation? Has anyone had experience with recipe protection?

Thanks Wayne

[GlacierBrewing]

Talk about your can of worms!
My experience has been that if the recipes are developed at the brewery, they are the property of the brewery. Now, if the brewer brings recipes in to the operation and produces commercially available product at the brewery with "his/her" recipes, it gets a little stickier, I believe.
Worth of a recipe is somewhat subjective without a performance history of that product. I know of a brewery owner in Colorado who's flagship beer began as a homebrew recipe that was developed by somebody else. That homebrew recipe had an intrinsic value to its author, but this brewery owner was able to increase the value of the recipe by taking it (whether it was his to take is another story) and producing a very commercially viable product.
I guess it could boil down to what is your time worth and how much time did you invest in developing that recipe.

Luck to ya'
Dave
p.s. The Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish may be able to give you better insight into this.

[bruboss]

Who are you protecting your recipes from?
My recipes are the brewery's recipes.
If I left would I be able to say stop using my recipes..no.
If I am leaving would I care overly much, I doubt it.
If you want to be rewarded for designing beers then set that up in advance, I consider it a basic part of my job, and my remuneration reflects that.
Just my thoughts
Chris

[Brew49411]

I agree with Chris. It is part of your job. Also, how many of us brewers completely forget recipes when we leave a brewery? I think that most of us are capable of saying that we have an extensive recipe list that we can take with us as well. It works both ways. Take pride in the fact you made a good enough beer that the company would want to keep it on tap after you leave! Its not like you created the next billion dollar idea.

[beauxman]

Any brewer worth his/her mash salts can reverse engineer a recipe anyways. Not that big of a deal, there are only so many ways to make a "insert style name here". Like another brewer friend of mine says, "It's the pilot, not the plane".
-Beaux

[Larry Horwitz]

I agree with just about everyone here...don't worry about your recipes. A good brewer can make what you've made and a bad one won't get it right even if he/she has the brew sheet!!! All you'll really do is cause a fight with your ownership...one you won't win, by the way. The law is on the side of your employer as you have been hired to make beer for him (her). The best thing you can do is do your job well. Now that doesn't mean you can't brew the same recipes when you leave (despite what your boss may think) other than using the same names.

keep good records for yourself and don't worry about it. There are ALWAYS bigger fish to fry in a brewery...like how much you are paid and what your benifits are.

Oh, and if the brewery isn't successful it won't matter anyway.


good luck!

[tarmadilo]

It's a huge can of worms, particularly since, as far as I know, there is no way to legally or functionally establish ownership of a recipe. Think about it, if you wanted to make beer that tasted EXACTLY the same, you could make a minor change to the recipe (like subsituting a very similar hop variety) that would be virtually indetectable to the consumer, but technically it would be a different recipe.

I know of a brewery owner in Colorado who's flagship beer began as a homebrew recipe that was developed by somebody else.

Funny, I worked for a brewery in Colorado whose flagship beer was developed by the brewery owner, whose homebrewing buddy always claimed it was his recipe. Having seen the brewery owner's own notes from the time spent formulating his recipes, I'm pretty sure he did the heavy lifting on that one...

Cheers, Tim

[liammckenna]

In the absence of a good brewer, any recipe is only worth the paper it's printed on.

The brewery you work for will own all of your work performed during your employ including your recipes. Good luck establishing otherwise.

Recipes are the easy part of the job. Making great beer from a great recipe is the real challenge.

Pax.

Liam

[Brett0424]

Recipes are the easy part of the job. Making great beer from a great recipe is the real challenge.

Agreed. And as someone mentioned above, they're not too difficult to clone either, just by tasting the beer. If you were commissioned to create paintings would you ask to keep them?

[GlacierBrewing]

Funny, I worked for a brewery in Colorado whose flagship beer was developed by the brewery owner, whose homebrewing buddy always claimed it was his recipe. Having seen the brewery owner's own notes from the time spent formulating his recipes, I'm pretty sure he did the heavy lifting on that one...

That's funny Tim. Sounds like you and I worked for the two warring owners!
Dave

[wayne]

Thanks for your insight!

I want to thank all of you for your help!
My salary just went up!

[tarmadilo]

That's funny Tim. Sounds like you and I worked for the two warring owners!
Dave

Yep! They were both proud men, and I reckon the truth is that the recipe involved was probably much more of a collaboration than either one would ever admit! I liked both men, and always thought it a shame that their friendship was shattered over that and a few other competition-related issues...

Cheers, Tim

[brewery master]

Its The Pilot Not So Much The Plane ...good Point

PROVIDING YOU HAVE A SYSTEM THAT WORKS WITHIN BREWING STANDERS .CONTACT don@brewerymaster.com i,ll see if i can help cheers don

[crassbrauer]

Let's not forget that the person who scales up the homebrew recipe has about as much creative input as the person who made it to begin with. Adapting recipes for large-scale brewing takes a certain amount of ingenuity unto itself, because chemical-physical processes work a lot differently depending upon size, equipment, brewing methods, tank geometry, ingredient ratios, yeast behavior, etc., etc.

[Guest]

PROVIDING YOU HAVE A SYSTEM THAT WORKS WITHIN BREWING STANDERS .CONTACT don@brewerymaster.com i,ll see if i can help cheers don

erm, way to go with the subtle plug there!