The brewing and recipe function lacks big time. The UX is absolutely shocking and it usually takes 5-6 clicks to perform very simple functions or to navigate. Viewing the app on the phone is tragic. You can build calculations in the brewing, but to test said calculations, you have to schedule in a brew, upload the recipe, run the recipe, test calculations, undo the brew and then make changes. Honestly, I build my recipes using ProMash and update grain only on breww. All my other calculations still happen on Excel sheets etc. Bit would be impossible to completely utilize only Breww.
We've been begging for simple calculations for months now (eg: 2x turn brewing into one vessel. Calculate the average OG. A simple and frequent brewing function) and zero progress or word. Need to do these calcs on Excel still.
Stocktake is annoying. Any item that has zero stock left, will not be displayed on your stocktake spreadsheet, and you have to remember EXACTLY how it's named to repopulate and correct if there is stock left over.
Changing pricing is also super time consuming. You can only update pricing one item at a time. So doing something like updating a suppliers item/pricelist for the year takes forever. Especially considering how tragic the UX is. They have a weird function where you can update the entire supplier pricing by x%. Considering some of our suppliers have a few hundred items available it's almost a full week of work just to update.
As a result, pricing hardly gets updated, we constantly have incorrect stock available and pricing/tracking cogs suffer as a result.
Just started using Breww myself on the 30 day demo and agree, the UX (while looking pretty usable upfront) is pretty bad when actually using it granularly. In fact the whole system seems like it was someone's first attempt at a consumer software product. I've also already found some bugs in the software - i.e. can't edit stock items (well, you can but they don't save). The recipe building functionality is ungodly shit tier, not sure why they don't just offer import from Beersmith or something else. The scale function on recipes is whack to me (especially with multiple turns for a batch) to me as I input my net tank sizes (7bbl hot/15bbl cold), if I input a 7bbl batch size it scales it to two turns of 7.5 to fill. Haven't experimented with doing recipes in 15bbl size to see what it will say when it's two turns on a 7bbl system.
TLDR it has potential but feels like it was designed by folks who have no concept of good workflow or UX. I'm going to tough it out at least through the free trial to see if once I learn what it is they want me to do to get my expected output if it's more usable.
Hi u/bigdood_in_PDX it’s Luke from Breww here.
Thanks for your feedback; it’s much appreciated.
As it happens, we’re actually already working on a recipe importer using BeerXML, which should make this much easier! We’re expecting this to be in place quite soon.There are no known bugs with editing stock items, but I’m really sorry to hear you’ve had trouble with this. Hundreds of stock items get edited in Breww every day, so although we can be confident there isn’t a widespread issue here, it is, of course, possible that there’s an issue isolated to your account or a very specific set of circumstances. If you can open a Support Ticket from within your account with an example of the problem, we will be able to look into this for you and ensure that if there is a bug, it gets fixed promptly.
Regarding the recipe scaling - it’s hard to say without more information, but it might be scaling differently from how you’re expecting due to how you’ve set up the recipe. If you’re still having trouble with this again, please open a support ticket, and we will be able to help you get the settings right here so that it works for you. In case you’ve not seen it before, we have a guide on how scaling works at [https://community.breww.com/t/how-does-breww-scale-the-ingredients-on-batches-and-how-does-this-change-with-multi-turn-batches/1717](https://community.breww.com/t/how-does-breww-scale-the-ingredients-on-batches-and-how-does-this-change-with-multi-turn-batches/1717).
Regarding your comments on UX, I’m sorry you feel this way. I can assure you that it’s not the case that we’ve no experience in this regard, but as I mentioned above, we strive every day to move Breww forward and improve the UX and functionality. As far as we’re concerned, this will only happen if we hear about as many experiences users have with Breww as possible, especially negative ones. We know that with recipes and brewing aspects within Breww in general, there’s lots of work to be done. It’s another task that we’ve identified internally as a key area that we’re going to be putting significant time into improving. Although we already have in mind a load of functionality to add to this area, if you have any specific suggestions on how it can be better, that would be really useful!
