Muddy Creek Brewing Co. Brewery Build- Start to Finish Thread

I am officially throwing my hat in the ring.

Our building is leased, our contractors have had their fun sodomizing me, our LLC and EIN numbers are filed and our applications for a brewing license are en-route.

Muddy Creek Brewing Co. is on it's way.

I will try to keep a running thread about the journey. Having read ALL the threads about other guys who have started (or attempted to start) their own breweries I feel as though I am about 1/4 aware of all the crap that's about to be thrown in my way.

First thing... I have made every effort humanly possible to keep costs down, including arranging for a ludicrously beneficial lease agreement and this thing is STILL going to cost my partners and I a TON of money. I cannot find an inexpensive way to start a brewery. (And believe me, I have researched every possible method.)

I'll post photos and a running documentary on the process.

Have a heart, wish me luck!

Good luck! What size system?

Good luck brother.... someday I'll follow in your footsteps!

Best of luck and enjoy the journey!

bemerritt said:

Good luck! What size system?

Click to expand...

I'll be running an electric 7 bbl system.

Brewery is in the basement, taproom upstairs.

I will have an exhaust hood put in over the brewing equipment.

Good luck MuddyCreek, remember the rule.... double the time to open, and double the cost. Looking forward to the updates.

Best of luck to you!

I don't really follow your Thread title? It should read and another one realizes his dream!

Good luck in your adventure! May I wish your fermenters stay full, clean and sanitary, your taps wet and your bar stools heavy!


Cheers
Jay

good luck my friend

Big Sky country has the most breweries per capita in the country from what I remember. But that's because there's no people from what I can gather... lol. Good luck with the adventure. I've watched a lot of small breweries open and struggle here in the Philly area. Our market is what I would call over-saturated at the moment. I do some freelance design work for one of the local places so I get to see first hand what they deal with. I work in the industry in other manners locally as well so I know a lot of brewery owners and brewmasters. It's a wild ride to say the least. Good luck with signing a distribution agreement. I know that can be a make or break decision depending how your 3 tier distribution is actually written in MT. Best of luck man...

Best of luck on your Journey! Continued success!

MuddyCreek said:

I am officially throwing my hat in the ring.

Our building is leased, our contractors have had their fun sodomizing me, our LLC and EIN numbers are filed and our applications for a brewing license are en-route.

Muddy Creek Brewing Co. is on it's way.

I will try to keep a running thread about the journey. Having read ALL the threads about other guys who have started (or attempted to start) their own breweries I feel as though I am about 1/4 aware of all the crap that's about to be thrown in my way.

First thing... I have made every effort humanly possible to keep costs down, including arranging for a ludicrously beneficial lease agreement and this thing is STILL going to cost my partners and I a TON of money. I cannot find an inexpensive way to start a brewery. (And believe me, I have researched every possible method.)

I'll post photos and a running documentary on the process.

Have a heart, wish me luck!

Click to expand...

Good luck! Wen you're open for biz, I'll stop in for a pint or 3.
Regards, GF.

Best of luck

Good luck. Look forward to following your journey.

What town will you be opening in.... (As I read this in Stevensville and get excited that you may be within a few hours drive...)

To a fellow brother that took the plunge I wish you all the best.

I'm opening in the one city in Montana that naturally increases my chances of success significantly, Butte!

Click to expand...

Statistically speaking, Butte is the 4th "drinkingest town" per capita in the Unites States. (Ironically, Bozeman, just 75 miles down the road, is the 5th.)

We're going to the bank tomorrow and we have one investor lined up. We'll pull as much support capital as we can over the next 90 days via a kickstarter campaign. (We aren't relying on it, but we'll gladly take whatever we can get.)

Alright, it's about time for an update.

We have formed an LLC for the brewery. There are three partners. The ownership team is made up of me, (background in software systems development and deployment.) I'll be taking care of the brewing side, a fellow named Chris (Also a software engineer and manager, but a ridiculously good one. He is in charge of business operations and social media and marketing programs. He is also going to put together our BCS control system based on my equipment and process requirements), and another fellow named Todd who is a Ph.D in chemical engineering (our very own Walter White.) Todd will help with brewery processes and refinement and he'll help standardize production parameters so we improve upon consistency and efficiency.

