Slow Moving Beers Cost More Than You Think
Slow-moving beers don’t just hurt your cash flow—they block progress. Holding inventory is expensive, and it's often overlooked. It’s the equivalent of putting cash on a shelf and wondering why it’s not working for you. It ties up space, it clogs your tap lines, and it kills staff enthusiasm.
Start measuring daily sales velocity, not just total pints sold. Sure, every beer will eventually get drunk by someone—but turnover is what matters. Use my Experimental Beer Postmortem to compare small-batch brews against each other and against your brewery average. Set a benchmark—and make sure your experimental beers live up to it.
Slow-moving inventory is a killer
Your number of taps is a constraint—and every slow-moving beer is an opportunity cost. Every extra week you keep a dog on draft is a week you’re not pouring something better. Beer isn’t wine—it usually doesn’t improve with age. The longer it sits, the more you sacrifice in flavor, freshness, and quality. You also increase the odds of waste or spoilage.
Here’s a rough rule of thumb:
Less than 40 days = You’ve got a winner
41 to 60 days = You’re tempting fate
More than 60 days = You brewed too much or failed to sell enough
Slow beer ties up tanks, taps, and team energy
Tank space isn’t the only constraint. Just because a beer is out of the fermenter doesn’t mean it’s not clogging up your system. If you have 12 tap lines and one is tied up by a slow-mover, you’re sidelining something else that could be crushing.
Also: don’t underestimate your staff’s influence. Your taproom crew guides customer choices. If there’s a beer they’re not excited about, they’re not going to recommend it. That affects everything.
Use your POS system to compare pints per day across:
Your core beers
Your brewery average
Your other experimental batches
Pick a benchmark. For example, less than 15 pints per day might be your line in the sand. If a beer falls below that, ask:
Is the recipe off?
Is the ABV too low or too high?
Is the flavor profile missing the mark?
If it’s not keeping up with its peers, it might need to be cut.
Hopefully your POS lets you track this over time—pints per day, pints per week, barrels per month. Use it.
Cut your losses early
Use my Experimental Beer Postmortem to track how each experimental brew stacks up. Not just on its own, but against your brewery’s overall performance.
Experimental Beer Worksheet
Small batches are part of the game. You should always be testing, always evolving. But set a maximum sell-through timeline before you even brew. Know in advance: if it doesn’t sell through by X date, something needs to change - or it gets pulled.
And don’t be afraid to kill it early. Dumping a batch might sting, but protecting your tap list, your staff morale, and your customer trust is worth more.
Because here’s the deal: when a new customer tries a beer that’s flat, flawed, or just overpriced, it shapes how they see your whole brand. One bad pour can lose a return visit.
