Going For It In New York

Well today is day one of the new brewhouse project. Myself and my partner are making our dream of opening a brewhouse a real life challange. We are starting our expanding our research into the local market. We started today by looking at some sites to open the brewhouse at most where to big for what we need and want to spend. We looked at two sites that where over 15,000 square feet. I belive we can get away with a start up site of around 1500-2500 square feet hoping to pay around 5-8 dollars a sqaure for rent.

We contacted the local SUNY school to see if they would do a feasabilty study to see if our city can and would support a local Brewhouse. We have a city of about 50k and when the college is in session we grow to about 58-60k people, we have over 10 bars in less than a mile radius and 10-15 resturants in the same radius.

We belive this would support a 10-15bbl setup, we would keg and onsite sales first. We think the bottling end woudl be down the road when the demand is there for the bottling end.

I have two thoughts that i need some help on right now.

1. We know we need ot make a flagship beer (thinking an Ale) now do we gear it towords the city or should we lean to the SUNY college. most of the bar business is college and the resturant leans more to the locals. We woudl of course choose one and shortly after have the second one in production.

2. The amount of square footage needed for a brew house if anyone can give some input on the size that woudl be a great help, on how much area these sytems really do take up.


Check back with us to see how we are doing and opening day the first keg is on us!! now comes the crap part writing the business plan. Damm

Wow good luck! Have you read the thread "Don't try this at home" by our Brewpastor? Great reading on having a microbrewery.

I don't have anything to offer in the way of advice on your questions, though. Best wishes with it!

check out this site


http://probrewer.com/vbulletin/index.php?

Ya know, if I win the NJ lottery tonight I'll open up a brew pub in my little village of 1100 people and won't even worry about making a profit...

homebrewer, you're likely a good person and deserve that money.

now that I've complimented you, please feel flattered and if you do in fact win, donate some cashola to an honest college student studying to do public service. i will support homebrewing as a legal right if i ever get the opportunity

If I were you I'd gear your first brew to the locals. Sure, college students drink more but the locals are around all year. And, if you open up a place and your first beer is geared towards college kids, even if it's a really good beer, you'll give the community the impression that you're just cranking out booze for the co-eds, as opposed to brewing a quality product. If you're opening a business, you don't want to make a bad 1st impression on your potential customer base.

Just my 2 cents....

Either way you decide to go, good luck and definitely re-post when you get up and running, I'm always looking for a reason(good beer) for a road trip...

Just curious, you wouldn't happen to be talking about SUNY Binghamton. I live in the local area here and it just sounds like your describing the local market. Good luck anyway, I hope you do great, cuz I want some local microbrew since the closest breweries are in buffalo/elmira territory and syracuse.

Thanks for the input guys and gals

The loacl college has agreed to do the feasability study for free, big cost savings there, and no it is not SUNY Binghamton, but you are not far off. We have also taken the idea of gearing the flagship to the locals and the school. We will have to have two beers coming out the door at the same time and have our other ones getting ready to go. We have started the business plan, with two investors who at this time seem happy about the plan but when it comes time to ask for the check we will see.

That is all we have to report at this time, if anyone would be willing to share a business plan or may no of a link for a copy of a plan for a brewery that would be great.

As we get more secure on the plan i will discuss in more detail opn how we are doing we do nto want o let to many cats out of the bag just yet.

Hope to update you soon!!!!!!!!