“We’ve called ourselves a ‘data-driven brewery’ for years,” says Teddy Gowan, VP of brewing operations at San Diego’s Societe Brewing. “But now our decisions are actually driven by data that we trust.”
Now 13 years old, Societe changed trajectory amid the pandemic lockdowns of 2020. The previous year, all the brewery’s 4,000 barrels of annual production flowed through taps around San Diego and at their tasting room in the Old Town. After they shifted to canning, Societe’s production increased more than fourfold within a couple of years—up to about 17,000 barrels in 2022—with distribution across California and up the West Coast.
To realize that transformation, the Societe team focused on maintaining quality as they increased quantity, even at the expense of margins.
“We weren’t even looking at costs then,” Gowan says. “Now, we’ve buttoned it down. We’re leaner, and we’re more profitable.”
Since 2022, production has grown by only 5 percent, but the margins are wider. What’s oiling the metaphorical cogs in Societe’s machine? It’s largely the same data they’ve been collecting since their earlier days—but Gowan and his team are looking at that information differently now.