Commercial beer production is fast, as fast as you can get it without causing problems. Typical cask ale (running ale because it is run out of the brewery) is a 72 hour ferment, cold crash close to FG (drop yeast), rack to conditioning tank the next day (drop yeast) then package the following day.You either need a VERY well behaved yeast or you fine your beer. We hate it, but the beer can be in the hands of the publican on day 6 or 7 from mashing in. The cask conditioning process and cellar has to deal with your sins! You can stick advice on the cask, but 99% of the time they ignore it anyway, you do it so you can say "did you read the label?".
For beers with a dry hop you get them in towards the end of fermentation, try and drag out the cold crash and then same rack to conditioning tank and package the following day. Most beers are lucky to see 3 days on the dry hop, usually 2, biggest challenge is dry hopping warm so they break up, the extract is much better, but still halting fermentation to allow the natural cask conditioning. 16C is popular with some, but we usually find a way to balance it. If you get it wrong you are priming casks on rack which everybody thoroughly hates.
For 'modern' craft keg and the like where the dry hop is the star we allow two weeks. 72 hour ferment. Towards the end dump some yeast, then dry hop, suspend hops with co2 daily until stable gravity is observed (typically 3-5 days) cold crash, transfer to conditioning tank at which point you batch prime (destined for cask, some keg products, this would be day 10) or force carbonate (destined for can, most keg products usually carb is on point day 12).
Improvements in this would be dry hopping once off the yeast as it runs off with a lot of your lovely hop oils and many crash to 14-16C to dump most of the yeast before dry hopping as a middle ground. Drawbacks include having to introduce the hops at the point where beer is most susceptible to oxygen pickup and a poorer extract at cooler temperatures at a later point where they can't have the luxury of extra time. This is why hop rockets exist to blow them in under inert gas. This is why hop torpedoes exist to circulate beer and speed this up. This is why double dry hop is a thing (these people have the luxury of tanks to spare). Rough filtration helps as well, but all these gadgets are to speed up the process, inline co2 systems, membrane co2 systems, all to speed it up.
That said if time is not money primary fermentation benefits from a 5-10 day process. You certainly do not need a month in a bucket, but you don't need to rush the beer out of fermenter in 72 hours. Dry hopping is worth doing off of the yeast if you can prevent oxygen ingress as yeast can grab three times the hop oil of beer so for every 2-3L of yeast you toss at the end you've just tossed 30-45% of your dry hop in a 20L batch. Commercially you need extra tanks and/or equipment for this and it is cheaper to just build it into your recipe, but you can at least give beers 3 days on a dry hop.
After that conditioning is personal preference. Depending on style I would drink immediately, or condition. Oxygen pickup has an awful lot to do with what happens during the conditioning process, not all of it is desirable. Hop aroma suffers the most, hop character next, bitterness drops off over time, malt flavours come up in the mix as a result, softer, sweeter, rounder. Not really what you want in a juice bomb, what you want in a bigger dark beer.
Perversely in low tech environments with poor control or understanding of oxygen pickup the beer is best rushed through as it stands the chance of being packaged before damage is done and while something fermentable remains and yeast are around to consume it.
Why rush the beer out? You want your plant working day and night not sat idle. If you can find a way to brew an extra time per week while keeping the beer acceptable you are making a lot more money. You don't want to store beer, you need a proper conditioning room, stock control, extra casks etc, you want the casks out there making you money, back just in time to be cleaned, filled and sent out again.
I've been home brewing for a party and have had only a limited amount of time to get things ready. I've brewed 6 beers. Every one has been in keg the following week from mashing in. Sunday to sunday. Pitch enough yeast (active starter) to get me down in the teens at hour 48, rouse, bring the heat up 2C, beer is pretty much done by hour 72, dry hop/add rubbish, rouse, keep at 23C and rouse daily for 3 days for extraction and diacetyl rest, chill the evening of the 6th day, keg on the evening of the 7th.
Brewed two dark beers first, one at 6.7%, another at 5.2%, these will have 3 weeks in keg before serving. Wheat (6%) and saison (6.7%) will have 2 weeks in keg and session IPA (4.9%) and my brut IPA (6.6%) will have only one week in keg. The bigger stout would benefit from longer tbh, figs, cranberries, but the weaker (strawberries) will be better as a younger beer. The wheat is fine after just a couple of weeks, the saison will be fresh and the IPA's will be super fresh, but this is proablly the best way I could have produced 6 beers in 5 weeks.
