Yet another group of hombrewers trying to go pro

Upon entering into the last year of law school, my friends and I became certain that we would much rather brew beer than work anywhere in the legal profession. We had been joking about the prospect for many years and we continued to homebrew more than study. After talking with a bunch of people who have done it and making a business plan, we decided to give it a go. Black Acre Brewing Co. was created.

After seeing start-ups such as the black star coop we thought a community run brewery would be a very neat thing. However, we were not sure that Indianapolis could support such an endeavor. So we are trying crowdfunding (or Beerlanthropy as we call it) for the first phase of the business, which includes purchasing a 1 barrel test system, finding a suitable location, and clearing all the necessary permits. We are very appreciative to startups such as Mystery Brewing in North Carolina for showing that this style of funding is possible. If it is successful, we will look into starting it as a co-op. Otherwise, we will stick with traditional debt financing.

We are still in the preliminary phases, but thought we would start a thread documenting our successes and failures so others in our position may be able to get something out of this. And of course, advice from others is always appreciated.

Website: http://www.blackacrebrewing.com
Beerlanthropy: http://inv.st/B1
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Indianapolis-IN/Black-Acre-Brewing-Co/136629459701247
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/blackacrebrewer

The names cool

Wow, awesome! I'll definitely be stalking your progress, as another '1bbl brewer with eyes on Black Star's business plan.'

Just a little FYI, but Mystery Brewing is in NC, not NY.
Otherwise I love it. After seeing Mystery I had a thought of doing a Kickstarter, InvestedIn type deal myself. Just not ready.

Very cool project, best of luck! I'll definitely be following your progress here.

Black Acre! Awesome! Totally reminded me of Property when I was a 1L!

Very cool! I'm anxious to follow your progress as well purely to satisfy my intellectual curiosity. I'm particularly interested to see if being trained in law helps you get through all the state/federal bureaucratic nonsense easier than most.

A friend of mine was the Brewmaster at the local Ruby River here in Ogden Ut. He opened a place in Evanston, Wyoming called Suds Brothers Brewery he is doing a very good business. http://sudsbrothersbrewery.com/

Good luck! I'll be following closely.

Awesome work folks! I look forward to visiting and tasting your product! LaFayette could always use another great supply of micro brew!

As some one who is hoping to take this plunge one day I eagerly will follow your start up. Please tell us of your trials and tribulations of starting a small business. I wish you all the success you can handle and then some!

Can I do a guest beer when you go pro?

Terrill

If we actually make it, you can guest brew all you want sir.

Great Name!! Good Plan!! Bring lots of Money, and I wish you the best of luck!!

What part of Indianapolis? I'm from Greenfield! Best friend and I are airline pilots with the same thought process...we don't and just can't see ourselves doing what we're doing for the next 40 years.

I'll be keeping my eye out for your brewery! Good luck!

Matt

Good for you sir. As someone who has been out of law school for two years now, I can tell you that the legal profession is slowly sucking the soul out of me. If not for these damn student loans, I'd have my own brewery plans churning away by now.

Black Acre is a very clever name for your brewery too.

SkyHighBrew88 said:

What part of Indianapolis? I'm from Greenfield! Best friend and I are airline pilots with the same thought process...we don't and just can't see ourselves doing what we're doing for the next 40 years.

I'll be keeping my eye out for your brewery! Good luck!

Matt

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We haven't nailed the location down yet, but right now are focusing on either the Fountain Square area or the Near Eastside due to lower real estate costs and some grants that are currently available.

Good for you guys. I just recently finished my graduate degree at Florida State and I'm slowly walking down that line towards a brewpub. I'll be checking in on your progress as well. Best of luck!

Justin - as an attorney (24 years) if I had to do it all over again and had the opportunity you have I would go for it. The legal profession is in disarray these days as I am certain you are well aware so there is not as much risk in going in another direction.

I too am actually looking at transitioning out and going in another direction. A brewpub or microbrewery is a distinct possibility in that I have friends with experience in the restaurant/bar industry that are willing to lend a hand in getting me headed in the right direction and there are also plenty of individuals who are interested in owning a piece of the action. Good luck on your venture. Montanaandy

Man, vinter's must have a much better lobby at the statehouse than brewers in Indiana. Wineries only have to put up a $1,000 surety bond while it is $10,000 for breweries. Oh well.

IC 7.1-3-1-7
Surety bonds; amounts
Sec. 7. (a) An applicant for a brewer's permit, a distiller's permit, or a liquor wholesaler's permit shall file with the commission a surety bond in the penal sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
(b) An applicant for a rectifier's permit shall file with the commission a surety bond in the penal sum of fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).
(c) An applicant for a vintner's permit shall file with the commission a surety bond in the penal sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000).
(Formerly: Acts 1973, P.L.55, SEC.1.) As amended by P.L.58-1984, SEC.1; P.L.205-1999, SEC.9.

