Got a meeting with professional brewers today...what should I ask?

[Zabuza]

So I was lucky enough to get a personalized your set up with some of the brewmasters and executives at St. Arnold's brewery here in Houston and I was wondering if you guys could give some advice about what questions I should ask. I'm basically a homebrewer that has bought a nice pilot batch/small scale brewing system (a MoreBeer brew sculpture) and I'm engaging in the long and arduous process of getting ready to try professional brewing. I'd like to have some halfway intelligent questions to ask these people at the meeting and I was wondering if anyone could give some advice. So far I can think of asking them about yeast management (maintaining purity and health, use of nutrient, storage, etc.) and how they achieve batch consistency (like what they specifically do to ensure each batch of lawnmower ale tastes the same, how do they scale up from their Sabco pilot batch system to a full-scale batch, etc.), but I'm sort of blanking on anything else to ask.

Soooo...what would you ask the brewmasters/execs/owner of a major brewing corporation if you had a chance?

 

[Phunhog]

I would ask about the financial/business side of brewing. Specifically how they feel about the explosive growth of commercial brewing and if it is sustainable. After all every brewery that opens is potentially a competitor for shelf/tap space.

 

[TwistedHops]

I would ask how the scale of large batch brewing affects recipe development and creation. What changes? What stays the same? Size and brewing is not necessarily a linear relationship.

 

[Talgrath]

I would think financial questions should be #1 as well as questions regarding legal requirements and hoops; ultimately "going pro" means opening a business and if you don't have the business acumen part down this won't go well no matter how good your beer is. Questions like "How long did it take you to go from having your equipment setup to serving beer?", "Did you run into any problems getting your permits?" and "How long did it take to start breaking even?" are all pretty important for example; you'll want to know how much money you'll need to get going and how long before your business is theoretically viable. Ultimately, unless you're independently wealthy, you'll need to know all of that to know how much money to set aside or how big of a loan to apply for; a business loan officer will want to know you have a plan, that you talked to someone and know how long it should take to become a viable business.