AI for hospitality
AI for Australian breweries and distilleries.
Three different revenue lines run through one inbox: cellar-door bookings, wholesale accounts and event hire. We build the AI that takes the taproom and tasting bookings, captures the stockist enquiry before it slips, and books the venue hire that fills your quiet nights, all while your staff stay on the bar. Licensing, RSA and excise stay with the licensee.
Plugs into the stack you already run
- Square, a taproom POS or a brewery management platform (sales + cellar door)
- a bookings tool for tastings, tours and venue hire
- Untappd, Instagram, Facebook and Google (where enquiries and reviews land)
- a wholesale order system or distributor portal for stockist accounts
- Xero or MYOB (invoicing, accounts + excise records)
What can AI actually do for a brewery or distillery?
It fills the cellar door by taking taproom and tasting bookings around the clock, captures the wholesale and stockist enquiries that decide whether a new bottle-shop or venue account ever happens, and books the venue hire and events that fill your quiet weeknights. It answers the repeat questions, hours, dog-friendly, tour times, do you ship, so your bar staff stay pouring. Liquor licensing, RSA and the ATO alcohol excise are never the AI's domain and stay with the licensee. The AI runs the bookings and enquiry desk, not the bar and not the still.
The one that eats the week
What actually swamps a brewery.
Three revenue lines, one inbox, and a team that is pouring beer not answering email. A brewery or distillery makes money three ways and they all arrive as enquiries through the same channels. The cellar door and taproom need tasting and tour bookings taken, including the after-hours and weekend ones that decide a Saturday session. Wholesale is the growth engine, a bottle shop, a pub or a restaurant asking to stock you, and that enquiry quietly slipping is a recurring account lost for good. Events and venue hire fill the dead weeknights, a birthday, a work do, a beer-and-food night. Every one of those lands while the team is on the bar or in the brewhouse, so the booking sits, the stockist goes cold, and the event books somewhere that replied.
What you're doing now · What we'd ship instead
The before and after, in plain terms.
You, today
Taproom and tasting bookings get missed after hours
The booking enquiry for Saturday's session lands at 9pm when nobody is on email, so it sits until Monday and the group books the brewery up the road that replied that night.
Wholesale enquiries slip and a recurring account is gone
A bottle shop or pub asking to stock you is the growth engine, and that one email going cold is not a lost sale, it is a lost ongoing account. Nobody chases it because everyone is on the bar.
Event and venue-hire enquiries go unanswered
The birthday, the work function, the beer-and-food night that would fill a dead Tuesday lands mid-service and waits, so it books at a venue that answered while you were pouring.
The same questions, all day, pull staff off the bar
Hours, dog-friendly, tour times, do you ship, is there food. Whoever is pouring stops to answer it again, on the phone and in the DMs, all through service.
Sunny weekends bring more enquiries than the bar can field
A long weekend or a hot Saturday packs the beer garden and floods the inbox at the same time. The overflow is bookings and accounts you simply cannot catch.
You look quiet when the taproom is packed
Unanswered enquiries and slow replies read as a brewery that has gone quiet, even when the bar is three deep. The bigger producers have someone on bookings and it shows.
You, with us
Cellar-door and tasting bookings taken around the clock
The AI takes the taproom, tasting and tour bookings the moment they come in, day or night, captures the group size and the detail, and hands you a clean booking, so the after-hours enquiry is locked not lost.
Every wholesale enquiry captured and routed to you
A bottle-shop, pub or restaurant stockist enquiry is captured with the detail and pushed straight to you to close, so the growth-engine account never quietly slips away.
Event and venue-hire enquiries caught and booked
The birthday, the work function and the beer-and-food night get a fast, friendly response and the details taken, so the dead weeknights fill instead of going to a venue that replied first.
The repeat questions answered, staff left on the bar
Hours, dog-friendly, tour times, shipping, food, answered instantly on Instagram, Facebook, the phone and Google in your voice, so the team stays pouring.
Sunny-weekend overflow caught, not lost
Long weekends and hot Saturdays no longer flood an unattended inbox. Every booking and account enquiry gets a fast response even when the bar is three deep.
You read as a switched-on, in-demand producer
Fast replies, bookings taken, accounts followed up. The customer and the buyer experience a brewery with its act together, because now the bookings side does.
A brewery or distillery is really three businesses sharing one inbox. There is the cellar door, which needs tasting and tour bookings taken, including the after-hours ones that fill a Saturday session. There is wholesale, the growth engine, where a bottle shop or a pub asking to stock you is not a single sale but a recurring account. And there is events and venue hire, the birthdays and work functions that fill the dead weeknights. All three arrive as enquiries through the same channels, and the people best placed to answer them are on the bar or in the brewhouse with both hands full. So the booking sits, the stockist goes cold, and the event books elsewhere. None of it is a product problem. It is a everyone-is-pouring-beer problem, and it is exactly what AI is built to carry.
