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HaveADrinkOnMe

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Had anyone tried to obtain a liquor license to commercially brew and sell their Homebrew? I know living in Illinois you have to jump through more hoops than a circus animal, just wanted to see if anyone has gone through the process and their thoughts on it.
 
ReverseApacheMaster said:
If you get a commercial license you are no longer homebrewing.

Just because I wouldn't be brewing at home doesn't mean it's not my own Homebrew
 
HaveADrinkOnMe said:
I seriously can't be the only homebrewer that had the thought cross their mind to commercially brew beer

Hmm... you could be, though ;)

Cheers, pal.
 
No, but if you want to sell beer that you make, you have to get a small beer producer's license, a brewer's bond ($1000 if your state is cheap) and pay rent on a space that is not your home. Which makes any beer you produce there not home brew. You cannot, in any state, make beer you brewed in your home.

Hope you're lawyered up if you want to become a professional brewer- and that's what you'll be. If I play basketball, I'm a basketball player, but if someone pays me to play basketball for them, I'm a professional basketball player. You'd be a professional brewer with a licensed brewery, not a homebrewer.

Even if you stick to 5 gallon batches and plan to lose money for the rest of your life, you still need to rent a space, apply for and be granted a fictitious business name, get a business license with your city or county, apply for and be granted your state and federal small brewer's licenses, brewer's bond, various insurances (liquor liability at a minimum, if you're smart), get your rented space inspected regularly by the ABC, TTB, OSHA, and DOH if your county wants in on the action. Then you need to pay rent, utilities, and upkeep on a brewery you can't legally operate during the 90 days it will take to get your licenses, if every single thing you own and built was up to code and you are familiar with the phone book that is alcohol law.

You can, in some very special unincorporated areas, get a special use permit to re-zone a separate building on property you own (eg a garage) but you don't get to skip out on all the lovely licensing and inspections. Even that's if your community wants another brewery. If they don't, you get to go to all sorts of special hearings before anyone will even think about giving you a license to brew beer.

Once you've succeeded with all the easy stuff, then you have to meticulously record every millileter of beer you ever produce and make sure that every single person who was involved in the ratification of your brewery as a commercial enterprise "gets theirs." If you don't dot a T or cross an I, the Fed (or whoever you accidentally shorted) will go after you for everything you've got, regardless of if your'e a sole proprietor, an LLC, or a Corporation (gasp!).

Not trying to be discouraging, although that's the way it sounds, that's just reality. Ask me how I know.
 
The probrewer link speaks volumes. Federal law PROHIBITS the sale of homebrew. The same law that lets us legally make our delicious beverages. When you go to sell homebrew you are no longer a homebrewer also as previously mentioned.

I have a bar all set up that is trying to figure out how they can sell homebrew that our club makes. The problem is they can not. I knew this but the guy was insisting that I must be wrong, then asked about brew on premises. I directed him to probrewer and the TTB site. I suspect when he spends 5 minutes looking into "what it takes" he will settle for just letting us have our meetings at his place and sampling our beers with us... which is what I suggested BTW.

If you want to make a little money selling your beer you need to start with a HUGE pile of money. The risk is ridiculous and the return marginal. I personally would rather hot oil wrestle other humans for $100 a round, it would be less competitive.

Sure we have all heard "ZOMG you should sell this!" from friends and family. They ALL think that "you could make millions" with YOUR recipe. They fantasize about being in NASCAR and having supermodels advertising the beer...truth is, it isn't that way...

If more homebrewers just tried to MAKE MORE HOMEBREWERS instead of wasting as much effort trying to figure out a loophole (which there is not) to sell their swill to everyone they know, they would have realized that they are missing out on free craft beer with none of the work...
 
so depressing...just do a search..there are literally hundrends of threads about this........seriously though start a Kickstarter and maybe somebody will fund your homebrewing endeavours.
 
I'm ambitious enough to not let the legalities get the best of me

As long as you want to follow the law, and are mindful of just HOW MANY laws there are regarding not just the production of beer, but the production of alcohol as a commodity, the formation of a company, the practice of commerce, and the employment of laborers (remember- you are an employee), it is of course possible. Are you drinking beer someone else made? Then they were able to do it. It is not a thing to be undertaken lightly.

Remember that my long-ass posts are the shortened, abridged, truncated version of the Reader's Digest account of the few things I feel like talking about among the myriad things I had to do between the million other things you'll need to do to open a brewery.

It can be done, though, of course. Where would we be if nobody bothered?
 
Well if anyone with an idea and a dream gave up in the face of adversity we wouldn't be where we are today
 
If you want to make a little money selling your beer you need to start with a HUGE pile of money. The risk is ridiculous and the return marginal. I personally would rather hot oil wrestle other humans for $100 a round, it would be less competitive.

