One of the most important steps in Breww to be able to brew and package your beers and drinks is to create and manage your beers/drinks themselves. If you a producing a drink type that is not beer, you will first need to head to your settings and select which drink types you produce. Please see the article below for more details. For the remainder of this article, if you are producing a different drink type to beer, you can replace the term 'Beer', with 'Drink', as this will be displayed instead on your Breww account.
Creating and managing your beers
Just getting started with Breww? If you have not yet added any beers to Breww, and you would like to add these in bulk, then our Adding beers/drinks article from our Getting Started Guide will guide you through how to import your beers in bulk.
You can create new beers and manage your existing beers in Production -> View -> Beers.
To create a new beer, click the New beer button. This opens a step-by-step creation wizard that guides you through the entire process:
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Select type — Choose the type of beer you are creating (Standard, Derived at packaging, Derived in vessel, or Guest). Each option includes an explanation to help you choose the right type. For more details on the different types, see Alias, derived & guest beers.
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Select parent (Derived at packaging only) — If you selected Derived at packaging, you will be asked to choose the parent beer that this derived beer is based on.
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Beer details — Enter the details of your beer, including:
- Name
- Drink type
- Beer style
- Beer code prefix (used when automatically creating product codes)
- Short customer-facing description (you will be able to include 'tasting notes' here)
- Alcohol percentage
- Degrees Plato for export invoices
- Drink style
- Allergens
- Colour
- Label print colour
- Tags
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Quick-create products — Select which product formats you would like to create for this beer. The available options are based on the container types you have set up (kegs, casks, smallpack sizes). You can skip this step and create products later if you prefer.
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Product pricing & tags (if products were selected) — Set the price for each product in each of your base price books, choose whether each product can be packaged, sold or both, and optionally assign additional product tags.
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Guest purchasing details (Guest beers with products only) — Set the supplier, tax details, and per-product purchasing information such as SKU, quantity, expected price and minimum order quantity.
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Confirmation — Review a summary of everything that will be created, then confirm to create the beer and any selected products.
Best before dates (BB)
When creating a new beer, you have the option to enter your BB dates for your stock labels and also have the option to add a BB to be used from delivery. We recommend leaving these fields blank and instead creating best-before rules, as this saves a lot of time moving forward and allows you to make them even more specific to different situations. This is discussed further in the Best before/expiry dates help guide. If you would rather have the number of weeks from the packaging/delivery date set on the beer, then you can fill in these fields instead.
Beer tags
The beer can also be tagged, which is a really handy way of easily filtering your beers for reporting, for example, your 'core' beers and your 'seasonal' beers. You can also enter a customer-facing description for your beer to be used on the Breww trade store. Any tags entered against a beer can also be used as categories in the trade store. You can find out more on how to create a Breww trade store for your business via the article: Breww Trade Store.
Creating products for an existing beer
If you did not create products during the beer creation wizard, or you need to add more products later, you can do so from the beer detail page. Navigate to the beer and click the Create products button in the products section. This opens a wizard that allows you to select product formats, set pricing and tags, and configure supplier details (for guest beers), just like during the beer creation process.
Packaging approvals
Breww supports packaging approvals to ensure certain quality parameters are met before and after packaging. There are two types of packaging approval:
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Pre-packaging approvals — completed before packaging is permitted, ensuring the beer meets your quality standards
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Post-packaging approvals — completed after packaging has taken place, allowing you to record post-packaging checks and measurements
Both pre-packaging and post-packaging approvals use approval templates, which define the measurements and checks that need to be recorded.
Approval templates
Approval templates are reusable definitions of the measurements and checks required for packaging approval. You can manage your approval templates from Production -> View -> Beers/drinks -> Approvals or Production -> View -> Recipes -> Approvals.
From the approval template list, you can:
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View all templates for the selected stage (pre-packaging or post-packaging)
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Create new templates
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See which beers/drinks are using each template
Each template has a name and a stage (pre-packaging or post-packaging). You can add as many measurement or check lines to a template as needed, and you can choose whether the approval is required (mandatory) or optional. If approval is marked as required, the relevant action (packaging) cannot proceed until the approval is completed.
To view which beers are using a particular template, open the template and select the Beers using this template link.
Assigning approval templates to a beer
To configure packaging approvals for a beer, navigate to the beer detail page. You will see two approval cards:
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Pre-packaging approvals — controls what must be approved before packaging
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Post-packaging approvals — controls what must be approved after packaging
Each card shows:
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General — the default approval template that applies to all packaging of this beer. Click the + button on the card header to assign or create a template.
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Container type overrides — optional overrides that use a different approval template for specific container types (e.g. a different template for kegs vs cans). These overrides are only active when your approval mode is set to Per planned packaging (see below).