Three revenue lines, one unattended inbox
Think about what each missed enquiry costs. A taproom booking that lands at 9pm and waits until Monday is a Saturday session gone to the brewery that replied that night. A wholesale enquiry that slips is not a lost sale, it is a lost ongoing account, month after month of revenue that never starts. A venue-hire enquiry that waits through service is a dead Tuesday that stays dead. Each one is a different kind of money, and all three leak for the same reason: nobody is free to answer while the bar is three deep.
A bookings agent answers all of it. It takes the cellar-door, tasting and tour bookings around the clock, captures the wholesale enquiry with the venue, the volume and the contact and routes it straight to you to close, and books the event hire with the details taken. The after-hours enquiry that used to sit unread is now a locked booking, and the growth-engine stockist account is in your hands instead of someone else’s.
The repeat questions and the review profile
Past the bookings sits the steady drain of the same questions, hours, dog-friendly, tour times, do you ship, is there food, that pull whoever is pouring off the bar to answer them again. The AI handles all of it instantly on Instagram, Facebook, the phone and Google, in your voice, so the team stays on the taps. And it keeps your Untappd and Google reviews replied to on a schedule, so your profile stays fresh and the next person searching for a Saturday brewery sees one that is paying attention.
Where the line sits, and it does not move
This part is firm, and it is firmer here than almost anywhere. A brewery or distillery sits under two heavy regimes at once. The alcohol you make is excisable under the Excise Act 1901 and needs an ATO excise manufacturer licence with strict records and duty. Selling and serving it needs a state liquor licence and Responsible Service of Alcohol, with the legal duty on the licensee. The AI touches none of that and must never appear to. It never serves, sells or confirms service of alcohol, never gives licensing, excise, RSA or duty advice, and the moment anything turns to age verification, intoxication, refusal of service, licensing or excise, it goes straight to the licensee or RSA-trained staff. The agent books and captures underneath your licensed business, it never steps over the line into the bar or the still.
Sunny weekends are when it earns its keep
The value spikes when the weather and the calendar do. Sunny weekends and long weekends pack the beer garden and flood the inbox at the same time, the spring-to-summer stretch and the December party season is the peak for tastings and venue hire, and wholesale ranging conversations bunch ahead of the festive period when venues lock their lists. Those are exactly the windows when a small producer cannot also be answering an overflowing inbox. An always-on bookings desk catches the surge you would otherwise lose, without an office person you only need for the busy season.
If you want the broader picture across food and drink, the AI for Australian cafes and restaurants guide goes deep on the whole hospitality stack, and the hospitality overview maps where each piece fits. When you are ready, book a free 30-minute audit and Jenn will name the two or three agents worth building first for your brewery, quoted fixed in AUD.
Concrete, not hand-wavy
What the AI actually does for a brewery.
- Takes cellar-door, taproom, tasting and tour bookings around the clock and hands you a clean booking with the group size and detail.
- Captures wholesale and stockist enquiries from bottle shops, pubs and restaurants and routes them straight to you to close.
- Books venue hire and events, birthdays, work functions, beer-and-food nights, and takes the details for your quiet weeknights.
- Answers the repeat questions (hours, dog-friendly, tour times, do you ship, is there food) on Instagram, Facebook, phone and Google in your voice.
- Replies to Untappd and Google reviews on a schedule with a warm, on-brand response to keep your profile fresh.
- Escalates any RSA, age-verification, intoxication, licensing or excise matter straight to the licensee or RSA-trained staff, never handling it as a bot.
- Sends polite reminders on event deposits and overdue wholesale invoices from Xero or MYOB.
- Drafts the social post from a new release or an upcoming tasting for your approval.
Where the line sits
A brewery or distillery in Australia operates under two heavy regulatory regimes at once, and neither is ever the AI's domain. First, alcohol it manufactures, produces or stores is excisable under the Excise Act 1901 and requires an excise manufacturer licence from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), with strict record-keeping and excise duty obligations, and it is an offence to manufacture excisable alcohol without that licence. Second, selling and serving alcohol requires the relevant state liquor licence (such as a producer's liquor licence) and the Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA): staff must be RSA-trained, intoxicated or underage people must not be served, and the licensee carries the legal duty. The AI must never give licensing, excise, RSA or duty advice, never make a representation about your licence or excise position, never serve, sell or confirm service of alcohol, and never handle an intoxication, age-verification or refusal-of-service situation. Any RSA, age, intoxication, licensing or excise matter is escalated to the licensee or RSA-trained staff immediately, because the licensed and excise-bearing decisions stay with the licensee and the certified team, not a bot. The AI takes bookings, captures wholesale enquiries and answers logistics; the humans own the licence, the bar and the excise.