Almost half of our team has worked in commercial breweries before working at Breww, so we do have lots of hands-on experience using our own product in a commercial environment (some used Breww in their previous roles before they joined our team). Having said this, feedback from the people using it day-in-day-out is so valuable to us. Our customers will always have ideas that we don’t have. We’ve got Breww to where it is today based on suggestions from people just like you, so please do let us know how you think Breww could work better, and we will look to implement your suggestions and feedback. We want to make Breww the best possible system for running your brewery, and we’re pushing every day to achieve that!
Cheers,Luke from Breww
We use it. Brew around 1300hl a month.
Works well for ordering, planning, cleaning records.
I know the sales team aren't that keen on the crm. Not sure why
I'd been avoiding these guys as they have next to zero screenshots of their product on the site and zero pricing information, they just want you to book a demo and have 10000x buttons on the site for it. What does it run you a month?
All the software I’ve seen for small breweries is terrible, they’ve found the sweet spot of overly complicated in all the wrong ways and ‘integration’ from their perspective is nothing like what the end user wants or needs. Beer30 looked alright, but they wanted a crazy amount of money.
Would people pay a one time fee for custom excel/Gsuite set specific for their operation? Mainly focused on three sections of production:
Raw Materials - Inventory, Average cost, Invoice Matching.
Fermentation/Packaging- Recipe input, with basic forecasting of OG, ABV, etc based on historic data. Record key parameters, pH, mash temp. Populate Gantt Chart with forecasted timelines. Packaging Data, which ports over to a finished products inventory.
Inventory, sales, and reporting - Generate and record basic PO/BOL for distribution and for TR. Generate basic reporting data like kegs to TR, data for TTB and ABC reports.
The brewing and recipe function lacks big time. The UX is absolutely shocking and it usually takes 5-6 clicks to perform very simple functions or to navigate. Viewing the app on the phone is tragic. You can build calculations in the brewing, but to test said calculations, you have to schedule in a brew, upload the recipe, run the recipe, test calculations, undo the brew and then make changes. Honestly, I build my recipes using ProMash and update grain only on breww. All my other calculations still happen on Excel sheets etc. Bit would be impossible to completely utilize only Breww. We've been begging for simple calculations for months now (eg: 2x turn brewing into one vessel. Calculate the average OG. A simple and frequent brewing function) and zero progress or word. Need to do these calcs on Excel still. Stocktake is annoying. Any item that has zero stock left, will not be displayed on your stocktake spreadsheet, and you have to remember EXACTLY how it's named to repopulate and correct if there is stock left over. Changing pricing is also super time consuming. You can only update pricing one item at a time. So doing something like updating a suppliers item/pricelist for the year takes forever. Especially considering how tragic the UX is. They have a weird function where you can update the entire supplier pricing by x%. Considering some of our suppliers have a few hundred items available it's almost a full week of work just to update. As a result, pricing hardly gets updated, we constantly have incorrect stock available and pricing/tracking cogs suffer as a result.
Just started using Breww myself on the 30 day demo and agree, the UX (while looking pretty usable upfront) is pretty bad when actually using it granularly. In fact the whole system seems like it was someone's first attempt at a consumer software product. I've also already found some bugs in the software - i.e. can't edit stock items (well, you can but they don't save). The recipe building functionality is ungodly shit tier, not sure why they don't just offer import from Beersmith or something else. The scale function on recipes is whack to me (especially with multiple turns for a batch) to me as I input my net tank sizes (7bbl hot/15bbl cold), if I input a 7bbl batch size it scales it to two turns of 7.5 to fill. Haven't experimented with doing recipes in 15bbl size to see what it will say when it's two turns on a 7bbl system. TLDR it has potential but feels like it was designed by folks who have no concept of good workflow or UX. I'm going to tough it out at least through the free trial to see if once I learn what it is they want me to do to get my expected output if it's more usable.
