Using AI in Your Brewery: A Legal Take on Maximizing the Tech Tool for Good

The North Carolina-based Beer Law Center is a boutique law firm focused on alcohol law, founded and owned by Szymankiewicz, a former engineer and project manager. After running out of steam in the engineering field, Szymankiewicz, an avid homebrewer with nearly three decades of experience crafting small-scale beer, pursued a career in law to focus on his true passions.

“I come to the law as Career 2.0,” Szymankiewicz says. “I enjoy drinking and making beer and love the industry.”

Szymankiewicz founded the Beer Law Center shortly after earning his law degree from NC Central University School of Law in 2010.

“We saw there wasn’t anyone dedicated to the craft beverage segment,” Szymankiewicz says. “And now that’s all I do.”

Since launching the firm, he has made it his mission to help breweries understand the legal issues surrounding the production of alcohol—an unusual segment with just a few dozen such practitioners in the country, according to Szymankiewicz.

The Beer Law Center can be viewed as a firm specializing in business law with an emphasis on alcohol-related matters, providing expertise in corporate structure, licensing, permitting, trademarks, federal law, and transactions involving buying and selling, among other services.

“We help sort through things and help you know what it all means,” Szymankiewicz says. “We found that over the years, Beer Law Center has become more of a business counselor.”

The benefits of using AI in a brewery boil down to two key factors: time and money.

“It saves you time that you spend on [a task],” Szymankiewicz says, “or the time you pay someone to spend on [a task].”

Szymankiewicz says, specific to the time it saves, “It can think much faster than we can; that’s the number one thing.”

If you’re interested, Szymankiewicz says that you can hypothetically spend six months training yourself to be a chief financial officer (CFO), or you could spend twenty minutes with AI and create a couple of good prompts that’ll get you some of the same insight for a fraction of the cost or time of hiring a professional..

“AI took something that would have cost a lot of money or time,” says Szymankiewicz, “and gave you a shortcut.”

Szymankiewicz adds, “AI is enabling people to do things they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise because it would have been cost-prohibitive or too time-intensive.”

As another example, he notes that businesses have used it to simulate the role of a chief marketing officer. The business would utilize AI and prompt it about a single product, including its demographics and release date, ultimately creating a marketing plan centered around the launch date.

“A professional marketer would have taken hours [to put together a plan], and this prompt tells me everything I need to do in seconds,” Szymankiewicz says. “It gives you structure and expertise you might not have had access to [before].”

AI took something that would have cost a lot of money or time, and gave you a shortcut.

John Szymankiewicz - Beer Law Center

Szymankiewicz adds, “And now you don’t have to hire a full-blown marketing person to do this. It can optimize saving money and time instead of outsourcing the work.”

Szymankiewicz says AI is a good tool, but it can become a crutch or even an anchor if relied on too heavily.

“How dependent on it are you?” Szymankiewicz ponders. “One of the things that is a huge issue is that AI is only as good as what you ask it. It’s all about the prompts and what you ask of it. If you’re not asking the right questions, you won’t get the answers you’re looking for.”

Szymankiewicz points out that you can use AI to create artwork or employment agreements, or even to analyze data. The drawback to using AI is that, if you aren’t asking it to ensure there is no trademark infringement with artwork, or the employment agreement includes (or doesn’t include) certain regulations or issues, or your data search is not specific, it might not end in a good result. “Don’t worry, you’ll always get a result, it just may not be the right one. And, if you rely on that incorrect answer or result, that can get you in trouble down the road.”

When using AI, there’s one point of emphasis Szymankiewicz stresses.

... it’s no substitute for individual knowledge or expertise in relating it to the real world.

John Szymankiewicz - Beer Law Center

“The effort should be proportional to risk,” he says. “For example, I work with companies buying other companies. The letter of intent is not as important as a purchase agreement. The risk is lower in a LoI (so long as it’s non-binding). But if you mess up the purchase agreement, that can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially if the deal goes south. So, make sure that the time and effort and investment you put into something are proportional to the risk associated. Bottom line: more money on the line? Don’t just rely on AI. “

All told, Szymankiewicz says that, based on his observations of AI usage in the craft beer segment, he hasn’t seen too many negative outcomes.

Not yet, at least.

“I think it’s because we’re still getting used to it,” he says. “I think we’re just starting to see some breweries dip their toes in the water in different ways.”

Conversely, Szymankiewicz says he’s seen more adverse effects on the industries that breweries support.

For instance, with artwork, “A freelance designer that charges $400 a pop for can artwork, now with breweries using AI, there may be rebalancing there. There may be breweries out there saying, ‘AI can do it, I don’t need that designer anymore.’ And, just like that, you’ve had an impact on that individual who was creating art for you.”

