Emerging Beverage Brands
Founders moving from concept, bench trials, or pilot batches into their first production run.
Beverage formulation & operations consulting
Sutro Beverage Consulting
Beverage operations, formulation, and production strategy grounded in real-world experience.
Who I Help
For beverage teams moving from idea to production.
Breweries, Cideries & Wineries
Teams refining recipes, production systems, quality programs, staffing, or scale.
RTD, NA & Functional Drinks
Brands developing thoughtful, shelf-stable beverages with purpose, flavor, and repeatability.
CPG & Co-Manufacturing Teams
Operators needing better production planning, vendor coordination, launch support, or troubleshooting.
Services
Practical support across formulation, production, and launch.
Formulation & R&D
Recipe development, bench trials, sensory planning, shelf-life considerations, and production-ready formulas.
Production & Operations
Production calendars, SOPs, batch planning, quality checkpoints, inventory, and process improvement.
Co-Manufacturing Support
Co-packer sourcing, trial coordination, vendor communication, run readiness, and production troubleshooting.
Launch & Scale-Up
Helping brands move from idea or pilot batch into repeatable commercial production.
Process
A clear path from concept to commercial reality.
Discovery
We talk through your product, goals, constraints, timeline, and current production reality.
Formulation & Planning
I help translate the idea into a workable recipe, production plan, and next steps.
Pilot & Production
We coordinate trials, troubleshoot process issues, and prepare for commercial runs.
Launch & Improve
After production, we review what worked, tighten systems, and build toward repeatability.
Selected Work
Real-world beverage work across categories, scales, and production environments.
Plant-Based Beverage Launches
Guided formulation and production planning for plant-based milks, coordinating R&D and co-packer trials across multiple states.
Sparkling Functional Beverages
Developed a sparkling, caffeinated kava beverage focused on flavor, function, and shelf stability.
Yaupon Sparkling Tea
Created a sparkling tea beverage using yaupon, the only naturally caffeinated plant native to the United States.
High-Volume Batched Cocktails
Supported batched cocktail production for a popular tequila brand serving music festival and large-event environments.
Brewery & Cidery Builds
Helped build breweries and cideries from the ground up, supporting equipment planning, production systems, staffing, recipes, quality, and launch operations.
International Brewing Experience
Spent three years brewing in Ukraine, helping build award-winning production programs and later supporting fundraising efforts during the war.
Experience
Built on production floors, brewery builds, launches, and hard-won operational lessons.
About Cory
Operator, brewer, and formulation consultant based in Portland, Oregon.
I’m Cory McGuinness, a beverage operator, brewer, and formulation consultant based in Portland, Oregon. I’ve spent more than 15 years working across breweries, cideries, wineries, co-manufacturers, and emerging CPG brands — helping turn ideas into drinks that can actually be made, scaled, and sold.
My work has taken me from small production floors to international brewing projects, including three years in Ukraine. That experience shaped the way I think about beverage work: creative, practical, resilient, and deeply tied to people.
Today, I help founders and teams bridge the gap between a good idea and a production-ready beverage.
Creative where it matters. Practical where it counts.
Contact
Let’s Build Something Better
Have a beverage idea, production challenge, or launch plan that needs a sharper path forward? Send me a note and tell me what you’re working on.