What keeps you from going pro?

Yakima 728
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This is something I have been researching a lot. I do plan on going pro in the future. I have been brewing for about 2 years now, and am just getting to the point that I am consistent with my "house" beers. My original plan was to be able to sell within the next 2 years, but that may be extended. Money is a huge factor even on the nano level. I just can't afford the equipment costs and location leasing right now. Here in CA, we don't have the three tier system, so thats a non issue. And for whatever reason, finding a good brewery/brewpub name seems to be one of the hardest parts for me. I have close to 200 names jotted down and still nothing seems to be standing out. Once I do though, I have friends in graphic design waiting to make logos for labels and shirts. The I can get my business license and start selling shirts/hats/etc AND be able to write off equipment/ingredient costs.
 
Walking into the local supermarket and seeing the staggering number of beers available (very good selection at the local supermarket here) is enough to make me stay away. The beer market is absolutely flooded right now. I feel like you would need a large amount of stashed cash to be able to survive, not to mention a large marketing budget. Unless you're ok with scraping by for about 10 years. There is very little room for more breweries. If you think you can make it on the quality of your product alone I think you're fooling yourself. On the other hand, if you have a great name, a great logo, and a good salesman I think you have a better shot irregarrdless of the product.
 
GilaMinumBeer said:
I have absolutely no desire to go pro.

1.) I make too much money in a job that offers me no satisfaction whatsoever.

2.) I enjoy brewing too much to want to make it a necessity.

3.) My Nigerian uncle's lawyer has yet to send me my 4 million dollar check, as promised. I already sent him my $2k. WTF? The email said I'd have my money within the month.
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Hey Gila, if you hear from your Nigerian Uncle's lawyer, could you remind him he still owes me $4 million. Its been like two years and I'm starting to wonder if i'll ever see the cash...
 
remilard said:
Thats not true in every state. In Missouri, no entity can have ownership in businesses on multiple tiers (brewpubs excepted). I assume some other states are the same. This is why Gordon Biersch had to sell its restaurants. Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City had to start making wine in order to be allowed to sell beer on premises.
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Georgia is the same. Besides that, many retail establishments deal with one or two distributor(s) and no one else, so even if you became your own distributor, at best you'd probably be limited to selling draft to bars.
 
Cheaton said:
Walking into the local supermarket and seeing the staggering number of beers available (very good selection at the local supermarket here) is enough to make me stay away.
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so true. I keep waiting for the beer industry to bottom out much like the cigar industry did a few years back.

with the big breweries buying out some of the smaller ones and shutting them down a couple years later, we're already seeing beers disappear.
 
Would never dream of trying to go pro and brew beer to sale in a bottle.... would love to be a partner in a group owning a brewpub/microbrewery. But it all requires no saturation within my market to ever dream of that... oh yeah and the mortgage, kids, and that d word.. oh yeah DEBT. :)
 
my job, my money, my wife, my life.

Why would I want to make the same thing all the time?
 
I've given this some thought too, and my job pays too much for me to change occupations. That, and the licensing fees here in my area of NY are too high for what I want to do.

I'd love to open up a small brewpub on some corner in a hip area in the city - smallscale - maybe on a Sabco system or something like that - a few barrels a week. Somewhere that serves some food too - but the yearly fee here in Buffalo is over $4G for a "brewpub" - blah!

Microbrewery licensing is substantially cheaper, at about $400/year! But you can't run a microbrewery on a Sabco system - that's where money (or the lack of) seems to hold me back. :)
 
Brewing aint easy. I've been at it for just over two yeasrs. And I also had aspirations of going pro when I first got started, as I think many people do. But the truth is that it aint easy and I am lazy. And like many here have said I don't want my hobby to become my job. And I'm not consistant enough.
A buddy of mine has been trying for about a year to open a local brewpub but has since given up because he was unable to raise enough capital. I highly recommend checking out his blog which chronicals his adventure and what he learned. There's a lot of good information out there for people interested in starting up: http://republicbrewpub.blogspot.com/. Good luck.
 
