Who does what?

[hopness_monster]

We are a fast growing brewpub, moving into a larger micro position in a couple months, and as such we are going to need a brewery staff 3x larger. Right now its more like a "everyone does everything mentality", with a brewmaster and several assistant brewers. But in the coming months I feel we might need some more structured job titles and related duties. Everything from keg cleaner to lead brewer and sales reps. I understand that it is different for each brewery, but I was hoping someone on here might have a reference to some industry standard for hierarchical titles and job descriptions. I don't want to create any division among anyone, so I am hoping to cut down on some confusion as to who is expected to do what. Any input would be really helpful.

[Nate Jackson]

The way our brewery works is we train everyone (except those lower level guys who just build boxes and work the bottling line) to do just about everything. CIP, Keg washing/filling, Transfers, then at the end of the night I write the schedule for the next day and everyone rotates to a different position. It keeps things from getting stale and also allows everyone to stay knowledgeable on each part of the brewery.

[beerguy1]

I agree with Nate. I was working at a brewery that we did pretty much everything moving around kept me from being bored and kept my skills up.Well, that brewery closed and I moved on to a production brewery and was stuck in 1 position and that got boring pretty quick needless to say I just couldnt do it and actually left the industry for several years. I now am a head brewer and keep my guy rotated we all have fun at work and enjoy showing up everyday.

But, I do have 1 guy that is just happy being on the bottling line (odd huh) but he told me thats wat he likes so I leave him there and he is happy also. It works here but might not with your brewery. SOP's are great but you might have a person that just cant grasp the concept of an area and you will have to try and try to train them until 1 of you decide that you have reached the end.

Tough choice but I loved learning it all. Plus what happens if your lead brewer quits or gets hurt and cant work for 3 months during the busy season? This way you will have it covered. I involve my guys in almost all areas of decision making it helps build the idea of team work,lets me see how well they can solve issues and makes them take some ownership in the fact that I really do care what they think. I always have the final say but it sure has made us a pretty tight group