Brewing Tech Trends 2027 Part II Connected Growth Beyond the Brewery
This is Part II of our series on the tech trends reshaping the brewing industry in 2027. If you haven't already, read Part I first to discover why successful breweries won't necessarily be the ones that produce the best IPA or win the most medals.
In Part I, we explored how the market landscape has evolved and how breweries can use connected technology to adapt - from ERPs and real-time data to AI. The common thread is clear: breweries that thrive won't just make great beer; they'll build smarter, more efficient businesses.
But today, success means thinking beyond beer.
"You have to be more than a beer company," says Dustin Jeffers, VP brewery, product & experience at Next Glass. "It helps to diversify."
Building a smarter brewery today means building a smarter beverage company. For many producers, this means expanding into cider, spirits, wine, coffee, non-alcoholic beverages, THC drinks, or contract manufacturing.
"You need to make sure that people who come into your taproom want to stay longer because everyone in the group finds something for themselves," Jeffers explains. "And a broader range of people can find something to enjoy at your location."
The same philosophy applies behind the scenes. As beverage businesses become more diversified, the technology supporting them must become more connected - simplifying payments, wholesale ordering, and collaboration with customers and partners.
Trend #4: The Future of Beverage Payments - Less Manual Work, More Margin
Most breweries spend a great deal of time optimizing production. Very few devote the same attention to how they get paid. Yet for many producers, the primary operational bottleneck isn't production, packaging, or distribution - it's the order-to-cash process.
Traditionally, this process requires too many steps: sales teams create orders, accounting generates invoices, customers navigate separate payment portals, and finance teams spend hours reconciling transactions. Each step creates additional opportunities for delays, errors, and unnecessary administrative work.
As breweries look to operate more efficiently in 2027, embedded payments are becoming the next operational evolution. Instead of treating payments as a separate process, solutions like PaySmart - launched last March - bring orders, invoicing, payments, and reconciliation into a single operational workflow within Ekos or Ollie.
The impact goes beyond convenience. PaySmart makes EFT payments easy without ever leaving Ekos, improving cash flow, reducing reconciliation work, and giving finance teams greater visibility into outstanding invoices. Buyers benefit too: they enter their banking details once, manage invoices in a single portal, and avoid checks, postal delays, and late-payment fees.
"We built PaySmart in response to feedback from our nearly 2,000 producer customers, who were continually asking us for an affordable payment solution fully integrated into their core business management system," says Trace Smith, CEO of Next Glass. "For too long, our customers have suffered from overly expensive payment solutions and off-platform systems that required manual data exports."
In 2027, PaySmart will also introduce credit card payments, "allowing you to avoid using Fintech or QuickBooks payment links and do everything inside your ERP," Jeffers explains.
The financial impact adds up quickly: even a producer processing just 50 invoices per month can save up to $495 per year by eliminating hours of manual payment administration.
The breweries that gain an advantage in 2027 won't just produce more efficiently. They'll get paid more efficiently.
Trend #5: Retailer Ordering Should Be as Easy as Buying a Six-Pack
Consumers expect frictionless purchasing experiences. Beverage sales, on the other hand, have long depended on a familiar routine: a sales rep checks in on an account, a buyer places an order by phone or email, someone manually enters the order into the system, and the finance team follows up with invoices and payments.
As breweries grow, these manual touchpoints become one of the biggest hidden brakes on productivity: sales teams spend more time chasing orders than building relationships, and retailers have to wait for business hours to place orders.
"We're building a tool that makes sales reps more efficient," Jeffers explains. "You can stay top of mind with customers even when you're not physically there."
Digital ordering platforms like OrderHub allow bars, restaurants, and retailers to connect freely with self-distributing craft producers through a shared, centralized ordering experience. Buyers can browse available inventory and place orders whenever they want, while producers eliminate repetitive administrative work.
"And now your sales team can make account visits less focused on taking orders," Jeffers says, "and more focused on upselling and building the relationship."
Next year, the solution is simple: streamline the ordering experience and sell more beverages.
Trend #6: Copacking Without the Chaos
For many breweries, growth no longer comes only from selling more of their own beer. Increasingly, it comes from producing beverages for someone else.
Copacking has become one of the fastest-growing revenue opportunities for breweries, cideries, and beverage producers looking to maximize tank space and diversify their business. But each additional customer brings another layer of operational complexity - from managing dedicated inventories and production schedules to tracking raw materials and updating brand partners.
With Ekos's advanced copacking capabilities, brand partners can securely access the most important information - available raw materials, inventory levels, and production progress - without having to rely on constant emails or status updates.
"I can't imagine doing it without Ekos," says Olivia Schumack, Operations Director at Sociable Cider Werks. "We knew it would be a tool that would set us up for success."
The Future Belongs to Connected Breweries
For years, brewing technology has focused on improving efficiency in the brewhouse. And that's still extremely important. But looking ahead, we need to broaden the definition of what a brewhouse can do - it's not just about beer. Wine, cider, spirits, THC beverages, and much more are integrated into production schedules.
When production, inventory, accounting, payments, ordering, and customer collaboration work together, breweries spend less time managing administrative work and more time building stronger businesses.
Technology will never replace the creativity, passion, or craftsmanship that define this industry. But it can give brewers something equally valuable: more time to innovate, more confidence to grow, and more opportunities to build the next generation of successful beverage businesses.
Discover our selection of Italian Craft Beers - labels from breweries embracing innovation without compromising on quality.
