Gilded Goat Brewing Co. - Building a Brewery

[Oginme]

Woo-Hoo! Congrats!

 

[woo_pig]

Excellent suggestions, thanks! Any idea if this would be something that a metal fab shop (or something similar) would normally do? Or maybe get the particular metal cut then add a patina ourselves? We have seen some amazing things done with a patina on copper or brass, and it would keep with our gilded theme.

I would try to do it first. Nothing is better than creating something yourself.

 

[m00ps]

So....its now too late to change the name to "Brown's Shoe Fit Co"? oh well....
congrats man

 

[ColoHox]

So....its now too late to change the name to "Brown's Shoe Fit Co"? oh well....
congrats man

I ran your suggestion by the group. They thought it might be too messy if people were putting their feet in full pint glasses.

 

[lupulinaddict]

This is really important!

Those ridiculously amazing IPA's you guys all make at home - Ya. Those don't always translate well to 10 bbl batches. That takes a LOT of work and dedication. There's a reason IPA's are the full on rock-stars of the festival world.

I was curious what the larger scaled recipe does compared to the homebrew size? Are you having to adjust hop amounts, hop addition times, or grain bill? Have you found a modification that works best for you?

Colohox....
what have you found to be the biggest difference so far from going from homebrewer to probrewer as you helped out at the local breweries?

Good luck to both of you!

 

[ColoHox]

I was curious what the larger scaled recipe does compared to the homebrew size? Are you having to adjust hop amounts, hop addition times, or grain bill? Have you found a modification that works best for you?

Colohox....
what have you found to be the biggest difference so far from going from homebrewer to probrewer as you helped out at the local breweries?

Good luck to both of you!

I don't know if you are asking specifically about brewing issues, or just in general, but prepare for a wall 'o text. Every brewery has a different approach to their brewing and their business. I have accumulated a "global" view of the process, after spending time with various people that links together the various moving parts, taking things I liked from particular places.

A production brewer must adjust every one of the things you mentioned. Large scale brewing has higher hop utilization overall and often vastly decreased amounts of roasted malts, for example. We will be dealing with up scaling recipes when our equipment arrives in June. Many issues are equipment specific as well but this is just a small piece of the puzzle. Making good beer isn't even close to enough if you want a successful brewery.

I think my biggest take away, which probably has the most to do with my personality, is the amount of planning that should go into production level brewing. There are so many moving parts involved in keeping your brewery machine running. If you follow the process from raw materials to pint glass, every step along the way needs to be planned for and adjusted, if necessary. A local brewery ran out of beer after being open 3 weeks. That kind of stuff drives me crazy! Of course, many things could come up that no one thought about, but how hard is it to look at your taproom volumes, production schedule, and raw material orders? I understand that you can't force a beer to ferment faster or that maybe there were an average of 100 people in the taproom on Fri/Sat peak times and you were only expecting an average of 80, or you ran out of your secret hop...these things happen. Successful breweries need to be able to monitor things like this before they start pouring beer. I have the perspective that (s)he who has the most data wins!

To this end, we created a pretty thorough taproom demand forecast. This forecast estimates the number of people in the taproom per hour/day/week, how much they are drinking, how long they are staying, etc. These numbers tell us how much beer we need to be producing to meet the demand. Of course, these are estimates. We will adjust these numbers as we accumulate hard data. Our prediction for Tuesdays (a notoriously slow brewery day, unless special events are planned to bring people in) is that we will serve about 100 people during the 6 hours that we are open, which is an average of 13% of our capacity over the 6 hours. We expect 200-16 oz pours, or 3200 oz to be served during this time. These numbers are then fed into our revenue model. As we get hard data for people/day and oz. served, these numbers will automatically adjust the other dependent aspects of our demand model and revenue model, providing alerts when we hit the minimum number of pints sold/day depending on the average expected capacity that day, or when we didn't. These numbers will accumulate until we know what we need to sell per day and per week, on average, to be in the black (used very loosely here), or if we need to do something on slow days to boost our sales. Friday and Saturday, we expect to sell about 14,000 oz over the two days, which is using an estimate of an average of 28% capacity. If we are actually at 70% capacity over these two days, which would be awesome, we instantly know that we need to increase supply.

