microbrewery questions/ideas

I'm doing a cost analysis (just in the playing stages) to produce about 200 gallons/month and thought of a few unknowns.

How would one get six-pack holsters printed/made?

Bottles seem like the biggest expense, I found some for about $5/case if you buy a skid (60 cases)

for 10 gallon batches are people going right into conical fermenters as primary and secondaries (or just one, in other words) and THEN going straight to keg/bottle?

I'm coming at this with the idea of starting small and hitting the market with a combination of six-pack bottles and 1/4 kegs or 1/2 kegs. Any thoughts as to which would be more profitable and have the highest turnover?

anyway, thoughts appreciated, advice welcomed!

a little more background

I'm it what seems like a good market for high quality homebrew. To start small and see if it will be feasible my idea is to 'scale up' simple homebrewing as I'm comfortable with AG, yeast, consistency, etc. and "I'm just thinking".....

I figure the minimal initial cost is just to do multiple 10 gallon batches and go straight to 12 ounce bottles and/or 1/4 and 1/2 kegs. An ~7bbl setup is about 180 gallons/month (do I have that right?) or a bunch of bottles and several small kegs. That means brewing about 9 batches/month and would take about 2 months to produce the first batch. I think this could be done brewing a batch a day for about 2 weeks, waiting, transfering, cleaning, etc. out of every month - seems reasonable.

Under this scenario, I would have to purchase some fermenters, pots, mashing and sparging containers (likely big coolers or similar) and of course, non-renewable supplies - kegs/bottles/ingredients.

let me have it!

mm

Where are you located?

Have you looked into the permits & fees needed to open a brewery?

Here's in Texas they are kinda crazy. Just the Texas brewers permit and manufacturing permit over over 3 grand. That's just getting started.

yeah, costs about $3K plus paying a distributor

mm

I have the same "dreams" as you I see. I "hope" to be good at this brewing and be able to one day open my own brewery and brew pub. Then I'll be able to get the hell out of this automotive crap.

Just the looking that I have done I'm "guessing" that to be where I need to be I will have to drop around 100G's to do it right. That's just to get started.

I hear you FS... I would like to eventually go the brewpub route but I'm looking at a trial run that means minimizing initial expenses (assuming maximum sweat labor on my part) to spend a few years establishing a reputation. I've read a bunch of threads here and elsewhere regarding startup and i just don't think it would cost 100K to do a small system that would lead to some profit. however, I'm oftentimes the idiot skeptic.

mm

Good luck. Its an ambitious and risky goal, but it can be done. Check into www.morebeer.com and look at their 40 gallon system. You could also get some big kettles (50-75 gallon) and make your own system.

The fees and inspections will be tough.

Good luck!

Flying Fish Brewing Company released their business plan awhile ago. I don't know if it's still on their website, but you should still be able to do a search for it. They also have some amusing anecdotes about starting up, worth a look through.

Vermicous said:

Flying Fish Brewing Company released their business plan awhile ago. I don't know if it's still on their website, but you should still be able to do a search for it. They also have some amusing anecdotes about starting up, worth a look through.

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A good read IMHO
http://www.flyingfish.com/fishtales/business1.cfm

I don't think that their website has much detail on their operations, but try Googling "Schooner Exact." These guys are in Seattle and making some tasty brew. It's a couple of guys breing on their previously garage set up. It's really pretty cool, they distribute regularly to a couple of bars and their beers appear occasionally at other bars.

I recently bought a couple extra cornies from them when they switched to 1/6 bbl Sankes.

Austin

thanks mcaustin - cool site and something I can aim for! I wish I knew how many fermenters they had - you're right, the website is a blog with limited info, but cool!

At least the 'baby steps' approach has potential!

mm

mandoman said:

thanks mcaustin - cool site and something I can aim for! I wish I knew how many fermenters they had - you're right, the website is a blog with limited info, but cool!

At least the 'baby steps' approach has potential!

mm

Click to expand...

From what I saw, it looked like they had like 4-5 (I think that's how many) 1/2 bbl glycol cooled conicals.

Austin

I don't know much about this but I've heard many micros use 650ml bottles because the cost for bottling smaller ones is just not feasible.

Many of the best micros I buy come in 650mls, I assume for that reason.

Talk to some of the manufactures of 7-10bbl systems like DCI, JV Northwest. They can work with you on your business plan. But I'll tell you that if you went out and purchased a complete 7bbl brewhouse including fermentors you'll spend close to $100K on equipment alone. Google brewery systems and you'll see what small used brew houses are going for. You'll find that the minimum you'll need is $250K and many of the buisness plans will show a small micro-brewery operation needing start-up costs in the $500K range.

Good luck... it's always fun to dream.

Search for "three floyds" their business plan is floating around.

First step is to look into the licenses, depending on what state you are in, that can be the deal breaker.

I think your initial estimate of 100K is way low.

Here's a business plan for a 7500 bbl per year micro brewery. Granted it's about 3 times the capacity of what your talking about, but much of what's in this plan would be required for a 2400 bbl/year operation like your talking about.

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/business-plans/Business-Plans-Volume-02/Microbrewery-v2.html

This plan is dated 2/95 and they have a working capital of $250K and is requesting funding for an additional $250K to start up the business.

All this talk about developing the brewery is making me very thirsty.

Let's just suppose someone was thinking of hosting a "Speakeasy Night", inspired by some underground dining clubs, where we cook only the most incredible food using seasonal and regional ingredients, serve up the on-tap homebrews (The Shaferhund Alt and Rainbow Belly Bleacher Ale for starters) of me and a couple other homebrewers, for a suggested donation to cover some costs. Good music, delicious food, invite only - we know some folks that would pay.

In the face of BMC and the oppressive world that be, anyone ever thought of the black market route, a la prohibition style? Do the whole thing on the dl?

Of course, my brew is a gift to all of my closest family and friends. And they in turn also bestow me with gifts.

Mass quantities of cash. Yeah right. Anyone have an avocado orchard or some bio-diesel they wanna trade for beer?

agreed - it can be expensive, gfranks. The link you sent listed the 'brewhouse' at 175K or 70% of the cost. Granted, this includes a lot of the equipment necessary but also a lot of other 'stuff' - like expertise, setup, etc. It's these types of costs I wonder about. Those systems are absolute top of the line, right? So that's the high end. What I'm wondering is, what's the low end?

mm

Can't legally sell homebrew, but I guess you could charge for cups.

If you want to purchase a very used smaller brew system in the 3 bbl range you can see them on the used market for $40K range. The link below sells used brew systems.

http://www.nabrewing.com/default.asp

Here's another must read if you plan on starting a microbrewery.

http://www.cemcorp.com/articles/brewery.htm

mandoman said:

The link you sent listed the 'brewhouse' at 175K ...So that's the high end. What I'm wondering is, what's the low end?

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Keep in mind that's the 'high end' from 1995. I'm sure the costs have gone up more than a little since then.

Bob