We all have "day jobs" so a significant component of the business model is the hiring of a taproom manager who's primary reason for existence is to take care of any taproom responsibilities during the day so we aren't called away from the gigs that pay our bills, so to speak. As the brewery grows in it's distribution and taproom sales we will begin phasing away from our current jobs and into the brewery as profit margins allow.

We scored a huge success with our lease agreement. We are located in Butte, MT which provides a tremendous patron base, (see earlier comment about U.S. per capita drinking population ranking - We're #4 baby!) There's only one brewery currently in town and it does well enough to have allowed the owners to purchase two buildings in town and add an additional business next door, a bakery.

As for our lease, we will be located in The Irish Times building, a historic site that served as Butte's newspaper headquarters some 100 years ago. The building infrastructure has been upgraded by a previous owner who planned on putting a brewery into the building. Subsequently he added a huge electric service in the basement that will power my electric brewery.

We start out with an amazingly low rent which we don't have to begin paying until we open the taproom. The rent increases gradually as we gain market footing and ultimately we will be capped out at $1500 after about 18 months. That pays for the entire basement where the brewery will be located as well as our 1700 sq. foot taproom. Furthermore, any improvements we make to the building (insulation, glass repair of the taproom skylight, floor finishing, electric and plumbing) will be deducted from our rent at a fixed schedule. In short they will 'repay us' for any improvements we make to their structure.

Butte also has an active historic preservation district and we will attempt to receive some grants to make repairs and enhancements to the building. (Of course any grant-money that goes into the building will not be deducted from rent.)

Finally, the owners of the Irish Times building have a "college pub" on the ground floor and a "martini bar" on the 2nd floor adjacent to the tasting room. They are also putting in a kitchen where they will make and serve food to our patrons. Both of the Irish Times bars will exclusively feature our beers on tap, giving us 2 accounts out of the gate. We are planning on serving several of our products on nitrogen as well as CO2. No other place in town serves nitrogenated beer. Todd will be putting together a machine that draws Nitrogen out of the air so eventually we won't need to pay to refill those tanks.

The taproom will feature a rustic feel and will regularly host live acoustic entertainment.

My next update will include my product list as well as a description of my equipment choices.

Wow. Congratulations.
Sounds like you have an amazing deal with the lease along with having 2 clients out of the gate already!

This interests me because I hope to try something like this someday (start a brewery but don't quit my day job).

That's fantastic! You are fulfilling two major American Dreams: Opening a business, and having an endless supply of beer. Best of luck!

MuddyCreek said:

I am officially throwing my hat in the ring.

Our building is leased, our contractors have had their fun sodomizing me, our LLC and EIN numbers are filed and our applications for a brewing license are en-route.

Muddy Creek Brewing Co. is on it's way.

I will try to keep a running thread about the journey. Having read ALL the threads about other guys who have started (or attempted to start) their own breweries I feel as though I am about 1/4 aware of all the crap that's about to be thrown in my way.

First thing... I have made every effort humanly possible to keep costs down, including arranging for a ludicrously beneficial lease agreement and this thing is STILL going to cost my partners and I a TON of money. I cannot find an inexpensive way to start a brewery. (And believe me, I have researched every possible method.)

I'll post photos and a running documentary on the process.

Have a heart, wish me luck!

Click to expand...

Congrats and good luck!

What made you decide on a 7bbl system to start? Are you building the system yourself, or are you buying a prebuilt system?

We decided on a 7 bbl system because it allows me to do a large run of product in a single brew cycle. That means that once I get a decent inventory built up I can minimize my brew sessions, freeing me up to work my day job and manage the other brewhaus tasks with a couple of assistants on a 3 day schedule.

I did not buy a turn-key system because it is difficult and very expensive to find a 7bbl or larger e-herm system. I was able to find individual components at a lower aggregate cost. This will require me to do some customization to the kettle, HLTs and Mash Tun, and it will undoubtedly extend my brew session by an hour or two, but in terms of startup cost effectiveness it was absolutely the best choice for us.