If we have 2 weekends in a row that we are at 100% capacity for longer than we estimated (from 2pm to 8pm, instead of 3pm to 5pm for example), we may run into trouble, but the fact that we are actively monitoring these things and have models in place to help us predict or forecast how these changes will affect us will help in every stage. Those two weekends of higher capacity will trigger a new malt order sooner than normal. The peaks and troughs in our data will smooth out over time as well.

I was asking another brewer/owner about his business recently and he had no idea how many pints he was selling per week. Not that he didn't just know of the top of his head, they weren't keeping track.

Maybe that is the actual take away...the jump from homebrewing to commercial brewing isn't about making larger volumes of good beer and adjusting your recipes, it's about keeping track of the BUSINESS of your beer. People complain that opening a brewery would ruin the hobby for them, and they are right, but not just because it's more work or that you are doing it more often: You are now running a business, it is no longer a hobby.

If you were actually asking about the differences related to brewing, then I'm sorry to put you through all of that. I know that homebrewers (probably) don't monitor their pints consumed per week to decide if they will brew again. I'll happily talk about brewing issues as well. I just wanted to point out what, for me anyway, required the greatest amount of effort regarding the operation of the business itself.

 

[m00ps]

Plus, you gotta factor in how many snarky dumb@sses like me are gonna show up looking for something that is steel toed for work, also provides arch support, but wont break the bank.

Impressed by the in depth research. Definitely more than most breweries try to plan ahead. I think most just open, constantly run out of favorites, then find their groove.

Do you think the amount of people there will be more fluctuating and unpredictable when you first open? I would think the first month could be unusually busy if you advertised well and stuff. Dont worry, ive been taking care of sending out ads under what Im calling your "heritage" name

I live right in the middle of a quaint downtown "arts district" area, right next to a brewery. Festivals, shows, parades, and other events have a huge impact on them. I go in there some fridays and its like crickets. I get to chat a lot with the brewers though, which is nice. Then others, its so packed I just prefer to drink my pint in the back where they brew and hide out there. I'm guessing you guys will be one of the breweries that's friendly to homebrewers.

 

[Boleslaus]

Subscribed. I think many of us share a secret dream to one day make it in the beer industry. I know I do. It sounds like you and I also share a love (read: obsession) for organization and planning. Honestly, to me the entrepreneurial and business planning part sounds just as interesting as the brewing.

For the time being I'll live and suffer vicariously through you. Keep up the good work!

 

[MuddyCreek]

I was asking another brewer/owner about his business recently and he had no idea how many pints he was selling per week. Not that he didn't just know of the top of his head, they weren't keeping track.

Uh... Then there's the feds to consider. They sort of take exception when you don't know how many pints you're selling... Kind of a tax thing and all that.

 

[ColoHox]

Plus, you gotta factor in how many snarky dumb@sses like me are gonna show up looking for something that is steel toed for work, also provides arch support, but wont break the bank.

Impressed by the in depth research. Definitely more than most breweries try to plan ahead. I think most just open, constantly run out of favorites, then find their groove.

Do you think the amount of people there will be more fluctuating and unpredictable when you first open? I would think the first month could be unusually busy if you advertised well and stuff. Dont worry, ive been taking care of sending out ads under what Im calling your "heritage" name

I live right in the middle of a quaint downtown "arts district" area, right next to a brewery. Festivals, shows, parades, and other events have a huge impact on them. I go in there some fridays and its like crickets. I get to chat a lot with the brewers though, which is nice. Then others, its so packed I just prefer to drink my pint in the back where they brew and hide out there. I'm guessing you guys will be one of the breweries that's friendly to homebrewers.

You? Snarky? Naah. I can appreciate that new breweries have to find their groove. We will too. Along the way though we are measuring, monitoring, counting, and adjusting. There isn't any of the "let's just wing it" approach for us. And yes, absolutely, the traffic in the first month or two is probably not a good estimation of regular, average traffic. We will have to account for the "grand opening" rush and things like that. Our models will get better at prediction as we go, and I can't wait to outperform the model (power of positive thinking!).

We will be friendly to everyone, of course. There is a fine line between beer-enthusiast and beer-dbag, but I think it is great (and challenging) to go from introducing a newcomer to the different styles and skimming the surface of the process, all the way to an in-depth chat about brewhouse efficiency and shelf stability. Every customer needs a different level of attention to feel comfortable and satisfied in your brewery.

Subscribed. I think many of us share a secret dream to one day make it in the beer industry. I know I do. It sounds like you and I also share a love (read: obsession) for organization and planning. Honestly, to me the entrepreneurial and business planning part sounds just as interesting as the brewing.