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very cool, best of luck to you!

As a fellow lawyer/brewer who is no longer practicing (the law that is), I wish you luck and success! Brewing has been my dream and it I hope to go pro someday too. I love the name. If I ever make it to Indianapolis I will come find you.

Awesome - please keep us posted as to your progress. A friend of mine approached me with a similar idea - but we are definite nubes - so we will watch and learn.

Good luck to you! Hope to hear lots of details as to how it all goes. Subscribed!

Love the name. If you ever make a barleywine, you should call it Assumption of Risk.

Best of luck.

Assumption of Risk is an awesome name idea for a high alcohol beer. We were trying to think of a few legal phrases we could throw into the beer names without making them inaccessible to non-legal drinkers.

I would strongly recommend not serving your beer to non-legal drinkers.

I would strongly recommend not serving your beer to non-legal drinkers.

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Touché Sir.

There's always Attractive Nuisance. And the Saucy Intruder. (Man, this is taking me back to 1L.)

justinm said:

Man, vinter's must have a much better lobby at the statehouse than brewers in Indiana. Wineries only have to put up a $1,000 surety bond while it is $10,000 for breweries. Oh well.

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Actually this is because the brewers have a better lobby, just not the kind of brewer you are.

justinm said:

Assumption of Risk is an awesome name idea for a high alcohol beer. We were trying to think of a few legal phrases we could throw into the beer names without making them inaccessible to non-legal drinkers.

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I vote for an IPA called Ipso Facto Ale.

Actually this is because the brewers have a better lobby, just not the kind of brewer you are.

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That is probably true. I wasn't thinking about the BMC lobby.

heywolfie1015

There's always Attractive Nuisance. And the Saucy Intruder.

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Here is a quick and dirty draft we came up with for the saucy intruder. We have a friend from undergrad who is an artist who will probably do the actual artwork for us, so we are just brainstorming ideas for now.



We were going to call it Hop Shortage until we realized that Terrapin already had that name. I think every name with the word Hop in it may have already been taken.

Ha! Love it.

Subscribed!

I thought I would update the thread after a long hiatus. We are still looking to open up our brewery, probably beginning construction in the fall of 2011 and opening in spring 2012. For us, crowd funding did not work because most people we talked to would rather put up larger amounts of money for equity shares instead of small amounts for perks, so that is what we ended up doing. The longest amount of time was spent working and reworking the business plan, but we finally got it compete. We reduced our brew house from 30 barrels to a 7 barrels doing double batches into 4 15 barrel fermenters and were able to reduce our start-up costs from 500k to 285k (with only 35 coming from debt financing.) That left us with 4 7 bbls which we could devote to specialty brews. Once we meet our investment goals, we hope to move quickly to make this a reality. If anyone is in the starting stages of the business plan and has any questions, send me a pm and we would glad to be of assistance.

We also will be updating our website more frequently now that we have everything in order. http://www.blackacrebrewing.com

justinm said:

I thought I would update the thread after a long hiatus. We are still looking to open up our brewery, probably beginning construction in the fall of 2011 and opening in spring 2012. For us, crowd funding did not work because most people we talked to would rather put up larger amounts of money for equity shares instead of small amounts for perks, so that is what we ended up doing. The longest amount of time was spent working and reworking the business plan, but we finally got it compete. We reduced our brew house from 30 barrels to a 7 barrels doing double batches into 4 15 barrel fermenters and were able to reduce our start-up costs from 500k to 285k (with only 35 coming from debt financing.) That left us with 4 7 bbls which we could devote to specialty brews. However, we were lucky to have unique factors such as getting free rent for 18 months and a really cheap purchase price after that. Once we meet our investment goals, we hope to move quickly to make this a reality. If anyone is in the starting stages of the business plan and has any questions, send me a pm and we would glad to be of assistance.

We also will be updating our website more frequently now that we have everything in order. http://www.blackacrebrewing.com

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When you need a temporary worker to sweep up and clean mashtuns, payment in beer- let me know! Bob and I are available and are planning on visiting all my HBT "imaginary friends" to work at their breweries.

wow, your IIPA says it has over 1/2oz / pint that works out to over 4oz per gallon or say 20oz in a 5 gallon batch. Very nice

Justin, I am also from Indianapolis!

I am so happy to have stumbled onto this thread. I have lots of questions to ask you. A group of my friends are dabbling with the idea of starting a brewery. But we are still in the infancy stage (more like conception stage). The idea just came up over the weekend and we have hit the ground running with a hand full of scissors! I would love a chance to chat with you. So many questions!

Send me a pm when you get the chance.

I'm only 2 hours away. Way to live the dream!