Best of luck!

As promised I'm going to update you with our product list and some of my equipment choices.

Muddy Creek Chocolate Stout.
(technically this is an oatmeal chocolate stout that would be entered into a competition as an imperial stout due to the ABV.)

Dirty Blonde Ale.
(Your basic blonde ale, light, well balanced and a favorite among my women tasters.)

Skinny Cow Pale Ale.
(So named because cows, although sacred in India, are not fed.)

No Paddle Amber.
(A really nice amber ale that I modified a bit from a recipe Yooper modified.)

Seeing Other People.
(With a name like that it HAS to be an English Extra Special Bitter.)

As yet unnamed wheat ale.
(It's not a true hefe, but it IS awful good. It's also one of my lighter ABV beers.)

Soft Drinks

Where's Your Mother.
(Root beer with lots and lots of sugar! Vibrating kids ensue...)

Teetotaler Lemonade.
(My very own carbonated lemonade. Not only is it super refreshing in the summer, it makes a heck of a shandy! Since it's already carbonated, you don't weaken your shandy carbonation by adding the lemonade.)


Rotators:

Black Ice Blackberry Ale
Head Turner Hefe (Raspberry Hefe)
Mandarin Hefe
Vanilla Porter

So, as you can see, not a very bold series to start out with. Of the regular beers, I will likely only open with 3 and expand as time and success allows. We'll try to keep one rotator on tap. Additionally we will be serving some of the beers on nitrogen as well as CO2.

I know I promised to update my equipment choices and I will, but right now I'm really really tired. Will get to it in the next update.

Best of luck. Can't wait to follow your story!

Alright, here's my equipment list. I had typed and extensive message and then like a moron, lost it when I checked another page without opening a new tab so now you get the 'bullet item' version.

(as an aside I'll be meeting with contractors today to ensure the building permits are set up correctly and we're going to the bank to secure a line of credit for operating capital.)

I'm going with a 7bbl system. The reason I'm doing that is that I cannot go smaller without having to work every spare moment at the brewery making beer. 7bbls allows me to limit my brew sessions to a more reasonable number.

The brewery will be located in the basement of a large building.

A) Milling Station: Enclosed, separated room with a vent-hood and exhaust fan to the outdoors. I'm going with a Pleasant Hill mill that can mill up to 40 lbs of grain a minute.

B) Brewhaus:

Over the entire brewhaus a large vent-hood with exhaust fan will suck out any steam and pipe it outside at a safe height.

7bbl simple BK from Glacier Tanks. Extra ferrules will be added for up to 5 15kw heating elements.

10bbl MLT. False bottom, also from Glacier Tanks.

2 HLTs, one is a 5bbl Dairy Tank that has been re-purposed and the other is a food-grade 55 gallon SS drum.

* I am not doing a 'traditional' brew session. I will actually heat the strike water in the BK, which has power to spare and transfer it via transfer pump (nice pump, up to 40 gpm) to the MLT. I do an electronic HERM system so the HLTs are used to recirculate wort during mash to maintain precise temp. The HLTs will then be used for 'double sparges'

The larger HLT will have 4 15kw heatign elements in it and the smaller one will have 25kw worth of heating elements inside it.

Two recirc pumps will keep the mash flowing between the HLTs and the MLT.

C) Fermenting/Cold-Crash Room

The basement maintains a 'winter temperature' of 40 to 45 degrees. We will be building separate heavily insulated rooms with temperature control for fermenting and cold crashing/lagering.

I am going with plastic conicals. (Groan, I know... I know...) I can't afford 250 gallon jacketed SS conicals right now. Don't Judge Me!

4 250 gallon fermenters will go into the fermenting room which will be maintained at ale temps between 55 and 60 degrees. (The fermenters will ferment warmer than the ambient. Thermoprobes will be inside the fermenters as well as ambient temperature probes in the room. The ambient probes will be used to control the general temperature but we can monitor the actual temp inside the fermenters and adjust as necessary.)