For the time being I'll live and suffer vicariously through you. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! We couldn't have made it this far without the team of incredibly knowledgeable and helpful people we have around us...and much more to come.

 

[ColoHox]

Uh... Then there's the feds to consider. They sort of take exception when you don't know how many pints you're selling... Kind of a tax thing and all that.

True. He dismissed my question a bit, saying that their POS platform keeps track and they use that for the brewers report forms, so their paperwork is probably okay, I am assuming.

I was mostly asking about revenue and hitting weekly numbers (or if they even have benchmarks like that), not really production. They have a different style of business over there...different strokes.

 

[MaryB]

One you get going you could also offer 2-3? day brew classes where a very small group comes in and works for you following your brewmasters suggestions to see what operating a commercial brewery is like.

I don't know if you are asking specifically about brewing issues, or just in general, but prepare for a wall 'o text. Every brewery has a different approach to their brewing and their business. I have accumulated a "global" view of the process, after spending time with various people that links together the various moving parts, taking things I liked from particular places.

A production brewer must adjust every one of the things you mentioned. Large scale brewing has higher hop utilization overall and often vastly decreased amounts of roasted malts, for example. We will be dealing with up scaling recipes when our equipment arrives in June. Many issues are equipment specific as well but this is just a small piece of the puzzle. Making good beer isn't even close to enough if you want a successful brewery.

I think my biggest take away, which probably has the most to do with my personality, is the amount of planning that should go into production level brewing. There are so many moving parts involved in keeping your brewery machine running. If you follow the process from raw materials to pint glass, every step along the way needs to be planned for and adjusted, if necessary. A local brewery ran out of beer after being open 3 weeks. That kind of stuff drives me crazy! Of course, many things could come up that no one thought about, but how hard is it to look at your taproom volumes, production schedule, and raw material orders? I understand that you can't force a beer to ferment faster or that maybe there were an average of 100 people in the taproom on Fri/Sat peak times and you were only expecting an average of 80, or you ran out of your secret hop...these things happen. Successful breweries need to be able to monitor things like this before they start pouring beer. I have the perspective that (s)he who has the most data wins!

To this end, we created a pretty thorough taproom demand forecast. This forecast estimates the number of people in the taproom per hour/day/week, how much they are drinking, how long they are staying, etc. These numbers tell us how much beer we need to be producing to meet the demand. Of course, these are estimates. We will adjust these numbers as we accumulate hard data. Our prediction for Tuesdays (a notoriously slow brewery day, unless special events are planned to bring people in) is that we will serve about 100 people during the 6 hours that we are open, which is an average of 13% of our capacity over the 6 hours. We expect 200-16 oz pours, or 3200 oz to be served during this time. These numbers are then fed into our revenue model. As we get hard data for people/day and oz. served, these numbers will automatically adjust the other dependent aspects of our demand model and revenue model, providing alerts when we hit the minimum number of pints sold/day depending on the average expected capacity that day, or when we didn't. These numbers will accumulate until we know what we need to sell per day and per week, on average, to be in the black (used very loosely here), or if we need to do something on slow days to boost our sales. Friday and Saturday, we expect to sell about 14,000 oz over the two days, which is using an estimate of an average of 28% capacity. If we are actually at 70% capacity over these two days, which would be awesome, we instantly know that we need to increase supply.

If we have 2 weekends in a row that we are at 100% capacity for longer than we estimated (from 2pm to 8pm, instead of 3pm to 5pm for example), we may run into trouble, but the fact that we are actively monitoring these things and have models in place to help us predict or forecast how these changes will affect us will help in every stage. Those two weekends of higher capacity will trigger a new malt order sooner than normal. The peaks and troughs in our data will smooth out over time as well.

I was asking another brewer/owner about his business recently and he had no idea how many pints he was selling per week. Not that he didn't just know of the top of his head, they weren't keeping track.

Maybe that is the actual take away...the jump from homebrewing to commercial brewing isn't about making larger volumes of good beer and adjusting your recipes, it's about keeping track of the BUSINESS of your beer. People complain that opening a brewery would ruin the hobby for them, and they are right, but not just because it's more work or that you are doing it more often: You are now running a business, it is no longer a hobby.

