Deciding which beers to drop from the range
A long range feels generous. It also ties up tanks, ingredients and attention. Here is a way to rank your beers and decide which ones to drop, hold or fix.
Why a range grows and why it should not
Breweries add beers for good reasons: a request from a bar, a seasonal idea, a brewer's pet project. They rarely take any off. After three years the range holds fifteen beers and four of them make most of the money. Each extra beer needs its own recipe, ingredients, label, tank time and sales effort. Small tanks make this worse. A brewpub with six fermenters cannot hold twelve beers without letting some run out.
Dropping a beer is not an admission of failure. It frees tanks and attention for the beers that earn. Our guide on pricing a new seasonal beer against the core range covers the other side: what to add.
Measure the right things
Rank each beer on five measures, using your own records for the last twelve months:
- Volume sold, in litres.
- Margin per litre after ingredients, packaging and excise.
- Tank days, meaning how long the beer occupies a fermenter or serving tank from brew to packaging.
- Complexity: special ingredients, extra processes, short shelf life.
- Pull: whether the beer brings customers in or makes them stay.
The third one is the measure most breweries skip. Time in a tank is capacity that cannot make another beer.
Margin per tank day, with an illustration
Take two hypothetical beers, each brewed at 2,000 litres. A pale ale takes 14 days from brew to packaging and earns a margin of ₹90 a litre. A lager takes 28 days and earns ₹110 a litre.
- Pale ale: 2,000 x 90 = ₹1,80,000, divided by 14 days = about ₹12,860 per tank day.
- Lager: 2,000 x 110 = ₹2,20,000, divided by 28 days = about ₹7,860 per tank day.
The lager has the higher margin per litre and the lower return on tank time. These figures are made up for the example. Use your own margins and your real tank days. Lager fermentation and maturation commonly run several weeks, so the lager story is not unusual. If the lager is your flagship, the answer may be to buy another tank, not to drop the beer.
Look at pull before you cut
Numbers do not show everything. A low-selling beer may anchor your identity, give a bar a reason to list you or be the beer your best customers talk about. Ask the taproom team which beers they recommend and which people ask for by name. Check whether customers who buy it also buy others. Our guide on choosing a beer range for a new bottle shop shows how a retailer balances range and turnover.
The test is simple: if this beer vanished tomorrow, which customers would you lose? How much would they have spent?
Three outcomes: drop, hold or fix
- Drop a beer with low volume, low margin per tank day, high complexity and little pull.
- Hold a beer with low volume but strong pull. Brew it less often, in smaller batches or as a seasonal.
- Fix a beer with decent pull but weak margin. Check the recipe cost, the price, the yield and the tank time.
Fixing often beats dropping. A beer with a poor margin may only need a price change or a cheaper malt that tastes the same. Test any change by tasting side by side before you commit.
Retire a beer without upset
Tell your regular accounts before you stop. A bar that built a menu around your stout will want notice and an alternative to offer. Run out the last batch as a limited send-off if it suits the beer. Let the taproom team explain why. Remove the beer from the website, price lists and POS at the same time so nobody orders ghost stock. If you hold packaging or labels for it, use them up in a final run or sell them on.
Keep the recipe. Dropped beers sometimes return as seasonals once the range has settled. Our guide on deciding when a brewery should stop serving a weak account applies the same discipline to customers.
Your next step
List every beer you made in the past year with litres sold, margin per litre and days in tank. Put the table in front of your brewer and your sales lead. Mark one beer to drop, one to hold and one to fix. You will find that the debate becomes a short conversation about numbers instead of a long argument about taste.
Common questions
How many beers should a small brewery make?
It depends on tank count and sales. A brewpub with six fermenters rarely holds a dozen beers well. Rank your range by margin per tank day and pull, then trim to what your tanks can keep fresh.
What is margin per tank day?
It is the margin earned from a batch divided by the days it occupies a tank. It shows which beers earn the most from your limited tank time.
Should I drop a beer that sells slowly?
Not automatically. Check whether it has pull, meaning it brings in customers or anchors an account. A slow seller with strong pull may be better brewed less often.
How do I tell customers a beer is going?
Tell accounts early, offer an alternative, run a last batch if you can and update all price lists. Keep the recipe in case it returns as a seasonal.
