A Brewer's Guide to Opening a Nano Brewery

[treacheroustexan]

My girlfriend got this book for me for christmas from the guy from Beaver Brewing Company in Beaver Falls PA. Has anyone read it? I have gotten a couple chapters in so far and it's pretty interesting. It has a lot of exercises in it for you to do, and it really helps you figure out the real reason you are interested in starting a brewery. Cool little book so and I recommend it to anyone so far. I also got a couple more I haven't started reading yet but will post about them as I read.

 

[tlucarelli]

I read it. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, but there were a lot of people that cut it down. I wrapped up my MBA in October, and the capstone class was to create a business, then write the business plan. I naturally chose opening a brewery, and that book was invaluable to writing my paper.

After it was all said and done, I had all this brewing knowledge (and more importantly an addiction to keep learning), so with all of the extra weekend time I had, I began brewing. Now I'm pretty much spending every waking minute of free time thinking about what I'll do next.

I bought his book on hops which is really nothing special, but I like it because it's an easy way to reference many of the different types of hops all in one place. I keep it right next to my recipe book so when I'm leafing around, I've got that thing ready to go.

 

[treacheroustexan]

I read it. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, but there were a lot of people that cut it down. I wrapped up my MBA in October, and the capstone class was to create a business, then write the business plan. I naturally chose opening a brewery, and that book was invaluable to writing my paper.

After it was all said and done, I had all this brewing knowledge (and more importantly an addiction to keep learning), so with all of the extra weekend time I had, I began brewing. Now I'm pretty much spending every waking minute of free time thinking about what I'll do next.

I bought his book on hops which is really nothing special, but I like it because it's an easy way to reference many of the different types of hops all in one place. I keep it right next to my recipe book so when I'm leafing around, I've got that thing ready to go.

Had no idea he had other books. I will check them out! Thanks! I'm planning a trip to the brewery to check it out just to support it! It is only about an hour and a half away from me, not a terrible drive.

 

[tlucarelli]

Had no idea he had other books. I will check them out! Thanks! I'm planning a trip to the brewery to check it out just to support it! It is only about an hour and a half away from me, not a terrible drive.

In all fairness, the hop "book" is only about 10 pages of book reading, followed by one page dedicated to each hop, then some brief descriptions, what they are used in, etc. That's pretty sweet it's that close. Where are you at in Ohio? I'm down by Kings Island in Cinci

 

[treacheroustexan]

In all fairness, the hop "book" is only about 10 pages of book reading, followed by one page dedicated to each hop, then some brief descriptions, what they are used in, etc. That's pretty sweet it's that close. Where are you at in Ohio? I'm down by Kings Island in Cinci

I'm in Cleveland soon to be Strongsvile. I usually get to Cedar Point every year but I have yet to go to Kings Island. Maybe this year I will finally get there. By the way I just updated my city on here after your post as well I didn't realize it wasn't showing up (not trying to make you look like an idiot) haha.

 

[tlucarelli]

I'm in Cleveland soon to be Strongsvile. I usually get to Cedar Point every year but I have yet to go to Kings Island. Maybe this year I will finally get there. By the way I just updated my city on here after your post as well I didn't realize it wasn't showing up (not trying to make you look like an idiot) haha.

Haha it's all good man. I've lived here about 2.5 yrs now and haven't been to Kings Island even though it's about 5 mins away.

I'm curious how the brewery is over in PA. You'll have to let me know. I emailed him a couple times and he's always replied back quickly. Cool dude but you can tell he loses interest after one or two conversations unless he knows he is getting money out of it (he talks about giving away too much free advice in the book) or if he is getting you to review his book on Amazon haha. I'm sure he is a cool dude in person.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Haha it's all good man. I've lived here about 2.5 yrs now and haven't been to Kings Island even though it's about 5 mins away.

I'm curious how the brewery is over in PA. You'll have to let me know. I emailed him a couple times and he's always replied back quickly. Cool dude but you can tell he loses interest after one or two conversations unless he knows he is getting money out of it (he talks about giving away too much free advice in the book) or if he is getting you to review his book on Amazon haha. I'm sure he is a cool dude in person.

Yeah i'm really looking forward to it. Probably going to go after all of this snow clears up. We are supposed to get like 8 inches tonight... and it took me 2 hours to drive to work this morning. Ugh. I will definitely let you know how it is though! I havent been to cincy much. Had Thundersnow from madtree the other day and I loved it.

 

[tlucarelli]

Yeah i'm really looking forward to it. Probably going to go after all of this snow clears up. We are supposed to get like 8 inches tonight... and it took me 2 hours to drive to work this morning. Ugh. I will definitely let you know how it is though! I havent been to cincy much. Had Thundersnow from madtree the other day and I loved it.

Madtree is sick man. I've got about 5-10 beers left of the Thundersnow in my kegerator right now. They've got some great beers. Rhinegeist is stepping up their game lately and Moerlein too.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Madtree is sick man. I've got about 5-10 beers left of the Thundersnow in my kegerator right now. They've got some great beers. Rhinegeist is stepping up their game lately and Moerlein too.

I had a bottle of Ink from Rhinegeist I drank the other day. Was incredible but wish I would have put it in the cellar for a while.

 

[tlucarelli]

I had a bottle of Ink from Rhinegeist I drank the other day. Was incredible but wish I would have put it in the cellar for a while.

There are some awesome breweries down here for sure. Worth a visit I would say!

 

[myerstyson]

So is the book good to get if you aren't going to open a nano-brewery, but possibly might? Or, would it be helpful for a homebrewer who wants a larger system for personal use?

 

[tlucarelli]

So is the book good to get if you aren't going to open a nano-brewery, but possibly might? Or, would it be helpful for a homebrewer who wants a larger system for personal use?

The book is really easy to read and is something like $10 or so, so I would recommend it even just for curiosity sake. I will say that it reads extremely quickly because it's written more like a guy just talking to you than a writer focusing on every word for publication sake. Because of this, most of what he says could come off as common sense to a lot of people, and I think that's where people started feeling ripped off. They wanted more than common sense organized in a logical guide of what it takes to go bigger/professional.

I liked it because it laid out a lot of the groundwork of what you should be considering to expand, and laid out some expectation prices too. To me, those kinds of things were exactly what I was looking for.

Hope it helps!