If you were actually asking about the differences related to brewing, then I'm sorry to put you through all of that. I know that homebrewers (probably) don't monitor their pints consumed per week to decide if they will brew again. I'll happily talk about brewing issues as well. I just wanted to point out what, for me anyway, required the greatest amount of effort regarding the operation of the business itself.

 

[maazak]

One you get going you could also offer 2-3? day brew classes where a very small group comes in and works for you following your brewmasters suggestions to see what operating a commercial brewery is like.

As a new brewery. Don't do this. Focus on your business and getting going. It's a heck of a lot of work and you need to be focused on that.

 

[MaryB]

I said ONCE YOU GET GOING! It would be an added revenue stream to offer classes!

 

[ColoHox]

As a new brewery. Don't do this. Focus on your business and getting going. It's a heck of a lot of work and you need to be focused on that.

I said ONCE YOU GET GOING! It would be an added revenue stream to offer classes!

You both bring up good points. Once we have some sort of operational consistency, we will be offering classes.

A few of us in the group have a lot of teaching experience. We would really like to offer classes of varying depth, if there is interest. Anywhere from basic brewing to complex brewing science. We have set aside funding for 6 part-time, temporary internship positions as well. Colorado State University recently started a fermentation science major and we would love to be able to give some of those students/graduates some hands on experience. We will also need to make sure we don't have any liability issues with having non-employees participating in the brewing process, if we choose to have a class that offers hands-on participation.

 

[Auger]

You both bring up good points. Once we have some sort of operational consistency, we will be offering classes.

A few of us in the group have a lot of teaching experience. We would really like to offer classes of varying depth, if there is interest. Anywhere from basic brewing to complex brewing science. We have set aside funding for 6 part-time, temporary internship positions as well. Colorado State University recently started a fermentation science major and we would love to be able to give some of those students/graduates some hands on experience. We will also need to make sure we don't have any liability issues with having non-employees participating in the brewing process, if we choose to have a class that offers hands-on participation.

If you're developing a relationship with a nearly university, also look into the marketing department, either at the undergrad or graduate level. A lot of schools are trying to work real-world experience into the curriculums, so its a chance to build on that relationship and also possibly get some free advice and exposure.

 

[ColoHox]

If you're developing a relationship with a nearly university, also look into the marketing department, either at the undergrad or graduate level. A lot of schools are trying to work real-world experience into the curriculums, so its a chance to build on that relationship and also possibly get some free advice and exposure.

You nailed it. We are currently using computer information science (CIS) students to build a database and UI to help us manage inventory, brewing parameters, and quality metrics on a per batch basis, which will be searchable by recipe, batch #, etc and produce reports by recipe/batch/raw material lot, etc. The database will also interface with our brewing control panel and automatically collate brewday data. I am really looking forward to working with their database. It's easy to collect the data, but you need to make sense of it in order to use it.

Interior design students have helped with our design schemes and marketing students will help with...marketing. My whole family are CSU alum, so we are looking to involve the university in any way we can.

 

[Murphys_Law]

I'm just down in Broomfield and would line to make the trip up to see you guys when you're ready!

 

[ColoHox]

I'm just down in Broomfield and would line to make the trip up to see you guys when you're ready!

Yes! Do it. That goes for everyone else here on HBT as well. There isn't much to see now, mostly dirt and concrete, but if anyone wants to meet and have a look around our space as we build out, I'm more than happy to do so. After we are open, I'd love to show you guys around the brewhouse and lab.

 

[pretzelb]

Uh... Then there's the feds to consider. They sort of take exception when you don't know how many pints you're selling... Kind of a tax thing and all that.

Any idea how that works for beer used on site for cooking? We watch TV cooking shows and seems like a big trend these days to cook with the beer made on site. I can't imagine it being fun to pay taxes on that since it would be like paying taxes on a spice used for seasoning.

 

[ColoHox]

It has been awhile, so here is a quick rundown of where we are currently sitting...

The TTB (agency that licenses and regulates alcohol) has had our application for about 90 days so far. It was submitted for final approval about 2 weeks ago. If it takes another 2 weeks to receive our license (maybe...I hope), we will still be under the average processing time of 160 days. So, I guess we are still ahead of the game there. We submitted a paper application, by the way, which is currently being phased out in favor of online submission. The paper application just allows a bit more flexibility when it comes to the way can answer particular questions; there is some interpretation involved.