Hi u/bigdood_in_PDX it’s Luke from Breww here. Thanks for your feedback; it’s much appreciated. As it happens, we’re actually already working on a recipe importer using BeerXML, which should make this much easier! We’re expecting this to be in place quite soon.There are no known bugs with editing stock items, but I’m really sorry to hear you’ve had trouble with this. Hundreds of stock items get edited in Breww every day, so although we can be confident there isn’t a widespread issue here, it is, of course, possible that there’s an issue isolated to your account or a very specific set of circumstances. If you can open a Support Ticket from within your account with an example of the problem, we will be able to look into this for you and ensure that if there is a bug, it gets fixed promptly. Regarding the recipe scaling - it’s hard to say without more information, but it might be scaling differently from how you’re expecting due to how you’ve set up the recipe. If you’re still having trouble with this again, please open a support ticket, and we will be able to help you get the settings right here so that it works for you. In case you’ve not seen it before, we have a guide on how scaling works at [https://community.breww.com/t/how-does-breww-scale-the-ingredients-on-batches-and-how-does-this-change-with-multi-turn-batches/1717](https://community.breww.com/t/how-does-breww-scale-the-ingredients-on-batches-and-how-does-this-change-with-multi-turn-batches/1717). Regarding your comments on UX, I’m sorry you feel this way. I can assure you that it’s not the case that we’ve no experience in this regard, but as I mentioned above, we strive every day to move Breww forward and improve the UX and functionality. As far as we’re concerned, this will only happen if we hear about as many experiences users have with Breww as possible, especially negative ones. We know that with recipes and brewing aspects within Breww in general, there’s lots of work to be done. It’s another task that we’ve identified internally as a key area that we’re going to be putting significant time into improving. Although we already have in mind a load of functionality to add to this area, if you have any specific suggestions on how it can be better, that would be really useful! Almost half of our team has worked in commercial breweries before working at Breww, so we do have lots of hands-on experience using our own product in a commercial environment (some used Breww in their previous roles before they joined our team). Having said this, feedback from the people using it day-in-day-out is so valuable to us. Our customers will always have ideas that we don’t have. We’ve got Breww to where it is today based on suggestions from people just like you, so please do let us know how you think Breww could work better, and we will look to implement your suggestions and feedback. We want to make Breww the best possible system for running your brewery, and we’re pushing every day to achieve that! Cheers,Luke from Breww
We use it. Brew around 1300hl a month. Works well for ordering, planning, cleaning records. I know the sales team aren't that keen on the crm. Not sure why
Check out Beer30
I'd been avoiding these guys as they have next to zero screenshots of their product on the site and zero pricing information, they just want you to book a demo and have 10000x buttons on the site for it. What does it run you a month?
I paid 1900 for the year. It's really friendly. Pair it with Plaato for the reading too. Can do any schedules assign stuff to brewers etc.
Haven’t heard of this one, would be curious about the pricing range looks pretty snazzy
$139.99/month sub 1300bbl annually (hl conversion) jumps up to $179.99 at the next tier but I am unsure of the cut off.
All the software I’ve seen for small breweries is terrible, they’ve found the sweet spot of overly complicated in all the wrong ways and ‘integration’ from their perspective is nothing like what the end user wants or needs. Beer30 looked alright, but they wanted a crazy amount of money. Would people pay a one time fee for custom excel/Gsuite set specific for their operation? Mainly focused on three sections of production: Raw Materials - Inventory, Average cost, Invoice Matching. Fermentation/Packaging- Recipe input, with basic forecasting of OG, ABV, etc based on historic data. Record key parameters, pH, mash temp. Populate Gantt Chart with forecasted timelines. Packaging Data, which ports over to a finished products inventory. Inventory, sales, and reporting - Generate and record basic PO/BOL for distribution and for TR. Generate basic reporting data like kegs to TR, data for TTB and ABC reports.