When you look at just the raw materials that go into producing a beer, the margins are incredible. LeAnn Darland and her co-founder Tara Hankinson are hitting 95 to 96% gross margins on beer sold at their own taprooms.
LeAnn and Tara are the co-founders of TALEA Beer Company, a vertically integrated craft brewery with five taprooms across New York City and a sixth opening soon. They met in 2018, formed an LLC three months later, and opened their flagship Williamsburg location in 2021 — right in the middle of the pandemic. Today they're distributing to over 1,500 locations across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania while running a business that's equal parts brewery, hospitality operation and community hub.
Here's what I learned about building a capital-intensive business, delegating without losing control and why the bar might be the most profitable part of any restaurant.
Why are craft breweries turning to taprooms?
The economics are simple: If you're selling wholesale, you're giving up margin to distributors and retailers who are going to mark up your product anyway. If you can afford to build out your own space, you keep that margin for yourself.
"It costs about $1,700 in ingredients to produce 5,000 pints,” LeAnn explained. That breaks down to somewhere between 10 and 20 cents per glass, depending on the style. They're selling those beers for $10 to $13. The math works.
But it's not just about margin. It's about control. When you own the taproom, you control the customer experience, the brand presentation and the relationship with the people drinking your beer. You're not hoping a bartender recommends your IPA over the 10 other taps. You're the only option — and if you've built the space right, people want to be there.
Tara put it plainly: "The whole game is super tough and competitive and cutthroat and has low margins." The taproom model lets them compete on experience instead of price, and it's working. Their payback period on each taproom is less than two years.
How do you decide what to delegate and what to keep?
LeAnn and Tara knew from the start they weren't going to be the ones brewing the beer. They were homebrewers, but they didn't want to spend 10 years learning production at scale. They wanted to build the business. So they hired a head of production early and gave that person full ownership of the brewing operation.
"We want to build. We want to grow the business," LeAnn said. "So our head of wholesale is our second main hire."
They've since built out a leadership team that covers business operations, production, wholesale sales, private events and general management for each taproom. The team has been with them for anywhere from a year and a half to six years. That continuity matters. These aren't just employees — they're part of the brand's DNA.
What LeAnn and Tara refuse to let go of: the core of the brand. Every strategic decision about new product lines, new locations, new styles of service still belongs to them. Every beer label gets their approval. They're involved in site selection, marketing strategy and anything that shapes how customers experience TALEA.
"One of our secret sources is just basically the core of the brand and what we've created together," Tara said. "It couldn't be created in a lab in the back of Anheuser-Busch or something like that."
What does it take to turn a taproom into a third space?
TALEA (it’s pronounced tah-lay-uh) runs Pilates classes, speed dating events, entrepreneurship seminars and fertility talks in their taprooms. On paper, that's a media and community business operating inside a bar. In practice, it's a play for building community and signaling who the brand is for.
"It's not virtue signaling. It's literally signaling who we're building this company for when we curate these events," Tara explained.
Most of these events break even or are free. The revenue comes from people staying for a round of beers after the event. But the real value is in positioning TALEA as a third space — not home, not work, but somewhere you belong. That's especially important for audiences who've felt left behind by craft beer culture.
In New York, only 30% of craft beer drinkers are women. In more mature craft markets like Portland, it's closer to 50/50. LeAnn and Tara saw an opportunity to capture what they call "non-beer bros" — people who've been alienated by the hyper-hopped, bearded bro culture that's dominated craft beer for years.
Their mission is to expand the craft beer market beyond the typical craft beer drinker. The programming is how they do it. When you host a fertility talk led by LeAnn's own doctor, you're not just selling beer. You're creating a space where people feel seen.
How do you keep moving forward when everything else is falling apart?
LeAnn and Tara opened Williamsburg in 2021, but they signed the lease in November 2019. By the time they were ready to open, the pandemic had shut down their entire wholesale business. LeAnn's mother passed away. Tara was pregnant with twins who were born seven weeks early and went straight to the NICU. LeAnn was dealing with postpartum depression.
"The hardest part about running your business is like everything else that happens in life and still having to keep doing the business," LeAnn said.
What kept them going was focusing on what they could control. Construction was slowed because of the pandemic, but progress was still being made. They couldn't predict whether they'd have customers, but they could make sure the space was ready. They couldn't fix everything, but they could take the next step.
"There's only so much in your control," LeAnn said. "Try to not stress, not think, not sit and stew about all of the terrible things that could happen or did happen or are happening. Like what can you do in this moment to move things forward?"
That mindset has carried through to how they run the business today. When revenue is down, they don't panic. They ask: What tools are at our disposal? What can we control? The business is the thing they can move forward, even when everything else feels uncertain.
What can you take from LeAnn and Tara’s playbook?
Know your numbers cold. LeAnn and Tara can tell you exactly what it costs to produce a pint of beer and what they're selling it for. Having the right tools, including a retail POS system, can also give operators greater visibility into sales and performance. That clarity lets them make fast decisions about pricing, product mix and where to invest. If you don't know your unit economics, you're guessing.
Hire for what you're not good at. They knew they weren't fit to run a production brewery, so they hired someone who was. They knew sales wasn't what they wanted to do day-to-day, so they brought in a head of wholesale early. Delegate the things that drain you and double down on what only you can do.
Build community, not just transactions. The events TALEA runs aren't huge revenue drivers on their own, but they signal who the brand is for and create reasons for people to keep coming back. They offer fruit-forward flavors and changing stations in the bathrooms.
Focus on what you can control. When everything feels chaotic, ask yourself: What's the next step I can take right now? That's how you keep moving forward when the big picture feels overwhelming.
Protect the core of your brand. LeAnn and Tara have handed off almost everything operational, but they still own every strategic decision that shapes how customers experience TALEA. That's the line they won't cross, and it's why the brand still feels like theirs.
TALEA is more than beer, more than business
LeAnn and Tara built a brewery when conventional wisdom said it was a dying industry. They did it in the middle of a pandemic, while navigating personal crises that would have derailed most people. What they've built is more than a business. It’s a third place where customers who had been overlooked feel seen.
This is just a taste of the full story. Check out this episode of Beyond the Register for more.