Brewery and taproom service pricing, compared term by term

What to take away

Why services need their own method

A pour at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico, California, has a small, repeatable cost. A private buyout is a bundle of labor, opportunity cost and risk, delivered once, with a scope somebody could disagree about afterward.

The pricing question changes shape. For a pint you ask what the glass costs and what the market bears. For a private hire you ask what hours it consumes, what you are not doing while it happens, and what could go wrong.

Pours follow the way your prices are built; this page is the other one.

The five pricing terms, compared for named services

Define these for your own operation and use them every time. The table below compares how they land for named services at real breweries.

Swap these for your own figures once you have cost history.

Your floor is (H times Lb) plus P plus Cn plus Ro.

Ro is where most quotes go wrong. Closing a Friday for a buyout means giving up the contribution that Friday would have produced. Unless the quote recovers it, the event is a loss dressed as revenue. Take Ro from your own hourly contribution figures: revenue in the hour, less the beer sold in it, less the labor on shift.

The reverse is just as important. If an event fills hours you would not otherwise open, Ro is close to zero. The same event can be priced very differently. That is not inconsistency, it is the arithmetic working.

Worked example: a Saturday buyout at Brooklyn Brewery, with the room closed to the public for the evening. Replace each figure with your own.

Floor = 528 + 900 + 150 + 1400 = $2,978. That is the number the event has to clear. At a markup of 25 to 40 percent over the floor, the quote lands at $3,700 to $4,200.

These ranges are planning benchmarks, not posted quotes. Public rates vary by market and season.

Factors that raise or lower the price above the floor

The floor is arithmetic. What you add above it is judgment, and it is worth writing down which of these you weighted, so that a future quote can be explained.

Two of these can genuinely reduce a price honestly. An event that fills dead hours and looks likely to repeat is worth having at a thinner margin. An event on your best Saturday with three weeks notice and a vague brief is not.

A Tuesday tasting can lower its price because Ro is near zero. A Saturday buyout should not, because Ro is at its highest.

Services priced separately

Private hire and buyouts. Priced by the arithmetic above. The largest variable is Ro. The day of the week matters more than the guest count. Quote at a markup of 25 to 40 percent over the floor, which is a margin of about 20 to 28 percent of the price.

Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg, New York, and Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn, New York, sit in dense markets where a Saturday room contribution is high. Typical peak-night minimum spend in major markets: $1,500 to $6,000 before beer.

Tours and tastings. Almost pure labor, plus product. The trap is running them at times that collide with service, so that one person is doing both badly. Cost the guide's whole block, not just the tour length.

Yuengling in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, runs a historic brewery tour. Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine, runs a tasting room. Typical guided tasting rates: $10 to $30 per person. Some brewery tours are free or $5 to $15.

Tap takeovers and supplying an event. Here you are selling beer plus logistics. Price transport, setup, the equipment you send out and the risk of it not coming back. Whether you may pour off the premises at all, and under what temporary permission, is a state question, and it belongs with the permit inventory in the permits a new operation has to collect.

Tap takeovers and festival pours need transport, jockey boxes and return logistics. Typical tap takeover: $500 to $2,500 plus beer and travel.

Recurring arrangements. These drift. A small favor becomes an expectation over a year, and the price never moves. Put a review date in the agreement. A monthly tap takeover by Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, Florida, can slip into a lower margin unless the agreement names a review date.

Merchandise and gift packages. Not really a service, but they get quoted alongside one. Price them from cost and shelf, not from the event. Gift packages from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Delaware, or New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, follow retail math, not event math.

The scope, which is where disputes live

A fair price on an unclear scope still produces an argument. Write these before you send a number.

Point eight belongs in the document in plain language. Your obligations do not pause because someone hired the space. Saying so in advance avoids a difficult conversation in front of a crowd.

For a buyout, name the guest count threshold. For a tap takeover, name the lines, the voltage and the return date.

Being able to defend the number

Fair pricing in this trade means the structure is visible even when the number is not published. Show the client what drives it: the hours, the beer, the timing.

Whatever you say publicly about an event has to be truthful and supportable. The Federal Trade Commission: Advertising FAQs: A Guide for Small Business sets out that standard, and the common failure is describing something as included, all inclusive or discounted when the detail says otherwise.

Keep the quote, correspondence and invoice together. The Internal Revenue Service: What kind of records should I keep? leaves the system to you if it clearly shows income and expenses with supporting documents behind it.

A scope varied by email is part of that record.

The labor side, honestly counted

H is almost always larger than the event. Setup, teardown, the manager hour spent booking and coordinating, and the follow up are real. The same person already running the room usually does them.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Food Service Managers profile fairly describes that workload, covering scheduling, supply, guest issues, budgets and records.

Count it. An event that is profitable only because the manager worked unpaid is not profitable, it is a transfer.

Also count the staffing risk. An event that requires people who would not otherwise be scheduled means you either pay them or hope. Plan it the way you plan any additional shift, alongside hiring and training the crew, and set a rule in advance for what happens if the guest count comes in low.

A guided tasting may need a guide, a host and a cashier. The manager who books it still counts.

Reviewing after the event

After a dozen events the quoting becomes fast and accurate, because you have a cost history rather than an estimate. Revisit the structure whenever the operation changes shape, including at any step in the routes to more volume.

After an off site pour, compare actual hours to H. After a buyout, compare beer consumed to P.

Common questions

Should I publish event prices?

Publish the structure and the variables, not a single number. A published number invites people to ask for the Saturday at the Tuesday price. You can publish your variables without publishing a Saturday rate.

What is a fair margin on a private hire?

Set the floor first, then add a markup. The working range for private hires is 25 to 40 percent over the floor, which is a margin of about 20 to 28 percent of the quoted price.

An event that fills dead hours and looks likely to repeat can sit at the bottom of that range. Short notice on your best Saturday belongs at the top.

Your labor rate and your room's normal contribution are local to you, so treat the range as a planning rule, not a standard. What is fair is that the price covers the floor and that you can explain what sits above it.

Should I discount for a charity or community event?

That is your decision to make deliberately rather than by default. Calculate the floor first, then decide what you are donating and record it as such. A donation you never priced is invisible in the accounts.

How do I handle a client who wants to negotiate?

Show them the structure and negotiate on scope rather than on the number. Fewer hours, a different day, a smaller beer selection: all of those genuinely change the cost, and cutting the price alone does not.

What about off site events?

Ask your state board what temporary permission is required before quoting anything. Then price transport, equipment risk and the fact that you are working in a space you do not control. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery both operate in states with their own temporary permit rules.