Beer terms in board packs explained for new joiners
Board packs in beer companies use a shorthand that assumes you grew up in a brewery. This guide translates the terms you will meet most often and tells you what each one means on the floor.
Volume words: hectolitres and cases
Hectolitre (hl): 100 litres. The industry's standard unit of volume. Large companies often report in thousands of hectolitres (khl) or millions (mhl). Case: a sales unit whose size depends on the pack. Twelve 650 ml bottles make 7.8 litres. Twenty four 330 ml cans make 7.92 litres. Some packs talk about "equivalent cases" to fix this, using one standard case size for every pack.
When a slide says volume grew 3%, ask whether that is hectolitres or cases. A shift from big bottles to small cans can move cases and hectolitres in different directions. Our beer glossary for new joiners covers the wider vocabulary.
Money words: NSR, gross margin and excise
Gross sales revenue: what customers paid, including duties. Excise: the duty a state charges on alcohol. In India it is set state by state and is often the largest single number in the price of a bottle. Net sales revenue (NSR): revenue after excise and other deductions such as discounts. Most beer companies treat NSR as the real top line, because excise passes through to the state.
NSR per hectolitre is the number to watch. It tells you how much the company actually keeps for each 100 litres before its own costs. Gross margin is NSR minus cost of goods sold. Ask which definition the pack uses, because companies differ on what goes into cost of goods.
Mix: the word that explains most surprises
Mix means the blend of what was sold: which brands, packs, channels and states. Each has its own NSR per hectolitre. When the blend changes, the average changes, even if no price moved. A slide that says "positive mix" usually means more premium brands, more on-trade or more profitable states.
Premiumisation is the trend of drinkers moving up to more expensive beers. It shows up in packs as positive mix. Price/mix is often reported as one combined number. When it is, ask for the split, because price is a decision and mix is often a result.
Product words: ABV, strong and mild
ABV: alcohol by volume, as a percentage. A typical mild Indian lager is around 4.5 to 5% ABV. A strong beer is usually 6 to 8%. Many Indian brands sell both variants under one name. In several states they are taxed differently. Lager and ale are the two big families of beer, separated by the yeast used and the fermentation temperature. Lager ferments cooler, roughly 8 to 13 °C. It makes up the bulk of the Indian market.
SKU (stock keeping unit) is one specific product: brand, strength, pack and size. A brand might have twenty SKUs. NPD means new product development. Stage gate is the series of approval points a new product passes, from idea to concept test to trial brew to launch. Our guide to how a new beer goes from idea to shelf follows one through.
Operations words: utilisation, OEE and losses
Capacity: how much a brewery can make in a year, usually in hectolitres. Utilisation: actual production as a share of capacity. Breweries cannot run at 100% for long, because summer peaks need headroom and lines need maintenance. OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) measures how well a packaging line uses its time: availability times performance times quality. A line running at 60% OEE is not 40% broken; it means time is lost to changeovers, stoppages and rejects.
Losses or extract losses are beer or sugar lost between brewhouse and pack. Every brewery has some. A pack that shows losses rising is flagging money disappearing down the drain, sometimes literally.
Yield is the other side of the same coin: how much beer or extract the brewery gets from its raw materials. Cost per hectolitre divides production cost by output, so it rises whenever volume falls, even if nothing got more expensive. Ask for it with volume shown alongside.
Route to market words
On-trade: bars, restaurants and hotels, where beer is drunk on site. Off-trade: shops, where beer is bought to take away. Shipments (or sell-in) are what the brewery sends to wholesalers. Depletions (or sell-out) are what wholesalers sell onward. The gap between them is stock building up or running down in the trade. Corporation states are Indian states where a government body is the wholesaler and sometimes the retailer too.
A first step: take the last board pack, highlight every term you could not explain to a friend, then ask one colleague in finance and one in supply chain to define them. Their answers will differ. That difference is the most useful thing you will learn this month.
Common questions
What does NSR mean in a beer company?
Net sales revenue: revenue after excise duty and other deductions such as discounts. Most beer companies treat it as the real top line.
How big is a hectolitre?
A hectolitre is 100 litres, roughly 150 bottles of 650 ml or about 300 cans of 330 ml.
What is positive mix?
It means the blend of products sold has shifted towards those that earn more per hectolitre, such as premium brands or on-trade, raising the average without a price change.
What is the difference between shipments and depletions?
Shipments are what the brewery sends to wholesalers. Depletions are what wholesalers sell on. The gap shows stock building or falling in the trade.
