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Drinks industry consultants
Yes: if you design breweries, develop recipes, scale up processes or advise brewers on duty and HMRC approval, you should hold professional indemnity insurance. A brewer who follows your advice and ends up with infected tanks, a brewhouse that cannot reach its volumes or a duty bill it did not expect will look to you for the loss, and public liability is not designed to answer that claim. If you only teach or offer occasional informal tips, your exposure is smaller, but rarely nil.
Part of: Professional indemnity for consultants
In short
Brewing consultants are paid for judgement on kit sizes, process settings, cleaning regimes, recipes and compliance. When that judgement is wrong, the result is usually financial loss, not an accident, so it falls to professional indemnity (PI) rather than public liability. Since 1 August 2023 UK Alcohol Duty has been charged on the pure alcohol in a product, at rates set by ABV band, and Small Producer Relief and Draught Relief apply only below 8.5% ABV. Producers need HMRC approval before they start brewing, and steam plant and pressurised vessels can fall under the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000. No law requires you to hold PI.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026 by the Apex professional indemnity team.
Public liability insurance answers for accidents, such as a hose that floods the unit next door while you are on site. It is not built for the claim a brewing consultant is most likely to face: that the brewery did exactly what you advised and lost money as a result.
That loss takes many forms. Tanks of beer poured away after an infection the client blames on your cleaning regime. A brewhouse that cannot turn round enough brews because the fermenting capacity you specified was too small. A pale ale that came out stronger than planned and now pays duty at a higher rate. Each is an allegation that your advice fell below the standard of a competent brewing consultant, which is the ground professional indemnity (PI) insurance usually covers.
If you also sell equipment, ingredients or beer, injury or damage caused by those goods is a product liability question. PI is for the advice and design.
The scenarios below are illustrative only. They are not real claims, but they show the allegations brewing consultants can face.
None of these is an accident in the public liability sense. Each says that a competent brewing consultant would have advised differently.
Disputes with brewing consultants usually turn on the rules the brewery has to live by. These were the main ones in October 2026.
| Rule | What it says | Why it matters for your PI |
|---|---|---|
| Alcohol Duty (Finance (No. 2) Act 2023, Part 2) | In force from 1 August 2023. Duty is based on the amount of pure alcohol in a product. HMRC sets rates by product and ABV band: 1.3% to 3.4%, 3.5% to 8.4%, 8.5% to 22%, and stronger than 22%. | Recipe strength is a tax decision as well as a brewing one. |
| Small Producer Relief | Lower rates on products below 8.5% ABV for producers whose output contained 4,500 hectolitres or less of pure alcohol in the previous production year (1 February to 31 January) and who expect to stay within that limit. Not available on products made under licence. | Advice on growth and brand licensing can change a client’s duty position. |
| Draught Relief | Lower rates for products below 8.5% ABV in containers that hold 20 litres or more and connect to a pump system or gas-pressurised drinks tap. | Pack format advice has a duty consequence. |
| Alcoholic products producer approval (APPA) | Since 1 February 2025 every producer of alcoholic products has needed an APPA before it starts producing. HMRC aims to process applications within 45 working days, and producing without approval is an offence. | Set-up timetables you write depend on it. |
| Food registration and HACCP | A brewery must register as a food business, and should do so at least 28 days before trading. It must have a food safety management system based on HACCP principles. | Process and cleaning procedures you write often become part of that system. |
| Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 | Apply to systems containing a relevant fluid, such as steam at any pressure or compressed or liquefied gas above 0.5 bar. Anyone who designs or supplies a pressure system must make sure it is properly designed and built (reg. 4), and the user needs a written scheme of examination before operating it (reg. 8). | Specifying steam plant, gas systems or pressurised vessels can bring you within the design duty. |
| Strength labelling | The alcoholic strength must appear on the label or directly on the container. | A strength you help set ends up on the pack. |
| Usually covered by PI | Often excluded or limited | Needs a different policy |
|---|---|---|
| Negligent brewhouse design, equipment specification and capacity planning | Promises of a guaranteed output, yield, strength or shelf life | Injury or damage caused by beer, equipment or ingredients you sell (product liability) |
| Process, recipe and cleaning advice that leads to spoiled batches | The brewery’s own cost of withdrawing beer from the trade | Recalling product from pubs, shops and customers (product recall insurance) |
| Wrong advice on duty bands, reliefs and HMRC approval, where your policy includes it | Fines and penalties imposed on you or your client | Accidental damage at a client’s brewery during a visit (public liability) |
| Errors in procedures and training material you write | Claims that equipment you supplied was faulty, rather than that your advice was wrong | Injury to people you employ (employers’ liability) |
| Defence costs, including brewing science and engineering experts | Work for clients in the USA or Canada, unless agreed in advance | Your laptop, test kit and samples (office or contents cover) |
Cover always depends on the wording and on the insurer accepting the risk. Check how your policy describes your business: “brewing consultancy” may not obviously include brewery design, equipment procurement or duty advice unless the description says so.
