Anyone ever contract brew?

[Kmcogar]

HAs anyone ever contract brewed?

How did it turn out?
Good experience or bad?
Worth it?

And most important, what was the cost to do it?
-not the cost to advertise an do the whole business thing.
-what does the brewery charge to make your beer?

If you say "it depends" just make up a scenario and throw me an answer.

Any answers that may be helpful and not condescending will be welcome!

Thank you!

 

[foltster]

Maybe someone @ probrewer would be able to anser?

 

[TyTanium]

Agreed - probrewer would certainly have some insight for you.

 

[Kmcogar]

Have you ever read the answers to these questions on probrewer?

 

[foltster]

Just trying to give you some direction.

 

[Kmcogar]

Lol I know I've read look on probrewer but no actual pricing

 

[foltster]

Post on there and ask maybe?

 

[Thehopguy]

this thread is going no where

 

[C-Rider]

Don't think any of us are contractors. Wouldn't that be illegal?

 

[Kmcogar]

I'm not sure, I recently saw this contracting brewing company was opening near where I live. They don't have much info yet, but it is very intriguing. I read a lot of homebrews start their commercial brewing venture with contracting out. I just want to know how much!

 

[Fizzycist]

What do you guys mean by contract brewing? You give the recipe and $1k to the company and they give you your 10 bbs batch?

 

[MrSpiffy]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he's talking about the brewery making his beer on their equipment, and possibly selling/distributing it for him.

 

[Phunhog]

I have read up quite a bit on contract brewing. There are definetly breweries out there that make a good portion of their income from contract brewing. Just remember you still need to have your own alcohol license for distribution. Actually you may not...I have heard of some homebrewers in the Bay Area who are paying to have "their" beer brewed on a commercial system. It is distributed via kegs to local bars. Technically it is still the contract brewery's beer...they make it, distribute it, collect the money, and pay taxes on it. However I believe the tap pull and signage is the homebrewers?? I know the homebrewers' brewery mentions on Facebook where you can drink "their" beer.

 

[Loneleigh]

Which homebrewers in the bay area are doing this?

 

[Phunhog]

Which homebrewers in the bay area are doing this?

I believe these guys are....https://www.facebook.com/#!/localbrewingco
They are trying to get their brewery off the ground right now.

 

[shoreman]

This is a way to get into the whole "micro brew" situation on a budget - its a good way to dabble your feet in the business.

Basically you hand the Brewery (for example Mercury Brewing in Ipswich, MA) your recipe for a 30bbl batch or they help you create one and you add you own marketing, name, labels, etc to the beer and you go out and promote, sell and hopefully are successful and get on a contract brewing schedule and grow your brand - the legalities will have to be worked out on your end. When you make your $500k in profits than you can go out and buy your equipment and go from there....or continue to contract brew.

IMO the "micro brew" market is WAY over saturated right now - and I worked for craft brewery that was contracting some of their brews in the past.

 

[Kmcogar]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he's talking about the brewery making his beer on their equipment, and possibly selling/distributing it for him.

Hit it on the head. That's exactly what I mean

 

[Yooper]

I know Brewtopia did just that when he was building his brewpub. He didn't have all of his brewery in place, so he brewed on another brewery's equipment. I have no idea how much it cost him, though, or any of the details. You could try sending him a PM and asking him. http://iam.homebrewtalk.com/Brewtopia

 

[luke2080]

I've not done it, but some thoughts:

You will probably need to commit to a 50BBL batch, and thus need ingrediants, hops, and yeast for this. You're paying for this. I'll let you do that math.

Are you renting kegs from them, or buying the kegs? New kegs are around $120-$150 each to own. You could also buy bottles and labels for 50BBLs worth of beer. Easy math to do here as well.

If you plan to self distribute, you need your own storage for all of that kegged/bottled beer. Otherwise, you're going to lose margin to whomever you contract to distribute - and pay for storage.

So that is all just the costs of the beer, without paying someone else for actually doing the work and taking up one of their bright tanks for a couple of weeks. This cost will depend on whether you are kegging or bottling...and for kegs, are they cleaning the kegs when they come back for re-use?

The pricing isn't mentioned anywhere on ProBrewer, but you'll see listed a number of times that people that are trying to raise money selling beer they had contractually brewed never raise the money for their own brewery, simply because there is no margin to be made. That tells me it costs roughly $80-$100 per BBL brewed.

 

[beernut70]

Here is some insight from a brewery I pass every day. I think more craft beer may be contract brewed than you realize.

http://lionbrewery.com/home/contract-brewing/getting-started/tutorial/

 

[Calichusetts]

There is a couple in Mass...one as small as 20 gallons, which doesn't make sense to me.

I know that Blantant Brewery is actually a contract brew and it is decent