Cost of beer sold....

[jrdamas]

Hey everyone,
I am in the works of purchasing an existing brewpub that is having some troubles. There cost of beer sold is currently around 23% which seems high to me. They claim that the industry average is 16%. What is your cost of beer sold running at percentage wise? What is the industry average? They use a 1997 15 bbl system and produce 10 unfiltered beers with one brewer that are sold all via draft system. Also, at what price are you selling a pint of beer? And what are you paying your brewer? Any help/info with the % and other questions would be great.

[Greenbrewmonkey]

Aloha!

Beer cost will of course reflect what they are putting into the COGS line but ... at about $4-4.50 / pt. we always shot for 8% beer cost. Usually running 6-10 beers of varying strengths (stronger beers - more ingredients - higher cost) This was calculated using only all beer ingredients and processing aids, including water treatment and CO2, but not process / cleaning chemicals, utilities or payroll, etc. A good week could see 7-10%, a bad week (or a cold winter when everyone drank strong beers) 12-14%, a really bad week, well, way too high!
If you took a look at actual recipes, and calculate cost, you would find much lower numbers, but the above takes into account loss at the taps. (Always a good place to ruin a margin!) So the money losing place seems to have some pretty high numbers at first glance. Unfiltered beer should have a lower transfer loss rate than filtered, so again their costs seem high. As for a brewer, how good would you like the beer to be? I have seen salaries range from $20K to $50k. That being said, high salaries don't always bring the best beer, and in line costs, but to a certain extent you get what you pay for.

Hmmm. Some help, or no help at all?
Aloha,
Ron

[jrdamas]

Very helpful. Thanks for your input Ron!

[damoller]

My experience at the only place I got to see the numbers.
12 oz draft 3$ ea
8.5% cost of goods inc all consumables associated with the beer!
My cost(labor) was about 3.5%.
Paying more doesnt gaurentee better but it guarentees if the person hired doesnt work it will be easier to replace them and they wonyt have to have threir minds on the bills just getting the job done!