We should be cutting concrete by early next week for our plumbing, while the exterior steel is installed. The perspective is looking out from the area where the brewhouse will be and looking towards the front of the house.

Our building plans have been conditionally approved by the city, meaning we can start some of our tenant-finish projects (like plumbing). That process took about 4 weeks. We are still waiting on health department plan approval. Which may slow us down a bit, depending on when they get to our application.

The best news of the day involves the brewhouse! I just got some (average quality) images of our completed brewhouse. We ordered a 7bbl system, with a 10bbl mash tun from Alpha Brewing Ops our of Lincoln, NE. The entire system, including fermeters and serving tanks, is supposed to arrive by early July. I am so excited for all this shiny stainless steel to get here!

We posted some job announcements as well. If anyone here is in the market, please check them out.

 

[woo_pig]

I just premature salivated everywhere .Looks good man .

 

[m00ps]

Hi. I'm here to apply for a position at Brown's Shoe Fit Co.
Is this the right place? I absolutely love feet

 

[Schemy]

What's the latest and greatest news ColoHox?

 

[Baja_Brewer]

I'd be fascinated to hear about how filling the QC position goes for you. It sounds like it would be an excellent opportunity for a college student interested in beer, but I'm wondering how likely you are to find a candidate.

Edit: just saw your note about the CSU program, that's cool, and really improves the chance of that position being filled.

 

[ColoHox]

What's the latest and greatest news ColoHox?

Latest and greatest is that construction is behind, which is not really that unexpected. Part of the problem is that there is a ton of concurrent construction in our town, including a massive new football stadium. Subcontractors are not desperate for jobs and can overestimate their time and materials for projects. We (our builder) recently received plumbing and electrical bids which were exorbitant. Our second search for bids turned up even higher quotes. We are trying to combat this issue by doing more of the work ourselves. We have already done quite a bit ourselves, but we are limited to work that doesn't need to be licensed (or that a sub-contractor is willing to sign-off on after the fact).

Also, due to the unexpectedly high bids, our buildout cost has climbed from $70/sqft to nearly $90/sqft, which is much too high. We have had to cut some luxury items that we can no longer afford such as skylights, solar tubes, and a large fireplace/hearth.

This week, while concrete is being poured and steel erected, we are building the framing for our bar and moving equipment into our space to start assembly. I'll get some pictures up shortly.

We've received health department approval and fire marshal approval, but still waiting on the Feds (of course). We are at 111 days since submission and still waiting for that last signature. I talked to our specialist yesterday; She said that the approval managers have hundreds of applications to process and that I need to be patient, as we've already made it through the hard part. Fingers crossed!

I'd be fascinated to hear about how filling the QC position goes for you. It sounds like it would be an excellent opportunity for a college student interested in beer, but I'm wondering how likely you are to find a candidate.

Edit: just saw your note about the CSU program, that's cool, and really improves the chance of that position being filled.

We posted our position announcements a few weeks ago and have had a ton of interest. This week I have combed through 190 resumes for the various positions. Out of 30 applicants for the assistant brewer position, only 2 people had the primary qualifications we were looking for: commercial brewing experience and brewing-related higher education.

We've had about 15 applicants for the QC lab position, ranging in experience from a master's degree in biology to sophomores in the fermentation science program (FST) at CSU. The FST program encourages (or maybe requires) extracurricular internship or work experience as part of the program. We setup a few research-for-credit opportunities with the program as well, which will help those students get some hands on experience. So far, it looks like it is going to be easy to find qualified people for the position; making sure the applicants are the right fit for our business/culture is another deal. My background is in micro and molecular biology, so I am capable of assessing the applicant's skills and training the right person. Eventually, we would like to have a full-time QC manager. Ideally, that person would make the transition from intern to employee as we grow.

 

[MaryB]

I am lucky in MN, even in a commercial setting I could do my own wiring, plumbing, carpentry, concrete and as long as it passes code inspection you are good to go!

 

[thunderwagn]

Just got an update on your brewery in my Fermentedly Challenged feed today. Sounds like things are moving along

 

[ColoHox]

Just got an update on your brewery in my Fermentedly Challenged feed today. Sounds like things are moving along

Excellent! There are a few people in the area that collect and post brewery news. It's really helpful.

We've made a lot of progress over the past few weeks, including the arrival of our equipment. I'll get some pictures up shortly.

 

[Xernex]

waits patiently for more pictures.. I love these threads.