Sure we have all heard "ZOMG you should sell this!" from friends and family. They ALL think that "you could make millions" with YOUR recipe. They fantasize about being in NASCAR and having supermodels advertising the beer...truth is, it isn't that way...

If more homebrewers just tried to MAKE MORE HOMEBREWERS instead of wasting as much effort trying to figure out a loophole (which there is not) to sell their swill to everyone they know, they would have realized that they are missing out on free craft beer with none of the work...

Oh man, THIS. THIS times ONE THOUSAND. Who said we were talking about making money? You want to make money brewing beer? If you want to make money brewing beer, go work for a professional brewer. Don't become one.

If that was ever the intent of someone posting a random question on the internet, that person should go home, brew some more beer for ten or twenty more years, and then found a number (which should be greater than two) of other successful businesses before they decide they think they can break even.
 
I'm ambitious enough to not let the legalities get the best of me

So go follow the link to probrewer. That's a community of, well, pro brewers. People who have gone through all the legal and money stuff and made it happen. This forum is a community of homebrewers. There are a few on here that have made the transition, but the vast majority remain homebrewers. If you want a more informed base of people to get ideas from, go to probrewer.

You're not going to get a lot of information on becoming a licensed contractor on a forum for do-it-yourself home repair. You will on a forum for licensed contractors. Go where the most informed knowledge base is.

On the other hand, we over here can offer an opinion or two on whether you should secondary, glass or plastic, and is this infected. ;)
 
I'll chime in here. My nano-brewery is about six months from opening. Before you even consider opening a brewery, check your state laws to see just how beer-friendly they are. It might not be possible on a small scale in your state. If you really want to do it, you might have to move or work to change the laws.

Next, you'll need brewing experience if you'll be brewing the beer yourself. How long have you been brewing? How much do you know about brewing? Personally, I've brewed hundreds of batches, read every single book on brewing I could get my hands on, and entered and won several comps.

After that, you have to write a business plan. You need to do the math in order to make sure this isn't a big waste of time and money, and to make sure you are not forgetting anything.

Lastly, you need to have serious drive. The brewery is a second job for me, and I spend pretty much all my free time working on it. You also really need to learn how to network. After working on this project for a year, I have a big circle of highly connected people who I'm friends with. I work in local agriculture and have made a lot of friends through my job. For example, I got the frames for my system custom-made for 250 bucks. That is over $2000 of welding and materials, all because I am friends with someone. This part is optional but I cannot stress how useful it is to network.

Don't listen to naysayers. I am having a great time doing this, and though it is hard work, I don't mind. But I will say one thing. All this takes time. It has taken me a year at this point, and I'm still not close to opening. So you need to have the patience to work hard and diligently for a long time.
 
I'm trying to figure out the OP original intention here. Are you aspiring to be a brewery and actually make money? Or are you just wanting to sell your beer and don't care about making money?

Everybody out there has the desire/dream to start their own brewer and be the next Sam Caligone. This is no different than most software engineers thinking they want to do a startup and be the next Mark Zuckerburg. The statistics are against you. Many try. Some wildly succeed. Some break even. The majority fail miserably after burning through piles of cash. The road ahead is long and difficult.

If it's the former, you need to do a LOT of research. You can't brew on a homebrew scale and be efficient and make money. The economics are against you. You need a 10-15bbl system to produce enough to keep up with demand. This is all assuming your beer is worthy of demand. Starting breweries are very difficult, time-consuming, expensive and painful. You should also check all of the alcohol laws in your state. Like other posters said, some states, like Washington and Oregon, are very small guy friendly. Other states will take your money and kick you in the balls.

If you're just wanting to sell your beer and don't care about making money, then you better have a large amount (i.e. > $50,000) that you don't mind losing over the next few years. Licenses, permits, rent, corporation formations, etc will eat at that stash of cash. Then the ultimate question is why do you want to go through this pain? Don't. Just give it away and brew in your home and be happy.

Regardless of your endeavors, may you have good fortune and cheers!
 
ReverseApacheMaster said:
This thread is so lulz. I can't tell if OP is trolling or just lacks reading comprehension.

The only thing I lack in this post is the answer to why you are still commenting on it.
 
Why not just sell your homebrew illegally? Trust me, it's cheaper and safer. Of course, don't do it in the US where there are laws.
 
I was simply wanting to know how potentially hard it was to obtain a brewers license to sell beer, now there have been some helpful comments on here almost as much as useless waste of time comments. To the ones who actually answered my question and gave an intelligent and helpful reply I thank you, to the others, apache master, please refrain from commenting on anything I post in the future because your comments were at the very least useless and in no way shape or form addressed the original question at hand.
 