2 250 gallon conicals will be in the next room down, the cold-crash/lagering room. This will be maintained at a lower temperature, 40 degrees for cold-crashing and cold-lagering.

The current fermenter setup will allow me at max-production to produce as much as 400+ gallons a week. If I'm doing more than that right off that bat, it's a good problem to have.

D) Keg Cleaning/Filling station

To start we're doing this the old fashioned way. We'll be manually cleaning kegs with a dedicated pump and vessels for cleaning solution, acid rinse and sanitizer. Once the kegs are cleaned they'll be filled at the station on production days.

E) Keg Storage room

We have a separate room where the kegs will be stored at 40 degrees. That room has a dumb-waiter (rated at 400 lbs) that will take a keg directly up to the tap room on the second floor.

A keg dolly with an attached lift will be used to move filled kegs to the keg room and up to the dumb-waiter. Upstairs another dolly will take the kegs to the serving cooler.

Well, that's it for now. Have to go get ready to meet with contractors and the bank. Things are starting to get real.

Great plan you got there!

FWIW, the food you're serving cannot be an afterthought. It seems to be an essential key product to a successful brewery/taproom operation. More than the beer itself perhaps, I dare to say.

Wishing you good fortune!

I looked at doing a more traditional BrewPub idea and ultimately decided I'm not eager to get into the food side. Our landlords (who own the two other pubs) are putting in their own kitchen and THEY will provide food. We are also located within blocks of three of the more popular dining establishments in the area and they all deliver so we can have virtually anything brought to the taproom in short order.

I should also point out quickly that our hot-side control will be managed through a BCS controller with a custom interface so I can control each element and pump individually or as defined groups. I can also start the BK and HLTs from home in the morning. We'll use float switches to ensure the elements don't get fried.

We may do another BCS for the cold-side stuff, but starting out we may simply use a PID controller to regulate the cooling/heating in the cold rooms.

Well, that went well. Within an hour of meeting the bank they called back and told us we were approved! Makes for a great Friday.

So, without further ado...

So, that went well. Within an hour of meeting the bank, they called back and told us we were approved. It's a good Friday!

So, without further ado...

So, today we got our 'first' surprise.

We have been talking to our local building codes guy from the beginning and he told us we were good to go except he had to look at our capacity and make sure we had enough exits etc.

Our taproom is on the 2nd floor of the building (anybody's inner alarm going off yet?) and today when I dropped off yet another permit the inspector happened to be there and told me "Hey, I've been meaning to call you guys. You have sprinklers on the 2nd floor, right?

"Uh, no." I said.

"You have 'sprinklers', RIGHT?" he said in a kind of a wink-wink, nudge-nudge way.

It turns out, if you are serving alcohol on the 2nd floor of any building, that floor must be equipped with sprinklers. We called our plumber who told us, "****, that's a 30 or 40 k job..."

My partner freaked, I calmed him down and we called for specific clarification from the building inspector. "I don't care how you turn them on, or how fancy they are. The code says you need 'sprinklers'. You can do it yourself for all I care, just make sure I see some sprinklers when I go through."

So, after a bit of research, we found where we can get a system installed for under 5k but it was our first, "Oh Crap" moment in the process. My partner was a bit freaked out and I explained "This is how it works. There are going to be 2 dozen things come up that you never even thought of." In fact, when he got the initial quote from the plumber for 30k to 40k my first response to him was "So it begins..."

Anyway, we dodged the first iceberg!

You guys thinking about breweries in the future, 2nd floor taprooms need 'sprinklers'. And you should work really really hard at making friends with your building inspector.

MuddyCreek said:

I am officially throwing my hat in the ring.

Our building is leased, our contractors have had their fun sodomizing me, our LLC and EIN numbers are filed and our applications for a brewing license are en-route.

Muddy Creek Brewing Co. is on it's way.

I will try to keep a running thread about the journey. Having read ALL the threads about other guys who have started (or attempted to start) their own breweries I feel as though I am about 1/4 aware of all the crap that's about to be thrown in my way.