As much as I like to make my own beer, so far I'm still enjoying it too much to make a second batch of anything I've made yet. I just keep tinkering and taking notes on all of it. I suppose someday I'll start to go back and duplicating or triplicating recipes, but until then, it's all uncharted territory.

Oh, and another part of it is that yesterday I was looking into how much that nifty hand-operated canning machine I saw this summer up in the Yukon would cost. After a few hours of searching the interwebs, I found the same model. Sticker shock. $16k , and it maxes out at about 20 cases of canned beer an hour...and it requires two people to do that. The automated one is significantly more expensive at $60k + .

That is just a machine that gets the beer into cans. Getting cans with minimum orders of 20 pallets, permits, and tens of thousands of dollars later after MLT, HLT, electronic controls, space...etc.... Yea, no, I don't think I'm ready for that kind of commitment yet.

The batch I'm brewing for the end of 2009 this afternoon is < $17.00 in materials , and the keg I will put it in is $30 with new gaskets.
 
I agree on turning a hobby into a job... it sucks the enjoyment out of it. I loved working on cars so I got into it years ago, I also build race motors on the side as a small business. I no longer love what I do, because I HAVE to do it everyday, I enjoy the race motors side of it because it is a one or two per month thing, not everyday. I brew to relax and enjoy myself. an infection in a batch does not impact my finances like it could in a microbrewery
 
brewmonk said:
Why would I want to make the same thing all the time?
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+1 I have been brewing off and on for 4 years of the last decade and I have never done the same beer twice. I know that repeatability is the hallmark of a good brewer but the whole reason I originally got into brewing was to have beer I couldn't get on the shelf easily. The options on the shelf sure have improved in that time but the guy at my beer store still knows when I come in to show me whatever is new or rare.

Also - turning my hobby of computers into a living didn't improve my enjoyment of them so I don't imagine it would work any better for beer.
 
I figure if I were to go pro, I would want to create the brewery and then sell it for 3-4 million so I can retire. The problem is I don't have the 7-8 million necessary to turn it into 3-4 million.

I have seen many people follow their passion into a career. Many of them want nothing to do with that passion outside of work hours. I am glad I am different, as I love coming home to sit in my cubicle...
 
mackinskor said:
My original plan was brewpub but I figure if I can have a beer that is outstanding, that everyone loves, why not brew it and sell it??
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BMC does this more efficiently than anyone can already.
 
1. An absolute disinclination to brew beer for sale. Even if I had $500K to invest in a brewpub, there's too much work involved, and regulated by government at every level. There appear to be plenty of people willing to go into this type of business, I'll leave it to them.

2. As has been mentioned previously, a hobby or pastime &#8800;an occupation or profession. I enjoy brewing far too much as a hobby to ever "have" to do it.
 
A local restaurant owner offered to finance our nanobrewery, but we just arent as consistent as I would like, plus I don't want to owe somebody.

Much like several of the previous posters, I love brewing, but as soon as it becomes a job, I know from past experience I will like it less.
 
Thanks for the responses! I was out of town and vowed to not bring my laptop so that I could actually relax! There seems to be common occurrences of money, time, hobby-->job, being main factors. I'm not overly concerned on the money aspect, and if this takes off then I won't have to worry about time since I would quit my job I have now, naturally.

The hobby into a job... I've been brewing to be a professional, and although I do enjoy it for hobby-life purposes, I'm not brewing just to brew. I have a focus and intent, and although I love beer as much as the next poster on these boards, and I love the taste of my homebrew, I'm not brewing for hobby purposes.

Hopefully within the next few months I can report back with great news! :mug:
 
Read "Beer School" to hear the story of Brooklyn Brewing's start then ask if you are ready it.