Honestly this subject has been addressed many, many times on HBT. Yes your state laws will vary but the federal ones will not. Check out the "Going Pro" in the groups section of HBT. There is a ton of great advice there!! Do a search on HBT about nanobreweries.....a lot of great info there as well. Not trying to be rude....it's just that the amount of info is, frankly, overwhelming. So many federal, state, and local regulations. All aspects can't possibly covered in a quick post.
 
Why not just sell your homebrew illegally? Trust me, it's cheaper and safer. Of course, don't do it in the US where there are laws.

Not a good idea!! But depending on your state's laws you could do a brew-on-premise (BOP) operation. In California they actually call it remote location homebrewing. You would charge for all the ingredients, equipment use, and your time. The caveat is that the customer has to "help". That certainly seems up to interpretation....is it pitching the yeast, bottling, adding hops?? Often thought about this myself....If a friend wants to buy some of my beer for his party obviously I can't sell it to him. However, at least in CA, it seems that as long as he "helps" I can charge him for my time, supplies, etc..... This can be done without a license.....AFAIK there is no BOP license required by either TTB or CA ABC. I don't know how IL is but maybe something you can look into?
 
Not a good idea!! But depending on your state's laws you could do a brew-on-premise (BOP) operation. In California they actually call it remote location homebrewing. You would charge for all the ingredients, equipment use, and your time. The caveat is that the customer has to "help". That certainly seems up to interpretation....is it pitching the yeast, bottling, adding hops?? Often thought about this myself....If a friend wants to buy some of my beer for his party obviously I can't sell it to him. However, at least in CA, it seems that as long as he "helps" I can charge him for my time, supplies, etc..... This can be done without a license.....AFAIK there is no BOP license required by either TTB or CA ABC. I don't know how IL is but maybe something you can look into?

Nonsense. All you need is a good cap printer. Then you just clone something stupid and resell it back into circulation via 1st generation immigrants running a liquor store. If you are looking for glory, do what I do and sell your beer out of your trunk at the local mobile home camp.
 
Not a good idea!! But depending on your state's laws you could do a brew-on-premise (BOP) operation. In California they actually call it remote location homebrewing. You would charge for all the ingredients, equipment use, and your time. The caveat is that the customer has to "help". That certainly seems up to interpretation....is it pitching the yeast, bottling, adding hops?? Often thought about this myself....If a friend wants to buy some of my beer for his party obviously I can't sell it to him. However, at least in CA, it seems that as long as he "helps" I can charge him for my time, supplies, etc..... This can be done without a license.....AFAIK there is no BOP license required by either TTB or CA ABC. I don't know how IL is but maybe something you can look into?

Just because there isn't a brewing license for it doesn't mean it doesn't run afoul other statutes, regulations, or local ordinances.
 
Not a good idea!! But depending on your state's laws you could do a brew-on-premise (BOP) operation. In California they actually call it remote location homebrewing. You would charge for all the ingredients, equipment use, and your time. The caveat is that the customer has to "help". That certainly seems up to interpretation....is it pitching the yeast, bottling, adding hops?? Often thought about this myself....If a friend wants to buy some of my beer for his party obviously I can't sell it to him. However, at least in CA, it seems that as long as he "helps" I can charge him for my time, supplies, etc..... This can be done without a license.....AFAIK there is no BOP license required by either TTB or CA ABC. I don't know how IL is but maybe something you can look into?

From what I have looked into, it would be nothing short of a cluster F to begin the process in IL. Guess I will put this ambitious dream on the back burner and just enjoy some homebrew with my friends and family for the time being.

:mug:
 
Nonsense. All you need is a good cap printer. Then you just clone something stupid and resell it back into circulation via 1st generation immigrants running a liquor store. If you are looking for glory, do what I do and sell your beer out of your trunk at the local mobile home camp.

We are NOT going to talk about illegal behavior. Or even joke about it. It's not appropriate, and it's specifically spelled out in our forum rules.

If you can't abide by the simple rules, then there may be other forums that may be more appealing to you than our little forum here.
 
Just because there isn't a brewing license for it doesn't mean it doesn't run afoul other statutes, regulations, or local ordinances.

True. I have found this though regarding the TTB. http://www.ttb.gov/beer/faqs.shtml#b1

There are a few BOP's in CA so obviously they are legal. I have searched but can't find anything regarding state regulations pertaining to them.
 
True. I have found this though regarding the TTB. http://www.ttb.gov/beer/faqs.shtml#b1

There are a few BOP's in CA so obviously they are legal. I have searched but can't find anything regarding state regulations pertaining to them.

I would imagine that since they produce a food/beverage they are probably regulated generally through the state and local health and safety code/regulations/ordinances. I wouldn't be surprised if some BOPs run without requisite health and safety permits and licenses but that doesn't mean it's legal to do so.
 
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