First thing... I have made every effort humanly possible to keep costs down, including arranging for a ludicrously beneficial lease agreement and this thing is STILL going to cost my partners and I a TON of money. I cannot find an inexpensive way to start a brewery. (And believe me, I have researched every possible method.)

I'll post photos and a running documentary on the process.

Have a heart, wish me luck!

Click to expand...

Awesome man! Good luck. So far it seems like you have been on the ball with planning and dealing with issues that have arisen. I like the logo as well. Best of luck and if I'm ever in MT I'd love to swing by and have a pint or ten.

Looking forward to following the thread as well.

Cheers

You should defiantly make some discreet inquiries into the possibility of using a sprinkler system plumbed with PEX or CPVC rather than iron pipe. It could be a substantial savings in both materials and labor. Not all jurisdictions are allowing them, especially in commercial occupancies, but they are defiantly gaining popularity in residential applications that would otherwise be built without sprinklers.

Any updates on this? Looking forward to reading the next chapter in the the muddy creek saga.

Hey everyone, back for the new year! Been busy with well, busy work. Filed for our permits, our funding is coming through around the middle of this month, finalizing equipment and trying to map out brewhaus flow diagrams.

We needed to gather a few more quotes to qualify for urban revitalization grants which we will apply for on the 16th of this month. I also had a couple of personal setbacks health wise that have slowed me down a bit.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll be cutting the floor for the drainage system. I need to run a trench through the fermenting areas, over to the brewhaus and out to the sink and keg cleaning/filling station. Then the plumber will joyously install our drains and general plumbing for brewhaus water.

I will start putting up pictures so you can see the transformation.

Awesome good to see it coming together. One thing I'm finding if you don't have patience you'll never make it haha.

I'm still waiting on burners that supposedly were coming in a week. Month later that box has eluded our buisness somehow.

Congratulations on the big jump. You're starting out almost exactly as we are, with some slight differences, so I'll keep up with your progress. We have an 8-barrel system with 6 8-barrel bright tanks, and will only be doing a tap room with no food sales. We also all have day jobs, and like you guys will probably spend the first year of the business getting our asses handed to us in terms of hours-worked-per-day.

Any reason you guys are going with all kegs and no bright tanks? Cost, I guess? Hopefully you can upgrade to brights relatively quickly, seems like it would cut a lot of man-hours dedicated solely to packaging and cleaning.

Good luck!!

Sounds like some decent progress. Nothing over the holidays progresses as fast as we'd all like. Keep us posted and show pics!

Moti, the cost associated with the brite tanks is the predominant reason we are holding off on them at first. I love shiny brite tanks as well as the next guy, but frankly the shiny stuff is generally pretty expensive.

You may want to consider doing 'some' keg distribution to outside parties though. All my research indicates that taproom sales more or less pay for operations but distribution (despite the much worse profit margin) basically give you your profit and opportunities to expand into other areas and markets. Even if you're only doing 5 kegs a week outside your taproom you're looking at $500 or $600 in sales per week, about 1/2 or 1/3 of which is net profit. That's a conservative estimate of a little under $700 a month extra profit coming in AND more people trying your beer and hopefully doing some marketing for you. Once you've got a few local restaurant and pub accounts it gets much easier to walk in to new places and attempt to generate new accounts.

In fact, we intend to do some marketing in which we invite nearby business and community leaders to the taproom in the week before we have our grand opening. The guests are invited to come in and try a few pints for free, all we ask is that they provide honest, constructive feedback on our facilities, staff and products. This helps us train our staff and work out any wrinkles in the P.O.S. system (They'll be 'rung up' but not charged.) as well as our serving and atmosphere.

(It also has the uber-sneaky benefit of subliminally generating a preference and loyalty for the brewery because they got to come in, get free pints and feel as though they were contributing to our success.)

Many of these business folks will be restaurant and pub owners and managers. Ideally we will be able to generate some inroads with these folks so we can have some positive relationships developed when we consider contacting them about potential accounts.

Ya... I'm evil.