Why don't more of you guys open your own breweries?

I'm currently pricing equipment to start up a 2 BBL brewery. I have all of the costs worked out and it will just be a matter of aquiring that sum now. It's not all that much and I'm talking brewhouse, 3 fermenters, 2 brite tanks, coolers, tasting room equipment, and misc equipment. To start I would not filter and it would be a draft only brewery. All of this is under $40K, in fact, closer to $30K. As well, in order to get around purchasing a keg washer I would use pubkegs.

With 3 double batch brew days per 12 days, one brew day after the other, I can keep the fermenters filled, as well as the brite tanks. I'd hire a cellarman, and I have a few people that I know of that would do this. Their pay, my pay, and a tasting room bar tender's pay have been factored as well. The cellarman would be in charge of transfers, kegging, and cleaning the tanks. I'd do the brewing, yeast care, and quality control. It would be a lot of work, but not too much. I'd be at the brewery everyday to make sure everything is working correctly, but this would give me enough time to kep my other job, which is at another local brewery.

Free time would be marketing, but luckily I have friends in "high" places in town. I know all of the beer bloggers and newspaper writers, radio station managers, LHBS employees and managers, and have great relationships with local beer bars that have been begging me for kegs of my own homebrew (so I know they'll keep me in supply). I'd do a couple of grand release parties as well, one at our tasting room and one at a local beer bar in a near city. I'd make appearances regularly to all of the homebrew meetings and competitions, keep my face and my product out there.

With this system there is a potential yeild of 360BBL a year, and I've calculated the potential gross a year. All of these thngs are hypothetical, obviously. I have a break down as well of how the money made in the first year would be distributed back into the business.

I also haven't really decided on a location yet, and I'm not really all that much in a rush. I want to think this through all of the way, a hundred times over, before I commit to something this big.

And again, I don't have the money to drop on all of that equipment, and I haven't yet decided on how I would approach trying to aquire it all. What I at least know though, is that I love my job at the brewery. There's no way that I get sick of brewing and my hobby has only become more addicting since I got a job at a commercial brewery. The only thing that I want is the creative freedom to brew all of my recipes. Like many of you I have awards for them and I want to start sharing them with more people. That's what it's all about to me.

Weizenwerks said:

They don't know. It's a risk for them. You speak in absolutes yet business is uncertainty. It is far from simple. I've been in and around business a lot of years to know better. With investors, you have a boss. You work for someone. What's the point of the entrepreneurial spirit of being you own boss when you invite investors to be your boss, merely demoting yourself to being an employee?

Working 16 hours a day is for fools.

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Investors are more like a supplier than a boss. They just supply you with the things you need to do your business(starting capital). I don't know what kind of investors you have witnessed but normally the only thing they understand is money. Investors invest money because they have it and don't really possess any other skills. If an investor is being a boss then they are only hindering their investment's chances. If they wanted to be a boss why wouldn't they just start their own business?

Tinga said:

Investors are more like a supplier than a boss. They just supply you with the things you need to do your business(starting capital). I don't know what kind of investors you have witnessed but normally the only thing they understand is money. Investors invest money because they have it and don't really possess any other skills. If an investor is being a boss then they are only hindering their investment's chances. If they wanted to be a boss why wouldn't they just start their own business?

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The simple answer to that question is encased in the previous response. They don't want to work 16 hours a day. Their money is the "work" they're doing to earn a return. Your work is actual, sweaty work that also (presumptively, hopefully) earns you a return. That's if the whole thing works out.

I think, however, that there's a big assumption here, and that is that the investor(s) are going to remain hands-off. I think if the business is a stunning success, there's a very good chance of that. Anything else, and I'm less sanguine. And I'd wager that the legal documents underlying any such business give the investors all kinds of leeway to step in and pretty much do as they wish. After all, in that same legal sense, they are the ones who actually own what is tangibly the "business."

Don't get me wrong- I'm all in favor of doing something like this with somebody else's money. I just think it's unrealistic to believe they won't meddle in the conduct of the operation.

rico567 said:

The simple answer to that question is encased in the previous response. They don't want to work 16 hours a day. Their money is the "work" they're doing to earn a return. Your work is actual, sweaty work that also (presumptively, hopefully) earns you a return. That's if the whole thing works out.

I think, however, that there's a big assumption here, and that is that the investor(s) are going to remain hands-off. I think if the business is a stunning success, there's a very good chance of that. Anything else, and I'm less sanguine. And I'd wager that the legal documents underlying any such business give the investors all kinds of leeway to step in and pretty much do as they wish. After all, in that same legal sense, they are the ones who actually own what is tangibly the "business."

Don't get me wrong- I'm all in favor of doing something like this with somebody else's money. I just think it's unrealistic to believe they won't meddle in the conduct of the operation.

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the investors invest money because they don't have the skills themselves to do what the entrepreneur is doing. Therefore they can't exactly lend any skills that would help the business besides maybe connections and maybe a business consulting firm or something like that. In reality it really comes down to what the agreements are at the beginning. Legal documents are tedious because they need to be. be careful before you sign something.