Mission, vision and values a brewery team will actually use

Values are the rules you follow when money is tight

Most brewery values could hang in any office. Start somewhere else: with achievements. List what the brewery has done, or plans to do, that the team is proudest of. Up to 10 items is plenty. Then write the value behind each one: community, precision, curiosity, whatever honestly explains why you did it.

This order matters. Values picked from a list of nice words describe the brewery you wish you were. Values pulled from real achievements describe the one you are, which is the only one a designer can build a brand around.

Three to six values is enough, each with proof

A first list is full of synonyms. Quality, excellence and craftsmanship are usually one value wearing three hats. Combine or cut until three to six remain, each one non-negotiable.

Then attach proof. For each value, write two or three lines about a real decision it made for you, ideally one that cost something. If precision is a value, the proof might be the 1,000 litre batch you poured away after it failed a forced diacetyl test, roughly 3,000 cans of 330 ml (1,000 divided by 0.33) that never left the brewery. If community is a value, the proof might be the Sunday you closed the taproom to the public for a neighbourhood clean-up. If you cannot find a decision, the value is an aspiration. Drop it or say so.

Product, method and purpose each fit in 20 words

Next, write three short definitions. Product: what do you make and sell? Method: is there something particular about how you make it? Purpose: why does the brewery exist at all?

Keep each answer under 20 words and avoid adjectives that any brewery could claim. "Fresh beer" is not a method. "Every keg sold within 21 days of packaging, from a cold room held at 2 to 4 °C" is. Purpose is the hardest. Fun is allowed, but name whose fun and what it replaces.

Write the brewery's farewell before you write its mission

Picture the brewery closing after 50 years and the farewell piece in your city's paper. What would regulars remember? What would former brewers say they learned? What would the street look like without you?

Write it in 150 words, each member of the team separately. Read them aloud. The phrases that appear in more than one draft are your purpose, written in your own voice. It is a strange exercise for a Tuesday afternoon. It works anyway.

Mission is today's job, vision is twenty years out

The two get confused, so separate them firmly. A mission is the brewery's daily brief. It says what problem you fix for drinkers, how you fix it and what success looks like this year. Build it from those three answers and keep it under 30 words.

A vision looks about 20 years ahead: where you stand among the city's breweries, what people say about you and what your street would lose without you. It should feel slightly too big. A template: in 20 years, [brewery] will be [place in drinkers' lives] for [whom] in [where], known for [one thing]. If the vision could be reached in three years, it is a plan. That belongs in the business plan, not on the wall.

Values prove themselves in the next hard decision

Values earn trust when they are used. Bring them to the next real choice: a distributor asking for a cheaper recipe, a hire who brews well but treats staff badly, a festival sponsor whose message you dislike. Ask which value applies and whether it settles the question. If every value sounds equally right, the list is still too polite, which is easier for an outsider to say than a co-founder. Our guide to beer brand storytelling shows how the same values become the stories you tell drinkers.

Mission and vision can wait a week. They sit alongside the positioning matrix in the strategy stage of our rebrand guide. This week, book two hours with the four to six people who sign off the brand. Bring the achievements list and leave with three to six values, each with a decision attached.

About the authors

Ankur Napa is a Master Brewer who also works in data and AI. Chatty Girija spent more than 30 years in advertising, hosts the Cheers Chatty Beer Podcast and teaches at Craft Beer School.

Common questions

How many values should a brewery have?

Three to six. Fewer than three rarely covers how a brewery behaves. More than six usually means synonyms that have not been merged.

What is the difference between a mission and a vision?

A mission is the daily job: what problem you fix, for whom and how. A vision looks about 20 years ahead to the brewery's place in the market and its community.

Who should write the values?

The executive team with final say, ideally 4 to 6 people. Ask floor staff for examples of decisions, because they often remember them more honestly than the owners.