Szymankiewicz admits that AI will certainly have a ripple effect in craft beer.

“Breweries are an economic win for the community, with the industries it uses like vendors, food trucks, artists, events, advertising, et cetera,” he says. “There will be a ripple effect to lower costs to do things better, faster, cheaper. And it may not be a comfortable change.”

One example of AI in use in a real-world situation that Szymankiewicz has seen includes a simple waiver of potential injury.

“Someone did a waiver for something like ‘Brewery Olympics’ which included keg tossing, keg stands, can crushing, and all these fun things to do with prizes,” Szymankiewicz recalls. “If you participated, you had to sign a waiver because something could happen. Low risk overall. Use AI for that. That’s probably fine, as long as you have the right prompt.”

With a number of AI tools out there nowadays—it’s not just ChatGPT anymore—Szymankiewicz says if you are unsure what prompts to provide, there is an AI tool you can use that creates in-depth prompts to fill in any gaps.

“Use other tools out there, like Prompt Cowboy, if you don’t know how to go about this,” he says.

Another outlet Szymankiewicz has seen breweries utilize AI is for creating artwork as well as beer recipes.

“I’ve seen folks prompt AI about what hops and grains they have and ask what beer they can make in a certain size batch,” he says. “It’s also a good tool for market research. Ask it something like, ‘Based on Untappd data and recent trends, what’s a beer we should make?’ Or ‘Given our current sales numbers, what style of beer would sell well and be more likely to have a lower cost of goods sold?’”

Szymankiewicz adds, “You can ask, ‘What’s a cheaper hop than X that can give me a similar flavor,’ and AI can do the research for it.”

Szymankiewicz cites an instance where he was part of a triangle taste test, where a brewery used the same system at the same location with the same recipe, with one beer created using AI, one from a craft beer recipe book, and the third created by the head brewer.

“We went through a couple rounds and I was surprised that they were all within two to three points of each other,” Szymankiewicz says. “What that told me is AI may be a good tool for recipe creation.”

He adds, “Here’s what it doesn’t tell you: AI doesn’t know the system, hop utilization, kettle heating, how it is mashed, whether you centrifuge. It can give you a place to start, but it’s no substitute for individual knowledge or expertise in relating it to the real world.”

Photo by Josh Olalde on Unsplash

Szymankiewicz says there are two camps of businesses: one that has a strong relationship with its lawyer and has frequent conversations, and one that only reaches out to a lawyer as a last resort. He believes it’s best to have a strong relationship with a lawyer so that, as a business, you can reach out and have quick conversations about certain matters before getting to the details.

“I want to be in a relationship that is mutually beneficial, I don’t want to waste your money, and you don’t want me to waste my time,” Szymankiewicz says. “Sometimes, as a lawyer, I have a template (of a document) that can do it fast. ”

“If you have a good relationship with the lawyer, earlier is better. Having discussions up front can be beneficial,” Szymankiewicz says. “Maybe I can do it faster than you can with AI. Maybe not. But, I can tell you that I know I’ve got lots of experience with my template and know what works and what doesn’t. Either way, let’s have a conversation on how best to meet your needs.”

“On the other hand, if you don’t have a strong relationship with a lawyer and only reach out when you have to, then I would say, reach out when you are ready to spend money to make sure it’s right.”

He adds that often the situation dictates whether you need to bring in a lawyer, which is truly dependent on the risk.

“You might think, ‘I never want to spend money, but if this is wrong, it could hurt really bad,’” Szymankiewicz says. “If you are uncertain if AI is accurate or is giving you the right result for you in your situation, that’s when a lawyer can help.”

Szymankiewicz says anecdotally (while maintaining client confidentiality) that when a business requests that he draft an employee agreement, he devotes time to learning everything there is to know about the business before putting pen to paper.

“I can bring more value because I know more,” Szymankiewicz says. “AI doesn’t have the specifics about you, your business, and your industry, and it’s hard to get that into a usable prompt.”

Szymankiewicz notes that while AI is a valuable tool, it has its limitations.

“AI is an assistant, it’s not a substitute for doing it,” he says. “Even in the best situations, AI will get you eighty percent there. You still have to do something.”

There is a significant gray area on some topics that extend beyond the surface-level information presented by AI platforms.

“You need someone with that second level of thought,” Szymankiewicz says.

That’s where experts in law, such as Szymankiewicz and the Beer Law Center, can help, ensuring that any document created by AI has no gaps or glaring issues.

Though not licensed in all fifty states, because the alcohol law field is so niche, Szymankiewicz can also put you in touch with a lawyer licensed in your state.

You can find everything you need to know at www.beerlawcenter.com and on all the social media sites @beerlawcenter, or email Szymankiewicz directly at [email protected].