50L nano-brewery set up under a pub

[bigjock]

Hi there,

I've been doing homebrew at home for a couple of years now and a pub around the corner was interested in me working with them to brew in their basement. I figured a 50L capacity set-up would be a good starting point. The aim is to have a "pubs-own" beer on tap every Friday night possibly building up to it being available all week.

I'm not sure whether to go for a 3-vessel setup (what I have at home) or a braumeister...Could anyone advise me on this?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[max384]

I have no experience with commercial brewing, but 50 L sounds pretty small if you want to eventually upgrade to your beer being available all week. Would you be able to keep up with demand with that small of a system? If you're going to be buying a new setup for this endeavor, I'd consider going larger.

http://www.soundbrew.com/small.html

 

[Weezy]

That's a good old link but it speaks more to production/wholesale breweries than brewpubs. Regardless 50l is awefully small. I think you should go as big as space allows. Is there room for many fermenters? How about for finished beer? Keg it or go with bright tanks or combo ferment/bright. You'll feel pretty dumb when that 50l sells out in a half hour.

 

[JohnSand]

I think starting small isn't a bad idea. Better to sell out than spend many thousands on a larger system only to find you can't sell enough beer. I'm sure that many of the customers will keep drinking their regular beer. 50 liters is 100+ pints. It may be a good idea to think of a system with room to expand.

 

[gregkeller]

50L is tiny. Is it worth time/effort/money/legalities to brew a keg of beer at a time? I understand the whole, wanting to start small, test the waters, proof of concept idea, but what's the ultimate goal? If it's to eventually have nothing but the pub's own beer on tap, then build things with that in mind, and a 50L system is not the way to go. If it's just a novelty then maybe 50L is alright, but it seems like a lot of work from a production standpoint for what amounts to less than a half keg.

Remember this is an economies of scale kind of thing and the cost of systems do not scale linearly. It is not 2x as expensive to buy a 100L brewhouse vs a 50L brewhouse.

 

[bigjock]

I understand about scaling up I guess I'm just anxious to jump from 20l to 100l in one go.

 

[ChelisHubby]

If this is only brew for a nite 50 liter would work. 100 pints is good enough for people to give you opinions and for you to decide if you want to go bigger. But if your just wanting to sell your own brew It will leave you frustrated.

 

[bigjock]

Thanks for this, is there anyone from the UK who could recommend a decent 100l setup and where I could source it?