Owly055
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- Feb 28, 2014
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A friend of mine owns a downtown building and formerly had a pizza and sandwich shop. After visiting a microbrewery in another town that's popular, dog friendly, and has a tasting room that in summer opens out right onto the sidewalk, she and her husband would like to open something similar. Being in the business district of a small town, and it an optimal location, it could be a great business I think, if they don't try to go big. I suggested a one of the Brewha 50 gallon complete systems, with several fermenters, to keep the cost and brewing labor down. I believe the potential exists to turn the Brewha system into what amounts to a giant version of the PicoBrew with hopbacks and valves so that you could simply set the thing up and let it run a 50 gallon brew, virtually automated.
This means that you could come in and hour early on brew day, crush grain and measure grains, and be free to deal with customers, etc. It would require a minimal amount of equipment. You could also have an actual PicoBrew to prototype on, and always have your latest experimentals on tap in small quantities to try out on customers.
I don't know what state licensing and federal licensing costs, but I suspect it's not excessive. The building is paid for and has a commercial kitchen. It's been the location of a number of restaurants over the years, and has sat empty for a number of years. There isn't adequate space for a full scale micro brewery plus brew pub unless you utilized the basement, but that would be a difficult proposition. It would be interesting trying to shoehorn a nanobrewery into it along with a brew pub, and a sandwich kitchen, but the 50 gallon Brewha would not take up a great deal of real estate. You could do something cute like integrating the active fermenters as the centerpiece of a semi circular table. The key would be to keep pushing product through, rather than doing huge batches. The conicals would all be on wheels, and when you were doing a batch, it would sit in the "brewing area". When it was fermenting, it would be along the wall with customers seated around it.
The picobrew you used for prototyping could be available for customers to do home brews if they opened an account. You'd supply malt and hops, which they'd purchase, and you'd load the machine. They would simply pick up the finished wort, take it home and pitch yeast..... Or you could custom brew, and sell it as a finished product. The basement would be the storehouse for malt and hops, and you might operate it as a LHBS. One or two nights a month, you would hold a meeting of the local beer lovers and home brewer's club, which would be a free BYOB and share affair, talk about the latest micro brews and recipes, ingerdients, equipment, etc. It might generate a few PicoBrews by members that would show up at the next meeting.
The whole thing could be small, inclusive, and dynamic. You would embrace customer input and criticism.... directing it towards the PicoBrew, in the knowledge that if they "commissioned" a PicoBrew and it was popular, it could potentially end up a regular product, "Commissioning" a brew would mean that the customer would pay for it, and receive a "kick back" as it sold. The "kickback" would not be cash, but could be credit at the brew pub or LHBS........a "commission" would be at the discretion of the brewmaster, as would any customer pico brew........ for obvious reasons.
In addition, you might do special brews for specific businesses in the community as capacity was available. If the owner of a local bar wanted to fine tune a product for one of his taps..... You would have the tools to do it.
......... It could be a truly FUN business....... Not all businesses are "fun". I've been in business for 35 years, and I've enjoyed myself most of the time. Customers and employees ( I have no employees anymore) have been good friends, and I've always operated in an environment of trust and respect. I don't buy the "the customer is always right" adage at all. In my business the customer is usually wrong.......That's why he's my customer.... They know it, and I know it... We don't play games, we fix it. A big percentage of my customers have been customers for the entire time I've been in business.... People call me and tell me the new expiration date on their credit cards!! I'm often one or several steps ahead of them....... I have the solution before they know they have a problem! I pay attention and know what's going on...... It works for all of us.
H.W.
This means that you could come in and hour early on brew day, crush grain and measure grains, and be free to deal with customers, etc. It would require a minimal amount of equipment. You could also have an actual PicoBrew to prototype on, and always have your latest experimentals on tap in small quantities to try out on customers.
I don't know what state licensing and federal licensing costs, but I suspect it's not excessive. The building is paid for and has a commercial kitchen. It's been the location of a number of restaurants over the years, and has sat empty for a number of years. There isn't adequate space for a full scale micro brewery plus brew pub unless you utilized the basement, but that would be a difficult proposition. It would be interesting trying to shoehorn a nanobrewery into it along with a brew pub, and a sandwich kitchen, but the 50 gallon Brewha would not take up a great deal of real estate. You could do something cute like integrating the active fermenters as the centerpiece of a semi circular table. The key would be to keep pushing product through, rather than doing huge batches. The conicals would all be on wheels, and when you were doing a batch, it would sit in the "brewing area". When it was fermenting, it would be along the wall with customers seated around it.
The picobrew you used for prototyping could be available for customers to do home brews if they opened an account. You'd supply malt and hops, which they'd purchase, and you'd load the machine. They would simply pick up the finished wort, take it home and pitch yeast..... Or you could custom brew, and sell it as a finished product. The basement would be the storehouse for malt and hops, and you might operate it as a LHBS. One or two nights a month, you would hold a meeting of the local beer lovers and home brewer's club, which would be a free BYOB and share affair, talk about the latest micro brews and recipes, ingerdients, equipment, etc. It might generate a few PicoBrews by members that would show up at the next meeting.
The whole thing could be small, inclusive, and dynamic. You would embrace customer input and criticism.... directing it towards the PicoBrew, in the knowledge that if they "commissioned" a PicoBrew and it was popular, it could potentially end up a regular product, "Commissioning" a brew would mean that the customer would pay for it, and receive a "kick back" as it sold. The "kickback" would not be cash, but could be credit at the brew pub or LHBS........a "commission" would be at the discretion of the brewmaster, as would any customer pico brew........ for obvious reasons.
In addition, you might do special brews for specific businesses in the community as capacity was available. If the owner of a local bar wanted to fine tune a product for one of his taps..... You would have the tools to do it.
......... It could be a truly FUN business....... Not all businesses are "fun". I've been in business for 35 years, and I've enjoyed myself most of the time. Customers and employees ( I have no employees anymore) have been good friends, and I've always operated in an environment of trust and respect. I don't buy the "the customer is always right" adage at all. In my business the customer is usually wrong.......That's why he's my customer.... They know it, and I know it... We don't play games, we fix it. A big percentage of my customers have been customers for the entire time I've been in business.... People call me and tell me the new expiration date on their credit cards!! I'm often one or several steps ahead of them....... I have the solution before they know they have a problem! I pay attention and know what's going on...... It works for all of us.
H.W.
