new brewery in town, and i want to volunteer

hey everyone,

Not sure if this is strange or not, but basically a new brewery is opening up near my home. I figured, why not offer my time, and see if the guy needs any help. I figure, a) if I can't make a living brewing beer right now, why not volunteer in my free time to work in a brewery, its the next best thing, and b) I figured i could learn a thing or two... obviously.

So how would you go about this? Just email the brew/owner and see if he needs assistance? Do you think the guy will just laugh me off, thinking I'm nuts?

Don't email. I'd show up when it's not too busy, and pick up a chat with the brewer. Sometimes they might appreciate free help, sometime they might not, it depends how crowded the brewery is.

There's one inherent problem with free help in that it's free: Some people show up, some don't!

M_C

Just show up and introduce yourself and tell the guy you're a home brewer, you're passionate about beer like they are and you'd like to volunteer if he needs any help. Who knows? They might call you up.

Yea, I tried this when Rahr opened up near me in Fort Worth, TX. My offer was not really received well. It may have been bad timing because now they use all sorts of free help and back then they were just getting set up. It could also just have been that I'm a young guy and maybe they didn't take me seriosuly. Good luck though, could learn alot!

I'd say don't offer help as such, but approach it more like you want to learn the trade and get some experience.

My logic in this is that if it's a new setup and someone has put an awful lot of effort into it, time, planning, money and it's natural they will struggle to let someone else have any control of any aspect.

Then after a couple of days when you've built a bit of a relationship and some trust with them you can tell them your intentions.

Just a thought. I've approached local breweries looking for experience (and ultimately a job) and I've just been given an entry level position at one, and the brewers there are fully aware of my intentions to become a brewer a.s.a.p.

Curb your expectations as to what you are going to be doing, as well.

I visited a brewery last month that had 5 full-time employees and about 12 volunteers. The full-time employees did the actual brewing, while the volunteers did mostly cleaning tasks and packaging. The day I was there, all of the volunteers were putting bottles into twelve packs and pallating them. Probably not what they envisioned doing all day at the brewery.

Point being, you probably won't be brewing, but the brewers will be happy to teach you the ins and outs of everything that's going on. If that's what you have in mind, go for it!

Thanks for the tips guys. And I figured I'd be doing all cleaning, and no brewing, but that's ok with me.

You might only be paid in short fills.

Having done a total of 11 days volunteering across 3 breweries I've taken as payment:
10 bottles of blonde
5 short fills (not very short though)
About 15kg malt and a few oz of hops and access to more hops including some I can't buy (citra!)
...and the job and experience.