Each row shows the template name, whether approval is required or optional, and a link to view the full template.
If a beer does not have its own approval template assigned directly, it can still inherit a template from your brewery-wide defaults. You can set a Default pre-packaging approval template and a Default post-packaging approval template in your Production settings. When a beer is using an inherited default, a badge will be shown next to the template name on the beer detail page to indicate that it comes from your account-level settings rather than being set on the beer itself.
Approval template resolution order
When Breww needs to determine which approval template to use for a packaging, it checks the following locations in order and uses the first one it finds:
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Container type override (Per planned packaging mode only) — if the beer has a specific approval template configured for the container type being packaged, that template is used.
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Beer-specific template — the template assigned directly to the beer on its detail page.
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Brewery-wide default — the default template set in your Production settings.
If none of these are configured, no approval will be created for that packaging.
This means you can set a brewery-wide default template that applies to all beers, then override it on specific beers that need different checks, and optionally add container-type-specific overrides for even more granular control.
Approval modes
Breww offers two approval modes, configurable separately for pre-packaging and post-packaging approvals. These are set in your Production settings (Settings -> Production settings):
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Per batch (default) — a single approval is created for the entire batch. All packaging from the batch shares the same approval. This is the simpler option and works well if you package all products from a batch in the same way.
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Per planned packaging — a separate approval is created for each planned packaging on the batch. This allows different products or container types to have their own approval with potentially different templates. This mode requires planned packagings to be set up on the batch.
The approval mode is captured at the time a batch is started. Changing the mode in Production settings will only affect batches started after the change.
When using Per planned packaging mode, you can also set up container type approval overrides on the beer. This means that when a planned packaging uses a specific container type (e.g. kegs), it can automatically use a different approval template than the beer's general template. If no override is configured for a container type, the beer's general template is used as a fallback, followed by the brewery-wide default if no beer-specific template is set.
Requiring a planned packaging when packaging
In Production settings, you can enable the Require a planned packaging when packaging from a batch option. When enabled, every packaging action from a batch must be linked to a planned packaging. This is especially useful when combined with the Per planned packaging approval mode, as it ensures every packaging event has its own approval.
Pre-packaging approval workflow
When a batch is started and the beer has a pre-packaging approval template configured (either directly on the beer or inherited from the brewery-wide default):
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Per batch mode: A single pre-packaging approval instance is created for the batch. You can access it from the batch detail page. Packaging is blocked until the approval is completed (if marked as required).
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Per planned packaging mode: Each planned packaging on the batch gets its own pre-packaging approval. You can view and manage these from the batch's Pre-packaging approvals tab, which shows all planned packagings and their approval status. Packaging of a specific planned packaging is blocked until its individual approval is completed (if required).
Post-packaging approval workflow
Post-packaging approvals work similarly to pre-packaging approvals but are completed after packaging:
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Per batch mode: A single post-packaging approval instance is created for the batch after packaging occurs.
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Per planned packaging mode: Each planned packaging gets its own post-packaging approval after it has been packaged. You can view and manage these from the batch's Post-packaging approvals tab.
Post-packaging approvals and delayed releases
If you use delayed packaging releases (for example, to hold stock for conditioning before releasing it for sale), you can configure Breww to link post-packaging approvals with delayed releases. This ensures that packaged stock is not released for sale until the relevant post-packaging quality checks have been approved.
This is controlled by the Post-packaging approval delayed release control setting in your Production settings. The available options are:
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No restrictions — delayed releases can be released at any time, regardless of post-packaging approval status.
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Prevent releasing if outstanding post-packaging approval (default) — if a delayed release is linked to a batch or planned packaging that has an outstanding post-packaging approval, the release will be blocked until the approval is completed. This applies to both manual releases and automatic scheduled releases.
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Prevent releasing and auto-release upon approval — works the same as above, but when a post-packaging approval is approved, any pending delayed releases that are no longer blocked will be automatically released for sale. A confirmation message will be displayed showing how many delayed releases were auto-released.
The auto-release feature is useful for streamlining conditioning workflows. You can package stock with a delayed release, carry out post-packaging quality checks at your own pace, and when the approval is signed off, the stock is automatically released for sale without any further manual steps.
This setting works with both approval modes:
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In Per batch mode, all delayed releases for the batch are considered when checking for outstanding approvals.
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In Per planned packaging mode, only delayed releases linked to the specific planned packaging with the outstanding approval are affected.
Completing an approval
To complete an approval, navigate to the approval instance (either from the batch detail page or the planned packaging approvals list). From there, you can:
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Record measurements and check results for each line in the template
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Add notes to individual lines
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Mark the approval as complete once all required fields have been filled in
If the approval template is marked as required, the corresponding action (packaging for pre-packaging approvals) will be blocked until the approval is completed.
