Marketing
- Thread starter ole
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
ole said:
Give some away to all of your friends on HBT, and we'll pass on how great it is by word of mouth.
When you say market, I assume you are trying to sell it. You cannot sell homebrew under any circumstances. If you want to become a microbrewery, then it is alot more difficult and this forum will not help much.
Just a rough runddown of what you will have to do:
1) Business licenses in your state
2) License for brewing alcohol, possibly another for selling
3) Federal License (which costs at least a grand)
4) Then you have to keep track of everything for alcohol tax purposes.
FYI: I looked into this at one time, just for the hell of it. If you want to get started in the right direction, go to www.beertown.org and link to the Brewer's Association portion of the site. Also do a search on federal alcohol regs, and look at your state's liquor control board website.
Good Luck.
Just a rough runddown of what you will have to do:
1) Business licenses in your state
2) License for brewing alcohol, possibly another for selling
3) Federal License (which costs at least a grand)
4) Then you have to keep track of everything for alcohol tax purposes.
FYI: I looked into this at one time, just for the hell of it. If you want to get started in the right direction, go to www.beertown.org and link to the Brewer's Association portion of the site. Also do a search on federal alcohol regs, and look at your state's liquor control board website.
Good Luck.
Cheesefood
Well-Known Member
ole said:
Hire an ad agency. Breaking into the beer market is going to be tough, especially in your DMA. Find a way to get some prop materials into the hands of the small bar owner, and be prepared to operate at a loss for a few years in order to fund giveaways. You need to build a market for your beer, people aren't just going to order it. You need to figure out the slotting fees charged by the bars andd find someone who's willing to give you some cooler space - or better yet, tap space. You'll need to prepare a proposal telling them how much you'll sell them the beer for and how much they can expect to sell it based on the market. You then need to assure them that you'll be able to deliver on-time and sponsor promotions like giveaways and/or print material (menus, table tents, etc.)
It's not cheap to break into the commercial market. If you have about a million or two of capital to work with, you might be able to recoupe your investment within 5 years.
