A brewery isn’t a bar with a kettle: the cellar crew is hourly and earns real overtime, the taproom is tipped and needs top-ups, and both sit on one EIN. WageTime runs the two as one payroll.
A brewery’s payroll problems don’t look like a restaurant’s. Half your people never see a tip and routinely clear forty hours; the other half live on tips and top-ups; and a few do both in the same week. Each card below is either a founder’s Sunday-night chore or a wage liability quietly fermenting.
Production is hourly, non-tipped, and physical: brewers, cellar hands, packaging crew. The taproom is tipped: pours, growler fills, flight sales. One is an overtime story, the other a tip-credit story, and they share a single EIN and a single pay run.
A double brew day, a cellar transfer that runs long, a canning line that jams: production weeks cross forty on the regular. Non-tipped overtime is normal here, not an exception, and any canning-day or weekend-brew differential has to fold into the rate before the premium is figured.
Every brewery with a taproom eventually asks whether the packaging or cellar crew can be cut into the tip pool. The answer turns entirely on one thing: whether you take the tip credit. Guess wrong and you’ve built a pool the FLSA doesn’t allow.
Your taproom lead helps package on Wednesday; a cellar hand bartends on Saturday. That’s two rates in one week, so overtime is owed on the blended rate, and for the tipped hours the math runs on the full minimum wage, not the $2.13 cash line.
You cost ingredients by batch, but labor lands in one lump on the P&L. Which brand, which packaging run, which taproom shift ate the hours stays a guess unless someone codes every timecard by hand.
Where the state lets you self-distribute, someone drives kegs and cases to accounts. That driver isn’t hourly-in-the-taproom and isn’t salaried-in-the-office: they’re paid by the mile, the stop, or the load, with mileage on top.
WageTime runs the brewhouse and the taproom as two departments inside one company: a single EIN files every federal, state, and local tax while production keeps its overtime rules and the taproom keeps its tip rules.
| Employee | Basis | Week gross |
|---|---|---|
| Sam O. · Brewhouse40.0 reg · 4.0 OT hrs | Hourly | $1,012.00 |
| Renata C. · Cellar/packaging40.0 reg · 1.5 OT hrs | Hourly | $913.21 |
| Ivy L. · Taproom30.0 reg · 0.0 OT hrs | Tipped + hourly | $624.30 |
| Marcus T. · Taproom26.0 reg · 0.0 OT hrs | Tipped + hourly | $431.20 |
Replaces two disconnected payrolls (or one that pretends the brewhouse and the taproom are the same job) and the year-end reconciliation between them.
Tip-pool eligibility turns on one decision: the tip credit. Take none and pay full minimum in cash, and federal law allows a nontraditional pool that includes the cellar and packaging crew; take the credit and the pool stays with customarily tipped taproom roles.
| Name | In pool | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Ivy L.Taproom lead | Yes | Full min + pool share |
| Marcus T.Bartender | Yes | Full min + pool share |
| Dani R.Packaging (helps taproom) | Yes | Full min + pool share |
| Sam O.Head brewer | No | Hourly, no pool |
| Priya K.Taproom manager | Excluded | Salary, excluded |
Replaces the tip pool built on a guess, and the back-pay exposure when a credit-taking brewery quietly cut the cellar crew in.
Overtime is the normal case on the production side, and WageTime figures it the way the rule requires: differentials fold into the regular rate first, and the weighted-average engine blends every rate worked before applying time-and-a-half past forty.
Replaces the canning-day premium that never reached the overtime rate, and the back-pay the brewery owes once someone runs the blend.
WageTime job-costs hours and pay to the batch, brand, or packaging run they belong to, so the IPA run and the Saturday taproom shift finally show their own labor instead of landing as one lump on the P&L.
| Batch / brand | Prod hrs | Labor cost |
|---|---|---|
| Summit IPAIPA-0714 · canning run | 62.0 | $1,364.00 |
| Fog Line HazyHAZY-0709 · brite tank | 28.5 | $598.50 |
| AmberAMB-0711 · cellar transfer | 19.0 | $399.00 |
| TaproomTAP-0712 · Sat service | 34.0 | $612.00 |
Replaces the labor line nobody can break down, and the timecards someone re-codes by hand to guess a batch cost.
Taproom punches and production hours land in one review screen, matched to the pay period and grouped by department: WageTime imports clock hours from whatever system each side runs. Tell us your taproom POS and production system on the demo; we’ll confirm the exact flow.
| Department | Reg hrs | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Brewhouse5 people · 14.5 OT hrs | 198.0 | Ready |
| Cellar/packaging8 people · 22.0 OT hrs | 312.5 | Ready |
| Taproom16 people · 3.5 OT hrs | 486.0 | Ready |
| Delivery2 people · 0.0 OT hrs | 78.0 | 1 awaiting approval |
Replaces the export-reformat-upload ritual between the taproom POS, the brewery system, and payroll every single cycle.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoYes. WageTime runs the brewhouse and the taproom as departments inside one company, so a single EIN files every tax while each side keeps its own rules. Production is hourly with real overtime; the taproom carries tip earning codes and state top-ups. Anyone who works both in a week has overtime figured on the weighted-average of their rates.
Tip-pool eligibility depends on the tip credit. If you take no tip credit and pay the full minimum wage in cash, federal law lets you run a nontraditional mandatory pool that includes non-tipped back-of-house staff. If you take the tip credit, the pool stays among customarily tipped taproom roles. Managers and supervisors can never keep or share it. WageTime configures whichever you run.
A cellar hand who bartends on weekends works a production rate and a tipped rate in one week, so overtime is figured on the weighted-average of the two. For the taproom hours the premium builds on the full minimum wage: at the federal floor, $5.76 in cash per overtime hour ($10.88 less the $5.12 tip credit). WageTime blends the two rates and applies the premium on the run.
Yes. A shift differential folds into the regular rate before overtime is figured, so time-and-a-half on the base rate alone underpays. WageTime carries canning-day, weekend-brew, and other differentials as pay codes and blends every rate worked that week into the regular rate before applying the premium, which is what the rule requires.
Yes. WageTime job-costs hours and pay to cost codes up to 40 alphanumeric characters, so you can code time to a batch number, a brand, or a packaging run and report labor cost by project and crew. Totals carry to the GL export and post to QuickBooks mapped by department, keeping the brewhouse and taproom on separate lines.
Yes. Delivery drivers can be paid on per-mile, per-stop, or per-load pay codes with mileage reimbursement, alongside your hourly and tipped staff on one run. Pricing is $50 per month per company plus $10 per month per person paid that month, no long-term contracts. The 31-person brewery in these screens comes to $360 for the month. Runs are unlimited, so off-cycle checks cost nothing extra.
Bring one week: the brewhouse hours, a canning-day differential, the taproom tips, and your tip-pool setup. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo brewery, and you’ll watch production overtime, a taproom top-up, and labor costed by batch all come off one run.
Book a 20-minute demo