You Need a Licence to Brew

This sounds obvious, but the reality of obtaining one is anything but straightforward. You must register with HMRC as a brewer before you produce a drop of beer. That means filling in the application, providing a reasonable estimate of your annual production, and waiting. And waiting. HMRC are notoriously slow to deal with. Your shiny new brewery could be sitting there, ready to go, racking up rent and loan repayments while you wait for approval to actually use it.

You need a separate registration for each premises where beer is produced. If you move, you register again. If you change your business structure, you register again. Every interaction with HMRC is another letter, another form, another wait.

And you can't just quietly start brewing while you wait. Producing beer without being registered is illegal. Full stop.