IMO you need to have money ($500k + to start), a great support network, business skills, determination, and several years to dedicate to the venture. The beer brewing part is the easiest part to learn which is why so many people romantically dream of starting a brewery.
Anyone can brew good beer, building and growing a successful business is the hard part. If you can secure funding and have the right team go for it.
 
It's something I would definitely like to do at some point in my life if circumstances allow. I unfortunately don't see a niche to be filled where I live. The Seattle area (and the Northwest in general) has a huge amount of local breweries already, so the market is fairly well saturated with different kinds of local beer. Brewpubs are widespread, too. My local grocery store has a vast selection of local beers sold by the bottle and I still haven't tried most of them.

It'd be a really good life experience and I would imagine that I'd enjoy my job a lot more, but I don't think I could pursue that dream successfully at this time and in this part of the world. For now it's just something fun to think about and keep on the back burner for a few years.
 
I guess I will never understand why you wouldn't want to have a job doing what you love. I think another way of stating that point is to say if you get a job doing something you hate, then you will be happier when you are not working? I don't know - its a really weird point.

Having said that, theoretically I would love to go pro so I can do a job I love, but the job I don't love pays me too much and it would be a lifestyle adjustment that I am just not willing to accept at this point in my life. It is a sad reality that has pulled the plug on a lot of career paths that I wish I could pursue.

Also, living in Silicon Valley I know of way too many stories of startups that failed, including beverage companies, to have any inkling of taking those kinds of risks in an industry that yields little profit and has extreme failure rates.
 
Not sure if this has been posted already, but there is an interesting sounding book that just came out on the subject. Steve Hindy and Tom Potter published their book "Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery". It looks pretty good as they discuss the influence of their trials with homebrew.
 
mackinskor said:
Thanks for the responses! I was out of town and vowed to not bring my laptop so that I could actually relax! There seems to be common occurrences of money, time, hobby-->job, being main factors. I'm not overly concerned on the money aspect, and if this takes off then I won't have to worry about time since I would quit my job I have now, naturally.

The hobby into a job... I've been brewing to be a professional, and although I do enjoy it for hobby-life purposes, I'm not brewing just to brew. I have a focus and intent, and although I love beer as much as the next poster on these boards, and I love the taste of my homebrew, I'm not brewing for hobby purposes.

Hopefully within the next few months I can report back with great news! :mug:
Click to expand...

Well, if you've got money to burn, then by all means...
You'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath
 
I don't go pro because when I was 7 years old, my mom told me that I'm a no-talent loser who will never amount to anything and that no matter what I do, I will always fail. That's why I don't go pro.
 
boredatwork said:
I guess I will never understand why you wouldn't want to have a job doing what you love. I think another way of stating that point is to say if you get a job doing something you hate, then you will be happier when you are not working? I don't know - its a really weird point.
Click to expand...

Probably a better way to restate my point is that the hobby and the business are not the same. What a homebrewer does and a pro brewer do are not the same thing so I wouldn't be "doing what I love" if I went pro. As a homebrewer I just brew what seems like a good idea at the time and I do it when it seems like the time to do it and I almost never repeat anything. Production line brewing would be a totally different thing and would be, well "work." I said that I turned a computer hobby into a career and don't love it but I probably would if I could get someone to pay me good money to do whatever the hell I wanted to with the computers. Unfortunately businesses are about making money and refuse to pay me to f&*% around with my computer. Same with a beer company - whether I owned it or not it would have to be about making a consistent product instead of about playing around with flavors.
 
Before you go pro, you have to be certain that there is a need for a start-up brewery in your town.

For example:

I have friends with money and management sense that have already pushed me to develop a business plan. The main problem is my town (population of 55k) is home to a very successful regional brewery that OWNS the two biggest bars in town (and there aren't many bars in Hickory). In order to really get off the ground, you have to find local watering holes that will buy kegs of your beer and this would be nearly impossible where I live.

