Early stages of planning to open a microbrewery.

[Lyikos]

I'm in the early stages of planning a microbrewery, so I came here for advice and pointers, as well as some questions. I want to open a brewery and tasting room somewhere in Chicago IL. At the moment my main mission is to figure out what size in terms of BBL capacity I should start with. I plan to start with the medium sum I need to make all my ends meet and reverse calculate the starting capacity from there. I don't see how I'd be able to do that without interviewing all the brewery owners in Chicago about their expenses (I live in FL; not sure about trave any time soon), but I should be able to come up with at least a close estimate based on researching the costs of everything I will need online. But I figured it won't hurt to ask in case other people made similar calculations for comparison.

In January I will have an opportunity to volunteer in the local brewery for a few shifts and see how things are ran from the inside, but I want to prepare for that so I don't miss out on asking good questions due to ignorance.

I appreciate any pointers to guides and material. I have some business eduction so I'm set as far as knowing how to incorporate etc. and I know how to brew at home, but I have only seen full size equipment in catalogs I briefly encountered and that's where I need the most help.

If somebody here already owns a brewery and would like to give me pointers, here are some of the more specific questions that I have:

What percent of the final sale price of your brew is after-tax profit?
What is the biggest expense?
How much was all the starting equipment for your given capacity at the very beginning?
How much space did that brewing area encompass?
What sort of temp control did you employ and how much did it cost to maintain?
Was a bottling setup there at the beginning or did you only do kegs at first?
How much are th

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

We haven't opened yet, but my business partner and I have been working on our business plan and location for about 2 years now. We have learned quite a bit along the way, and have changed our plan along with the things we learn over the past couple of years.

1. I would have to look at my projections spreadsheet to get %. I have been using dollar amounts because I find it is easier to project things out in spreadsheet form based on projected bbl output of different "tier level" beers. I just used beersmith and input wholesale costs to estimate cost per bbl. We have been estimating our COGS/bbl pretty high at $125-250 depending on style. This would include everything including water, yeast, etc... I do not include any labor costs in my calculations because I just consider labor overhead in my model to make it easier to estimate without knowing how long certain tasks will take.


2. Brew system, hands down.

3. Not sure what you are asking here.

4. We are looking at a building that is about 2000 sf right now for a small 7 bbl tap room and bottling brewery.

5. We are looking at SS and glycol for sure. Our model is not to skimp on the cold side where it is most important for beer quality.

6. We are looking at starting with hand bottling and then moving up to a Meheen 4-6 head filler. The taproom will be the main part of our business and we would only be bottling limited amounts of vintage type beers in 22oz/750ml bottles. We are an engineer and a machinist between us, so we figure we can cobble something together to start with. We plan to mostly bottle condition to start also, which makes things much easier.

7. Utilities can be tough. There is an equipment supplier that gives some rules of thumb for estimation. I think it might be JVNW website perhaps.


Matt

 

[Lyikos]

Oops, #3 was asking how much was the total equipment, i.e. every long term peice of brew machinery in the brewing room. I fixed it in the main thread.

But thanks for the pointers, I'm glad to know I got the same COGS/bbl as well. A "model" beer with aa medium hop level came to about 150.

 

[joncapozzi]

Listen to the "Going Pro" series on The Brewing Networks' podcast/radioshow "Brew Strong". It has answers to every question you have asked, plus a lot more useful and relevant information.

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

Listen to the "Going Pro" series on The Brewing Networks' podcast/radioshow "Brew Strong". It has answers to every question you have asked, plus a lot more useful and relevant information.

These shows are good, but I found that the information given was pretty basic. There are a few good nuggets of info interspersed within a bunch of common sense, basic info. I found that it didn't really help answer most of the questions I had to figure out while going through the process.

 

[ledhead72486]

Do you know people in the Chicago brew market? I can try to get you in touch with some brewers here if not.

 

[Demon]

1) This will be difficult to give an accurate number. Differences in rent and production volume can skew this highly based on individual breweries.
2) Fermenters
3) I have around 50k in equipment for our 7bbl setup
4) 4000ft
5) Glycol for fermenters, walkin cooler for brite tanks
6) We are kegs only now, ordering our canning line in January

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

1) This will be difficult to give an accurate number. Differences in rent and production volume can skew this highly based on individual breweries.
2) Fermenters
3) I have around 50k in equipment for our 7bbl setup
4) 4000ft
5) Glycol for fermenters, walkin cooler for brite tanks
6) We are kegs only now, ordering our canning line in January

Did you buy used equipment? Also, are you renting glycol or did you buy a unit?

 

[Demon]

Did you buy used equipment? Also, are you renting glycol or did you buy a unit?

Here's some info on my setup. We bought everything new except kegs and walkin cooler.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/my-adventure-opening-brewery-chicago-436872/

 

[Lyikos]

@ joncapozzi: Thanks! I'll review their material later tonight.

@ ledhead72486: Unfortunately know. I know a bunch of people in Chicago, but the vast majority are IT/programmer types that don't brew. I welcome any connections I can get, so feel free to PM me :rockin:

@ Demon: Thanks! I read the link, it was a big help.

@ MachineShopBrewing: Good question, I would like advice on how to get hooked up with used coppers and ferments as well.

A little update, I decided to innovate a little and declared an intent to accept Bitcoin and other leading Cryptocoins at my tasting room. Given the "grey area" of the matter I decided to talk to a lawyer about it first, and to get funds for it I decided to launch a small Bitcoinstarter campaign. I chose that site as opposed to conventional Kickstarter because I can offer coupons and store credit as a rewards, which I can't do on Kickstarter. I have no idea why they made that rule, as the coupons and store credit will help get people into the brewery. In any case, we'll see how it goes, the link is in the signature.