Pipe Dream

After you brewed your first batch of beer, who didn't think of opening their own brewery or brewpub? I know I did. I know my wife cringed at the thought of me quitting my teaching career to open my own brewery. A dream I hope will someday come to fruition. However, tonight was an eye opener. I play 16" softball on Thursday night and realized my friends are happy drinking watered down beer from the big three.

Sure they love the ales I give them for free, but after being very inquisitive tonight, they would not pay $3.50 for a pint of my brew. All beit, better to or equal to the the best beer they are getting at the bar.

Dream, Dream BIG!!

Born Brewing Co.
Sycamore, Illinois

I must say I, too, had the early visions of a home brew hobby turned dynasty. Then I took into consideration the amount of time/effort that goes into a 5G batch and promptly dismissed it as being too much work. A labor of love, to be sure, but I wouldn't want to take something I love doing as a hobby and ruin it by making it something I do for a living.

I certainly encourage anyone with a good product to put it out into the market. With the "Big Guys" in most all industries forsaking quality for marketability I make a consious effort to support the "little guy". Go microbrews!

The investments are huge as well. Think your little hobby gets pricey, imagine the costs of having a HUGE kettle, Mash, Mill' etc etc. I went to an AG class where a large local micro brewermaster sat in on the class. He started talking about his "brew day". Cleaning 1000g pots; dragging 150 50# bags of grain up steel staircases etc. He equated brew day for him as being a 16h day factory job...

There are plenty of people that'll pay 3.50 for a pint though but you got to have food (& kitchen equip) and some sort of uniqueness about you. I'm actually going to help out on a brew day at a local brew pub that I frequent and know the owner. As a heads up, dreams can be had though. This guy was an engineer at Raytheon who took on home brewing just like us. Has a very successful business (Thunder Canyon Brewing, Tucson AZ http://www.thundercanyonbrewery.com/). He however had investment partners who owned another brewery in Colorado Springs. He did just buy them out this past January though. Click on his brewery link and you get to see some of his equip. Very nice!!

I thought it would be really cool to do on a small scale but after reading several books it doesn't seem like it could be possible.

One of the Google Ads I saw when viewing this page was a link to a brewery for sale:
http://www.btcommercial.com/flyer_Sudwerk.pdf

Only 5 million! Come on who doesn't have 5 million?

That's a pretty healthy looking place. I'd think the bottling universe is where it starts getting really pricey as well with all that equip! That one place I referred to just now started kegging for select other bars to add some of his more popular brands to other taps about town. I'll have to ask him what his brewery equipment is worth. Not sure his annual throughput/potential either...

And to think last Dec all I did is "drink" beer Now I obsess over it.

Owning my own place is why I play the lottery If I ever did win that would be the first thing I would do, quit my day job and buy one.