Top 5 Reasons Switching Brewery Management Software Is Easier than You Might Think

Photography courtesy of Chandy Island Brewing

At Ollie, we believe in the tagline Built by Brewers, for Brewers™. Brewers started Ollie to create a brewery management platform to solve problems in the brewing process that others in the industry couldn’t. We back that up with a team of people formerly involved in breweries who understand better than anyone what you need to get started.

Feingold himself owned and operated his own brewery. Emotionally invested in the industry, he is wholeheartedly committed to helping new breweries succeed because he understands the blood, sweat, and tears that go into making beer.

“People worry about the ease of moving because we’ve all had experiences where you’re promised the world: you know, over promise, under deliver,” says Feingold. “One thing I can say about our implementation is that we do everything we can [for the customer].”

Feingold says that he has worked with a number of customers who are impressed by the expertise and knowledge of the implementation staff.

“I thought I’d be on my own for the most part. I was pleasantly surprised,” Wayland Brewing Co-Owner and Brewer PJ Dunn says, who switched over from Beer30 after the cost kept climbing. “Adam had a well-thought-out cadence of meetings and had real structure. He laid it out, and we tailored the plan to what I needed.” Ollie had all the features Wayland needed, all at one price.

“I just think that’s a testament to, you know, how much we care, how much we put in,” Feingold says. “And our commitment to getting folks in, not only into the system but into the system as completely as possible.”

One of the biggest worries new breweries have before switching to Ollie is getting all the crucial information—ingredients, recipes, etc.—moved from one platform to the other.

We try to make it as easy as possible to capture your brewery and what's in it ...

Adam Feingold - Ollie

Ollie is all about making life easier for a brewery. Instead of having you type out all the materials you use in the brewhouse, Ollie queues it up for you.

“We try to make it as easy as possible to capture your brewery and what’s in it, so that way you’re not worried about importing your SRMs, fine grinds, and alphas,” Feingold says. “We lay out all the ingredients and materials.”

Ollie keeps it straightforward. If you use an ingredient and have a certain quantity in your inventory, Ollie will import it.

“So you just have to go through and click, click, click, click,” Feingold says, “and select the information you want.”

Good City Brewing Operations Manager Dane Mariani gushed about the comprehensive ingredient transfer.

“The importing sheets are robust, and they were super helpful,” Mariani says. “I still have them saved because I loved how all the most common suppliers were there.”

Mariani adds, “Having a landing spot with the import sheet was super helpful.”

Learning a new system can be daunting. It can be like going to a new grocery store and feeling lost because you can’t find anything. Ollie won’t let that happen, working with you every step of the way to make sure that you understand how to use the platform, whether one person or ten people on your team need to learn the ropes.

I went into it thinking I’d have to learn a lot, and Ollie did a phenomenal job,

Garrett Chambers - Cushwa Brewing Company

“We will optimize that journey to include who we need,” Feingold says. “To keep the people that don’t need to know out of it, and the people that need to know in it.”

Cushwa Co-Owner Garrett Chambers raved about Ollie’s customer service.

“I went into it thinking I’d have to learn a lot, and Ollie did a phenomenal job,” Chambers says. “Adam was proactive and was always available. I can’t say enough good stuff about the startup phase of this.”

Pedals & Pints made the switch to Ollie from Beer30 in November 2023. Head Brewer Monica Potter says the Beer30 onboarding and support were subpar, which is why they only lasted six months with that software. Ollie is notably different.

“We tried Beer30 first and, though the onboarding with them was really short, I didn’t feel like I was ready to use the product to its full potential,” Potter says. “Ollie was a different story. It was a lot easier to use. I felt way more supported. And I could use Ollie to the full capacity of its design.”

Potter adds, “The staff was super supportive. They want to make sure that you’re completely set up. And I felt that all of that support made us ready when we were completely out of onboarding, and everything was working correctly.”

At the beginning of onboarding, the Ollie implementation staff sets up your personal journey timeline, working with you to figure out how quickly or slowly you’d like to move through the process.

“One thing that we put a large emphasis on in the welcome call is timeliness. … We work with our customers actively to ensure they’re moving at the pace they want,” he says. “The expectation that we set in the beginning gives us a time when you want to be in, and we’ll get you in by [that] time as long as it’s reasonable.”

Feingold says that whether you work in quarters or months at a time, the onboarding staff at Ollie works hand in hand with breweries to accommodate based on their specific needs.

“Establishing that timeline makes it easy because you can almost have certain checkpoints where, you know, [you] get this [task] done,” Feingold says. “We’re not saying you need to have this all done in one week. Most of the time, we’re asking people, ‘When do you want to be in by?’”

Ollie’s team throws out a suggestion and works with the brewery to compromise on a time that works for them in a realistic cadence.

“Obviously, we want to get [a brewery] implemented and set up as fast as the customer wants to get set up,” Feingold says. “But I think it’s important to establish a timeline.”

Typically, Feingold says new brewery partners for ops spend around forty-five to fifty days getting up and running, while standard customers are somewhere around sixty to seventy-five days onboarding with Ollie.

“Factors that affect it are team size and external factors,” Feingold says. “Some folks sign up with the intention to begin using it on ‘X date’ and a number of other things.”

But the Ollie team can accommodate if you need to set up as fast or slowly as you need.

At Good City, Mariani says he had a hard timeline after cutting ties with Ekos. They had a month to see if Ollie was right, a timeframe they had before they had to choose to re-sign with Ekos for a year or make a switch. He felt nervous about whether Ollie could get him up to speed in time.

“I was concerned if we were going to have something in place,” Mariani says. “It all went great, and it met my expectations. There was no lag between services.”

There will always be bumps in the road whenever you learn a new platform. The Ollie team understands and wants to help you learn the platform’s best practices.

“That’s something we do encourage throughout the process,” Feingold says. “We want Ollie to be your truth … but you can learn things that can also save you time and build on your best practices.”

Feingold encourages you to check the FAQ section or reach out to Ollie’s support team with questions at any time; they’re happy to walk you through any part of the platform.

“Tickets can be submitted through our support channel and Zendesk,” Feingold says. “Our Customer Engagement & Support Specialist answers questions, directs inquiries, and will take or set up meetings for anything from showing someone how to use the system [for] retraining, training for new hires, or accounting walkthroughs.”

At the end of the day, Ollie’s team of former brewers and brewery owners just wants to set you up for success to brew your best beer possible.