The cost question, answered straight
What this runs for a brewery.
A single wholesale account captured rather than lost is recurring monthly revenue that covers the system many times over, and one filled venue-hire night on a dead Tuesday adds to it. For a small producer, the bookings and accounts you stop losing to slow replies, plus the staff hours kept on the bar, typically pay the system back inside the first month.
Where most breweries & distilleries start
The packages we'd actually quote you on.
AI Front Desk
An always-on receptionist for service businesses, answers enquiries after 5pm, books appointments, sends reminders, escalates the tricky ones.
The flagship for a brewery. Takes cellar-door, tasting and event bookings around the clock and captures wholesale enquiries, so nothing slips while staff are on the bar.
$1,500 AUD setup + $199 AUD/month
Read the brief →
AI Lead Engine
Every enquiry triaged, qualified and replied to in your voice, in under 5 minutes, even at 11pm on a Sunday.
Chases the wholesale and venue-hire enquiries so a stockist account or a booked event does not go cold.
$2,000 AUD setup + $499 AUD/month
Read the brief →
AI Content Engine
A content production line in your brand voice, Instagram, LinkedIn, blog, newsletter, drafted, scheduled, and refined from what actually performs.
Turns a new release or an upcoming tasting into an on-brand Instagram post and keeps your Untappd and Google reviews replied to. You approve, it posts.
$1,500 AUD setup + $499 AUD/month
Read the brief →
The short version
- The killer workflow for a brewery or distillery is three revenue lines, cellar-door bookings, wholesale accounts and event hire, all arriving in one inbox while the team is on the bar.
- AI takes the taproom and tasting bookings, captures the wholesale enquiries before they slip, and books venue hire, while staff stay pouring.
- A producer is licensed by the ATO for excise (Excise Act 1901) and by the state for liquor, with RSA duties; the AI never serves alcohol, never gives licensing or excise advice, and escalates every RSA and licensing matter to the licensee.
- A single captured wholesale account is recurring revenue that covers the system many times over, with filled event nights and saved bar hours on top.
Real questions breweries & distilleries ask
Before-you-book questions.
Will the AI serve alcohol or handle RSA situations?
Never, and that line is absolute. Serving and selling alcohol requires a state liquor licence and Responsible Service of Alcohol, and the legal duty sits with the licensee and RSA-trained staff. The AI takes bookings and captures enquiries, but it never serves, sells or confirms service of alcohol, and any RSA, age-verification, intoxication or refusal-of-service situation is escalated to the licensee or RSA-trained staff immediately. The bar, the licence and the duty of care stay entirely with your team.
Does the AI touch licensing or alcohol excise?
No. A brewery or distillery is licensed by the ATO for excise under the Excise Act 1901 and by the state for liquor, and both carry serious obligations and record-keeping. The AI never gives licensing, excise or duty advice and never makes a representation about your licence or excise position. Those matters are escalated to the licensee. The AI's job is bookings, wholesale enquiries and logistics, the licensed and excise-bearing decisions stay with you.
How does it help with wholesale accounts?
It treats a stockist enquiry as the high-value lead it is. When a bottle shop, pub or restaurant asks to stock you, the AI captures the detail, the venue, the volume, the contact, and routes it straight to you to close, then follows up so it does not go cold. It does not negotiate or set terms, that is yours, but it makes sure a recurring-revenue account never slips away in a busy inbox.
I'm a small producer with a taproom. Is this overkill?
It is the opposite. A small producer is exactly where everyone is on the bar or in the brewhouse, with nobody free to take the after-hours booking, capture the stockist email or book the venue hire. The bookings desk is what lets a small brewery fill the cellar door, catch wholesale accounts and book events that a bigger producer catches with an office, without hiring one. It is the cheapest way to run like a bigger operation.
We build this Australia-wide
Every agent we ship is remote-first, so we work with breweries & distilleries across the country. AI consultants in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Gold Coast, Newcastle , or anywhere in Australia.
If you run a brewery business, book the 30-minute audit.
Jenn maps your business live on the call, names the two or three highest-ROI agents we'd build for a brewery, and quotes them fixed in AUD on the spot. No deck. No pitch theatre. No obligation.
Or email Jenn directly: jenn@onautopilot.com.au, reply within 1 business day, AEST.