Since Alcohol Duty moved to a strength-based system on 1 August 2023, a fraction of a percent of ABV can change what a beer costs to sell. Three thresholds matter most.
Scale-up is where strength drifts. Efficiency, attenuation and dilution behave differently on a pilot kit and a production plant, so a recipe that finished at 8.2% in trials can land at 8.5% at scale. Put target ABV ranges in your specifications and flag in writing any change that could push a product across a band.
Be clear where your advice ends. A producer’s eligibility for relief, its returns and its records are matters for its accountant. If you do advise on duty, tell your insurer and keep a note of the production figures the client gave you.
Set-up work is the largest exposure most brewing consultants have, because a specification error ends up built in stainless steel. Settle three questions first.
If you take commission from equipment suppliers, tell the client and tell your insurer. A dispute about the kit you recommended soon becomes a dispute about why you recommended it.
No regulator sets a PI limit for brewing consultants. Brewing groups and drinks companies write a minimum into consultancy agreements, and investors backing a new brewery may ask to see your cover. Start-ups rarely name a figure, so size the limit on the largest loss a project could produce: the plant, the beer in tank and some weeks of lost production, not your fee.
Check whether a contract asks for cover “each and every claim” or “in the aggregate”. An infection problem running through several batches, or one design flaw repeated at two sites, can produce more than one claim in a year.
PI answers claims first made while a policy is live, whenever the advice was given. A brewhouse you specify this year may not show its weaknesses until it runs at full capacity two or three years later. Keep cover continuous, keep your retroactive date when you change insurer, and arrange run-off if you stop consulting. See run-off cover explained for how it works.
A complete proposal gets better terms than a bare one, and a broker can only present what you tell us. Have these ready:
Speak to a broker
PI for brewing consultants, placed by a named broker
Start the online proposal and save it as you go, or leave your number and a named broker will call you back, usually the same working day.
Apex Insurance Brokers is an independent insurance broker based in Bristol, established in 2009 and authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are not tied to one insurer: we work with over 30 markets, including Lloyd’s syndicates through wholesale brokers, and every client has a named broker who handles the placement, mid-term changes, certificates for clients and the renewal.
Yes, if brewers act on your advice. Brewery design, equipment specification, recipe scale-up, cleaning regimes and duty advice can all cause financial loss without any accident: spoiled beer, extra vessels or a higher duty bill. Public liability is not designed for those claims. PI covers your liability for them, and the cost of defending them, subject to the policy terms.
No. Breweries need HMRC approval to produce alcohol and must register as food businesses, but no law requires the consultants who advise them to hold PI. In practice brewing groups, drinks companies and investors often make PI a condition of appointment, and the limit they want is usually written into the consultancy agreement.
It can. If the brewer alleges that your process, recipe or cleaning advice was negligent and caused the spoilage, PI is designed to respond, subject to the wording. If the brewer simply ignored your instructions, there may be no liability to pay, but the policy can still meet the cost of defending the allegation.
Only if your policy treats that advice as part of your professional business. Many brewing consultants explain the ABV bands and reliefs, but a policy written for “brewing consultancy” may not obviously include duty advice. Tell the insurer you give it, and involve the client’s accountant in decisions about its duty position.
Usually not. Withdrawing and recalling product from pubs, shops or customers is normally excluded from PI and is a matter for product recall insurance, which the brewery buys for itself. If the brewer then claims that your negligent advice caused the recall, PI may respond to that claim, subject to the terms.
PI usually covers the advice and specification side of your work. If equipment you sell injures someone or damages property, that is a product liability claim, and disputes about faulty goods are usually contractual matters that PI does not cover. Describe both activities on your proposal so each policy can be arranged to fit.
Apex arranges professional indemnity insurance for brewing consultants across the UK. Tell us about your work and we’ll find cover that fits. Or call 0117 325 0027.
Start your PI proposal Call 0117 325 0027Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales, company number 07014570. This page is general information, not advice on your individual circumstances. Cover is always subject to the insurer’s acceptance and the policy terms, and this page does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.
