changing professions

[scottab]

Hi all, I've been unemployed from the computer administration field for a while now, taking care of my kids now. My wife allowed me to start home brewing for my last birthday and i fin it fun and enjoyable, not to mention getting to enjoy the rewards of my efforts.

What i want to know is if anyone has gone from a hobby brewer to professional brewer or opened a brew on premises owner, and is it worth considering a career change? Other than the obvious: all the tasty brews i want, are there any really good benefits to going pro? What are the cons? I am still a novice so that would be a long way off to the future if i did decide to change fields.

 

[Pappers_]

Sorry about your employment situation, it sounds difficult. I know nothing about professional brewing, but there is a profession brewing forum at probrewer.com, I believe.

 

[SkinnyShamrock]

Sorry to hear about being unemployed, yay economy. Put a lot of good people out of work.

At any rate, I am a person who started homebrewing in college, then scored an entry-level job at a brewery when I graduated and worked up to brewing from there. Here's my advice after 3.5 years at the company and 13 months brewing:

Pros:
-You make beer for money (duh)
-Everyone at parties loves you because you bring free beer
-Job security- beer really is recession-proof, we have 3 times the employees now that we had when I started in early 2009, right after the economy crapped the bed
Cons:
-Almost everywhere you work it'll be shift work, which is good or bad, depending on your spouse's schedule- for example when I'm on 2nd shift I never see my wife because she works 1st shift
-It is very demanding physically- inhaling hop and grain dust, climbing ladders, squeezing under tanks, dragging hoses around, carrying bags of grain- get used to being sore
-The pay almost always sucks- I'm not starving, but I drive an old car that I fix myself, live in an apartment because there's no way I could afford a house

I'm glad that I have a job, but it's not ideal. And also I'm bitter because they recently rearranged our schedule and there's a lot of 3rd shifts on mine, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

 

[passedpawn]

Sorry to hear about being unemployed, yay economy. Put a lot of good people out of work.

At any rate, I am a person who started homebrewing in college, then scored an entry-level job at a brewery when I graduated and worked up to brewing from there. Here's my advice after 3.5 years at the company and 13 months brewing:

Pros:
-You make beer for money (duh)
-Everyone at parties loves you because you bring free beer
-Job security- beer really is recession-proof, we have 3 times the employees now that we had when I started in early 2009, right after the economy crapped the bed
Cons:
-Almost everywhere you work it'll be shift work, which is good or bad, depending on your spouse's schedule- for example when I'm on 2nd shift I never see my wife because she works 1st shift
-It is very demanding physically- inhaling hop and grain dust, climbing ladders, squeezing under tanks, dragging hoses around, carrying bags of grain- get used to being sore
-The pay almost always sucks- I'm not starving, but I drive an old car that I fix myself, live in an apartment because there's no way I could afford a house

I'm glad that I have a job, but it's not ideal. And also I'm bitter because they recently rearranged our schedule and there's a lot of 3rd shifts on mine, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

Mmmm Troegs. I only feel a little bad for you.

 

[Seven]

Brew Strong has a 5 part series on "going pro" that you can download from here.