A Guide to Brewery Collaboration Structures, Pt. 1 of 5.

Craft breweries are increasingly recognizing that strategic collaboration can create pathways to stronger, more resilient operations. Recent years have seen substantial growth in structured partnerships ranging from simple contract brewing arrangements enabling asset-light market expansion to regional platforms that consolidate brands and utilize shared infrastructure while preserving distinct identities. These collaboration models offer breweries options to reduce costs, access professional infrastructure, achieve competitive scale, optimize capacity utilization, and navigate capital constraints (or a blend of some or all of those) while maintaining independence.

Over this series, we’ll examine the major collaboration structures available to craft breweries and look at how each works, what circumstances favor different approaches, and what factors breweries should consider when evaluating options. The installments will cover:

• Production partnerships (contract brewing and alternating proprietorship)

• Shared infrastructure models (co-location facilities and brewing cooperatives)

• Ownership structures (platforms, joint ventures, and mergers/acquisitions)

• Industry alliances (purchasing cooperatives and distribution coordination)

• Decision framework (evaluating which structure fits your specific challenges)

This first installment discusses foundational principles that influence whether collaborations succeed or fail, regardless of their specific structure.

So, what makes collaboration structures work?

Successful brewery collaborations share common characteristics that transcend specific structural models. The following is a list of factors that every brewery should be considering when evaluating what kind of a collaborative arrangement would be the best fit.

Clear operational boundaries.

Good contracts make good partners. The most successful arrangements explicitly delineate production authority, quality control responsibility, financial obligations, and decision-making rights. Regardless of what the structure is, ambiguity will always create friction while clarity will enable execution. Every time.

There are certain key decisions that a contract should never leave undefined and should specify not just who is involved in making these decisions, but what the process specifically is if it is going to be a collaborative exercise. These include who approves recipe changes, how marketing budgets get allocated, and who manages quality control – all areas that, if not properly planned for, can produce existential level conflicts.

Finally, the best collaborations make sure to document not just what happens when everything works smoothly but specifically what happens when everything doesn’t. Dispute resolution mechanisms, buyout triggers, and performance standards belong in formation documents, as they are nearly impossible to effectively and fairly negotiate during a crisis.

Complementary strengths rather than redundancy.

Durable partnerships pair capabilities that create greater value than either party can achieve independently. Some effective combinations are matching operational excellence with market sophistication or geographic reach with production capacity. Attempts at collaboration that end up making core competencies redundant are worse than not collaborating in the first place.

A classic example is a mismatch in production capacity. A brewery with underutilized production capacity doesn’t need a partnership with another brewery that has excess capacity but can build real synergies with another brand that’s either outgrown its own production facility or is running an asset light business strategy. Similarly, a brewery with a strong local distribution presence but weak sales infrastructure can partner with an operation that has the opposite profile and strengthen both brands.

Fair warning: evaluating the marketing scope and reach of partners can be challenging in this sense. Some brands may cannibalize each other sales while others can have a synergistic effect and open opportunities to marketing activities and consumer outreach that can be much more powerful than each partner would accomplish alone. Some examples of this would be collectives that operate shared retail spaces or consumer facing activations that pull customers from each partner’s core fan base to introduce them to a broader selection of beers from the collective.

Preserved brand identity and market positioning.

The whole point of collaborative structures is to modify the operational business dynamics while maintaining the brand identity of the brewery. Breweries spend enormous amounts of time, energy and resources building consumer loyalty through consistent quality, authenticity and brand personality. Effective collaborative structures need to allow continued brand control (or at least meaningful input) through mechanisms like continuing founder involvement, independent marketing, and distinct taproom experiences to support the continuity of the brand identity and messaging.

Platform acquisitions that force rebranding or – worse – standardization of recipes across portfolios, risk destroying the brand equity they’re purchasing. The most successful platforms have explicitly preserved what made acquired brands valuable while consolidating and refining what consumers never see: back-office functions, bulk purchasing, regulatory compliance infrastructure, etc. Oversimplified, it looks like this: brewers maintain control over recipes and production, marketers maintain control over messaging, and finance and admin teams consolidate functions.

Economic alignment through appropriate incentives.

Although totally unsexy, tax optimization is an issue that can powerfully drive structural choices. One good example of this is the choice between a contract brewing arrangement and an alternating proprietorship. Depending on the production levels, an alternating proprietorship may allow each tenant to remain under the escalating federal excise tax rates, rather than aggregating them under a contract brewing structure, and potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars in excise taxes.

