Measuring the return on a brewing consultancy engagement
Consultancy fees are easy to see on a bank statement. The return is harder to see unless you set up the measurement before the work starts. A simple baseline and a handful of numbers make the value of the engagement clear, whichever way it goes.
Set the baseline before the work starts
The most common reason owners cannot judge a consultancy engagement is that nobody wrote down where things stood at the start. Three months later the beer is better, staff seem more confident and the numbers look healthier, but there is nothing firm to compare against.
Before any work begins, agree on the few numbers the engagement is meant to move and record them for the last few months. Most of these come from records a brewery should keep anyway. Our guide to weekly numbers for brewpub owners lists the core ones.
Pick numbers that match the problem
- Yield work: brewhouse efficiency, litres of saleable beer per kilogram of malt and total losses from brewhouse to glass.
- Quality work: dumped or downgraded batches, customer complaints, batches out of specification and shelf life results.
- Commissioning: time from installation to first saleable beer and faults found before and after handover.
- Sales work: beer sales per guest, tap list turnover and pour losses.
- Cost work: cost per litre, energy and water per litre and chemical use.
Keep it to three or four numbers. An engagement measured on twenty figures is not measured at all.
Agree who records the numbers and how often. If the consultant collects the baseline and the brewery collects the follow-up, differences in method can create changes that are not real. Use the same method, the same instruments and ideally the same person throughout.
Work the maths in your own rupees
Take a yield example. Suppose your brewhouse efficiency rises from 70 to 75 percent. To hit the same original gravity you now need about 70 divided by 75 of the malt, or roughly 7 percent less per batch. Multiply your malt spend per batch by 0.07 and by the number of batches a year. That is the annual malt saving from that one change. Our guide to raising brewhouse yield explains where those points come from.
Losses work the same way. If a brewery loss audit finds beer lost at packaging and dispense, every litre recovered is a litre sold without brewing more. Value it at your selling price for beer that would have been sold, or at your production cost for beer that simply replaces lost volume.
Quality is harder to price but not impossible. A dumped batch costs its ingredients, energy, labour and the tank time it blocked. Fewer dumped batches is a saving you can count.
Count what does not fit a spreadsheet
Some returns are real but hard to put in rupees. A team that can now troubleshoot its own fermentations needs less outside help next year. Written SOPs mean a resignation no longer threatens the beer. A head brewer who has learned to read data makes better decisions every week. Note these honestly, but do not let them substitute for the measurable numbers you agreed at the start.
Allow for time and season
Some changes show quickly. A fix to oxygen pickup at packaging may show in the next week's readings. Others take months, such as a quality system or a recipe change working its way into sales. Compare like with like: the same months last year, the same beers and the same volumes. In India, season changes sales and cellar performance, so a monsoon-month comparison against a peak summer month can mislead in either direction.
One practical test is to ask how the brewery would handle the same problem next time. If the answer is to call the consultant again, some of the value has not yet transferred. If the team can describe the checks and steps they would take on their own, the engagement has paid for itself in a way no spreadsheet captures.
Judging the result fairly
At the end of the engagement, compare the agreed numbers against the baseline. Be honest about other things that changed at the same time, such as new staff, a price rise or a hot summer. Ask the consultant to show their own before and after figures and to explain what they would do next. A good engagement leaves you with a clear record, a team that can carry on the work and numbers that keep improving after the consultant has gone.
If the numbers did not move, find out why. Sometimes the plan was right and was never carried out. Sometimes the plan was wrong. Both are worth knowing.
Common questions
What is a good way to measure a consultancy engagement?
Agree three or four numbers linked to the problem before work starts, record a baseline from the last few months and compare against the same numbers afterwards.
How long before we see a return?
Some fixes show in days, such as packaging oxygen. Others, such as quality systems or sales changes, take months to show clearly in the numbers.
Should a consultant promise a specific improvement?
Be wary of guaranteed figures. A good consultant agrees what will be measured and works to move it, but no honest adviser can promise an exact outcome.