If I lived in a mid-size city that didn't have a local brewery I would jump at the chance to go pro. Unfortunately, The Olde Hickory Brewery (great brewery by the way) beat me to the punch.

Just trying to add another thought to the conversation...
 
HickoryMike said:
Before you go pro, you have to be certain that there is a need for a start-up brewery in your town.

For example:

I have friends with money and management sense that have already pushed me to develop a business plan. The main problem is my town (population of 55k) is home to a very successful regional brewery that OWNS the two biggest bars in town (and there aren't many bars in Hickory). In order to really get off the ground, you have to find local watering holes that will buy kegs of your beer and this would be nearly impossible where I live.

If I lived in a mid-size city that didn't have a local brewery I would jump at the chance to go pro. Unfortunately, The Olde Hickory Brewery (great brewery by the way) beat me to the punch.

Just trying to add another thought to the conversation...
Click to expand...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who mentioned competition as a reason. Man is the beer market ever flooded right now. I can't begin to see how you can make money brewing beer as a startup right now unless you have a niche or no local competition.
 
mackinskor said:
Thanks for the responses! I was out of town and vowed to not bring my laptop so that I could actually relax! There seems to be common occurrences of money, time, hobby-->job, being main factors. I'm not overly concerned on the money aspect, and if this takes off then I won't have to worry about time since I would quit my job I have now, naturally.

The hobby into a job... I've been brewing to be a professional, and although I do enjoy it for hobby-life purposes, I'm not brewing just to brew. I have a focus and intent, and although I love beer as much as the next poster on these boards, and I love the taste of my homebrew, I'm not brewing for hobby purposes.

Hopefully within the next few months I can report back with great news! :mug:
Click to expand...

I think you said you've been brewing for 2 months now. Does this mean that you just started homebrewing 2 months ago, or that you've been immersed in some commercial-sized brewing venture (i.e. like a brewmaster's apprentice) for 2 months?

If you've just been homebrewing, I have a hard time believing that you have any sort of perspective on what it will actually take to be successful on a larger scale. I've been brewing for a few years now, and with each batch I learn more about how much more there is to learn.

If you've been immersed in something more commercial, then maybe you do have a better perspective. Even so, 2 months is not much time at all.

You said you don't brew for hobby purposes, that you're focusing on this more as a business venture. Assuming a decent business plan, do you know how much time it will take to break even? Years, if ever. Brewing beer doesn't make many millionaires. People tend to get into it because they love beer and brewing, not because they're looking for a great ROI. There are much smarter investments to be made if you've got cash burning a hole in your pocket.

It would be worth your time to give yourself a reality check, just to make sure your perspective is on the mark. Go to a local, somewhat successful microbrewery and talk with the brewmaster and/or owner (usually not the same person, in my experience). Find out what it took for them to achieve commercial success and see if it jives with your own thinking.
 
Cheaton said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one who mentioned competition as a reason. Man is the beer market ever flooded right now. I can't begin to see how you can make money brewing beer as a startup right now unless you have a niche or no local competition.
Click to expand...

I agree about competition. I could never compete in my area right now (aside from the obvious inexperience/noobish-ness in homebrewing). There are 3-5 microbrew/brewpubs I can name in my area right now without putting much thought into it.

Beyond that all of the main watering holes in my area don't even consider putting craft brews into their taps. They're pretty much the same pubs that have been around for decades, and their clientele drink BMC. That's the reason most microbreweries have opened their own exclusive brewpubs.

Distributors near me do carry a lot of good microbrews, but, again, they now take up about 1/3 of the floorspace. I can't even imagine how to break through into that area, now.

Good luck to the OP, though.
 
mackinskor said:
Title said:

If you have so many recipes, why don't you sell your beer?
Click to expand...

Question: Hey dude, if you think you're so smart, how come you
aren't a billionaire like Donald Trump?

Answer: Because my dad didn't die and leave me $10 million and
a real estate company.

Jim:mug:
 

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