A brewery or distillery makes a regulated product in batches, on a licensed site, with a small skilled team. The people side includes process knowledge held by one brewer, tank checks at odd hours and a clear rule on alcohol at work.
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Share your requirementsA brewery or distillery makes beer, spirits or related drinks in batches: milling, mashing, fermenting, distilling or conditioning, then filling, packing and dispatch. Sizes range from a taproom brewery with a handful of people to a plant with a laboratory, a bottling line and a warehouse. The product is regulated, the premises are licensed and the site records are checked, so discipline around records and conduct counts more than in most food businesses. Skilled brewers and distillers are few, a taproom adds hospitality staff, and sales, marketing and distribution teams sit around the plant. A small team carries a lot of knowledge and a lot of responsibility. See also HR for food and beverage.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Recipes, tank cycles and fixes live in one person's head, and his departure threatens consistency and the product.
Fermentation does not follow shifts, so weekend checks, night readings and tank turns depend on a few willing people.
Conduct at work, stock records and who is on the site carry weight, and a lapse is not just an HR matter.
Hospitality staff work evenings and weekends with tips and customers, while the plant works days with machines, and the two feel differently treated.
Hot liquor, pressurised vessels, CO2 and cleaning chemicals are routine hazards, and confined-space work needs trained people.
Festivals, long weekends and year-end demand require extra packing and taproom hands for a few weeks.
Tasting is part of the job in some roles, and a clear line on consumption and conduct protects both staff and the business.
A craft brand that grows from five people to thirty adds a sales team, a line and a lab before roles and reporting are defined.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Policies, Compliance and Governance; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for food and beverage, not in general.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a breweries and distilleries business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Recipes, cycle times, cleaning steps and troubleshooting captured as procedures, with a second person trained on each.
What this coversHideRecipes, cycle times, cleaning steps and troubleshooting captured as procedures, with a second person trained on each. The HR documentation process and learning and development work help.
What is allowed during tasting, at events and on the site, and what is not, written in plain words and acknowledged by staff.
What this coversHideWhat is allowed during tasting, at events and on the site, and what is not, written in plain words and acknowledged by staff. The policies and governance work covers it.
A fair schedule for weekend and night checks with agreed extra pay or time off, so the burden does not fall on the same two people.
What this coversHideA fair schedule for weekend and night checks with agreed extra pay or time off, so the burden does not fall on the same two people. The attendance and shift process holds it.
A short practical session with a check and a record, including confined-space rules where relevant.
What this coversHideA short practical session with a check and a record, including confined-space rules where relevant. The health, safety and wellbeing work builds it.
Written terms, rosters and tip or incentive rules for each group, so the two sides understand the difference.
What this coversHideWritten terms, rosters and tip or incentive rules for each group, so the two sides understand the difference.
Role descriptions and reporting lines for each function as the business scales.
What this coversHideRole descriptions and reporting lines for each function as the business scales. The role design work shows how.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A practical safety routine for vessels, CO2, heat and chemicals, with training recorded per person.
A clear alcohol, conduct and records policy that suits a licensed site.
A way to move brewing and distilling knowledge from one head into the team.
Roles and reporting lines that keep up as a craft brand scales.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in food and beverage, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Kitchen, service and outlet staff leave quickly in food and beverage. How to ask what lies behind the first answer, compare outlets and act on what you learn.
7 min readRead article
A practical contents list for an employee handbook in a growing Indian business: what to cover, what to leave to policies, and how to keep it usable and current.
5 min readRead article
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead article
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Capture recipes and routines in writing, train a second person on each step and give the head brewer time and recognition to teach. Dependence ends when knowledge is shared, not when pay is cut.
Tasting rules, drinking at work events, conduct on site, driving and what happens in case of breach. Write it plainly and have staff acknowledge it.
Rotate them across trained people, pay extra or give time off, and keep clear instructions so the person on watch knows what to do.
The terms can differ because the work differs, but the reasons should be clear and written. Unexplained differences cause resentment.
Plan early, use trained part-timers where you can and give a short induction on the premises, the product and safety.
The first discussion would look at process steps only one person can do, who covers weekend and night tank checks and how they are compensated, and whether the alcohol and conduct rule is written and known. Plant and taproom terms side by side might be compared. A useful first piece of work is a written process record and tank-watch rota. We confirm scope in writing.
All 7 business types in food and beverage · Find another business type
See all HR topics for food and beverage, or another industry.
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