Beyond the structural tax considerations, any collaborative structure is going to require explicit and upfront agreement on revenue sharing formulas, profit distribution mechanisms, and exit provisions. It is essential that the economic incentives between partners be aligned if the relationship is going to be sustained. If one party benefits from volume growth while another prioritizes margin expansion, for example, conflicts are inevitable. In contrast, true alignment allows the relationship to strengthen naturally and inevitably over time. Negotiating and agreeing upon all of this at the inception is necessary to have a lasting collaborative structure.

Realistic timelines for relationship development.

Real world logistics and interactions between partners is critical and operational integration, cultural alignment, and trust building require sustained commitment – which requires time. The most successful collaborations plan for 12 to 18 months to integrate rather than expect an immediate and seamless merging of staff and operations. This is true even if the ownership and staff of the breweries feel that they already know each other. A year timeline sets expectations and allows realistic breathing space for systems integration, workflow adjustments, personnel transitions, and simply learning how partners actually work versus how they present in negotiations.

Rushing integration will always create problems. New shared facility tenants need time to learn equipment idiosyncrasies. Platform acquisitions require months to migrate acquired brands onto consolidated accounting and ERP systems. Joint ventures need runway to establish governance rhythms before adding strategic complexity. Undercapitalized timelines and expecting efficient integrated operations in 90 days doom partnerships by creating unrealistic pressure and will almost certainly result in cost overruns and the attendant arguments about who is responsible to pay for them.

The collaboration spectrum: From light touch to full integration.

Collaboration structures exist on a spectrum from lightweight coordination requiring minimal commitment to deep operational integration and ownership transfer.

At the lightest end, purchasing cooperatives aggregate buying volume for bulk pricing without any operational changes. Breweries maintain complete independence while collectively negotiating with suppliers. Zero integration, immediate cost savings, and an easy exit if value doesn’t materialize. Incidentally, this is something most breweries should probably be doing anyway (go check out the Independent Brewers Alliance: https://www.brewersalliance.org).

Contract brewing and alternating proprietorships (“APs”) provide a brand owner access to production capacity without having to own or run a facility. The key difference between the two lies in who holds the brewer’s license and how the excise taxes apply. Contract brewing minimizes brand owner compliance and some licensing obligations, but all production accrues toward the host’s tax brackets and that can result in elevated excise tax costs. Alternating proprietorship requires each tenant to maintain full federal licensing and compliance infrastructure but allows independent tax treatment. This becomes very significant when production levels approach the higher excise tax bracket.

Shared facilities and brewery cooperatives involve co-location on common premises but can have widely varying degrees of integration. Some provide each brewery dedicated equipment while sharing not just production infrastructure but also resources like communal taprooms and labs. Others operate as full cooperatives with collective ownership and democratic governance (akin to managing a pirate ship, as one brewery owner described it to me recently).

Platform structures consolidate multiple brands under unified ownership while preserving individual brand identities. These operations merge back-office functions – finance, HR, legal, procurement – while maintaining brand separation in consumer-facing activities. Success depends on balancing administrative and “back-office” standardization against brand autonomy and identity.

Joint ventures create separate entities owned by multiple partners to pursue specific strategic objectives. These are typically large-scale initiatives like geographic expansion or category entry. Unlike platforms that consolidate entire businesses, joint ventures tend to focus collaboration on defined activities where the partnership creates advantages neither party achieves independently.

Mergers and acquisitions represent complete business consolidation. Within the context of brewery collaboration (as opposed to M&A activity involving outside acquirers/investors or generalized business divestment – which is a different article), either one brewery acquires another’s assets, brands, or entire operations, typically resulting in operational integration under unified ownership, or two or more breweries merge their business structures into one surviving entity. While acquirers increasingly maintain acquired brand identities to preserve market positioning, control ultimately transfers.

Finally, purchasing cooperatives and sales and distribution alliances provide collective bargaining power and shared services without operational integration or ownership changes. These lighter-weight structures deliver cost savings and capability access while preserving actual independence.

What we’ll cover in this series.

The next installment examines contract brewing and alternating proprietorship in detail – how these production partnerships work operationally, when each structure makes sense, and what the regulatory and financial implications are.

Subsequent installments will explore shared facilities and cooperatives, then ownership structures including platforms and joint ventures, followed by industry alliances like purchasing cooperatives. The series concludes with a comprehensive decision framework and what are the key factors to consider.

Collaboration creates stronger operations when structures match specific operational challenges rather than chasing industry trends. Understanding how these structures work will reveal what path could most readily address the key problem that a brewery is solving for. Sometimes the analysis results in an obvious green or red light, but the most common results are some variations of “yes, if…” or “no, but…”. The next step is understanding what the structure looks like when applied to the actual, real-world business and the benefits and trade-offs of each structure. The following installments in the series will, conveniently, provide more context for what those are.

Next: Part 2 – Contract Brewing and Alternating Proprietorships.

© 2026 Kevin McGee. None of this is legal or investment advice.