How much does it cost to brew at the 3bbl level?

[jajabee]

Cool, yeah, thanks everyone, I'm definitely being super realistic about what I can handle. I'm incredibly lucky to have a significant other who can "bring home the bacon", though. We've taken turns being the sole provider over the last 5 years, and right now it's my turn to slack off. So I don't have a ton of money, but I do have a lot of time.

Right now what sounds like the best for me is trying to do a detached-garage brewery at home, like Gordie. That'd take the pressure off to turn a profit to cover rent every month. Thing is, I have no idea how to find out if that's legal in Oregon, or if the houses we'd be interested in buying are zoned to have a nanobrewery on the land. That'd be a pretty crucial step, I think.

If we do end up in a house where it's legal, I think I can handle the rest, since it's still really similar to homebrewing at that level. I'd need to find bigger versions of everything and add a few pieces like a pump and a plate chiller, and of course deal with much bigger power and water consumption, but putting together the equipment is one of my favorite parts of the process.

And yeah, I'd do some more research on the price... I think if I can use my own residential land as a brewery, I still won't be able to sell the bottles on-site, so I'd need to be able to work with some of the funky local bottle shops or something. I wonder what the laws are on self-distributing in Portland....

This is a ton of fun to think about, if nothing else.

 

[farmbrewernw]

Ah so your in Oregon, that helps. Check these guys out Heater Allen and these guys Seven Brides Brewing I know Jeff at Seven Brides and I bet if you gave him a call he would be more than willing to help you out with any questions you may have. Both of these breweries are small, Heater Allen I believe still works on their own property and Seven Brides did until they expanded, they used to work out of a shed next to their house. You can do it in Oregon, just talk to these guys.

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

Also call you local zoning board and check with them. To me getting over that local zoning and convincing the town/city that a commercial brewery (regardless of size) is a good thing to have in a residential neighborhood is the biggest hurdle.

Edit:
PS: Like Farm stated, it has been done in Oregon before, so it's possible.

 

[jajabee]

Oh man, thanks, this is good to know!

 

[Dagatris]

This is such a fun thread to read compared to all the other start-up threads. Usually they are doom & gloom within the first 3 posts. But I see sunshine and puppy dogs in here!!

 

[farmbrewernw]

well most of us in here are serious about starting a brewery at some point so where trying to be positive, it's hard work but it can be done.

 

[farmbrewernw]

Since we're talking about it, can someone demystify the distribution law in Oregon for me? I thought Oregon had a three tier system but looking at the OLCC law it looks like you can self distribute as a brewery and self distribute as a brewpub as long as your production is under 1000bbl. Am I reading that right, if you where to have a restaurant attached to a brewery could you have them be separate businesses so you could self distribute after 1000bbl?

 

[jajabee]

Hehe, I like this thread too.

So we're looking to buy a house where I can do this sort of thing, and in the meantime I'm going to keep working on my homebrew and start to upgrade my equipment bit by bit. I don't have a pump or a plate chiller yet, and of course I'd need them for the 3bbl setup. What would you guys think about using the standard march pump/therminator type setup on something that big? Should I be looking at bigger pumps/chillers, or are the homebrew level pieces still useful at the 3bbl level?

 

[carnevoodoo]

I would think the smaller plate chiller would be really inefficient. There are bigger ones that aren't name brand plate chillers out there and they are much less expensive. Otherwise, I think you'd be ok. I'd probably get a slightly bigger pump, too, but I think a standard pump could handle it depending on how often you plan on brewing.

 

[jajabee]

Hmm, yeah... I'm thinking maybe one of these: http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=he30m It looks bigger than the Therminator, but is it too big for the 5gal batches I'm doing now?

For the pumps, I have no idea what's slightly bigger than the usual March pump they sell on the beer sites... my Google-fu is weak when it comes to industrial grade equipment.

 

[carnevoodoo]

That chiller has a max flow of 1050 GPH. Sounds like it'll exceed your needs!

http://www.marchpump.com/documents/pumps_flow.aspx

There's a list of pumps from the source.

 

[Bsquared]

So are you planing some thing like the Laural wood in Portland? a small house converted into a Restaurant / brewery? Or just a brewery?

I don't know if its in your price range, but I like to day dream at this site.

3bbl system 19,500 OBO

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

FYI, the Laurelwood you're speaking of isn't the brewery. It's just a restaurant. The brewery is in NE Portland. They have 3 or 4 restaurant locations and the one brewery.

 

[Bsquared]

Oh okay, my memory fails me, but now that you mentioned it I don't remember seeing any equipment there. I think I'm mixing my memory of McMenamins Fulton pub location. I went to a lot of brewery/bars on that 2day visit.

Any way, Portland is a wonderful place, I can't wait to visit there again.

 

[jajabee]

Perfect, that's just what I need. So I'll buy a beefier pump and chiller than I need now, so I can use it when I move up.

What I've got in mind is a tiny bottle brewery, 500 bomber bottles per batch, out of a detached garage or shed at our house. Depending on Oregon's distribution laws, I'd find a way to sell those 500 somehow.

A brewpub would be awesome someday, but Portland already has a lot of great brewpubs. We do have a friend who wants to start a restaurant business someday, so maybe we could find a way to go in on something together in a new and interesting way. It's great living in a city that likes beer so much, makes it feel like you can find a niche market for just about anything!

 

[ClaudiusB]

What I've got in mind is a tiny bottle brewery, 500 bomber bottles per batch, out of a detached garage or shed at our house.

All manual labor, bottle rinsing, filling, labeling and capping?
Don't make the place too tiny.
Many years ago I looked into buying bottles for a project I was working on.
Most major bottle suppliers I checked out had a minimum of 8000 bottles per order.

Depending on Oregon's distribution laws, I'd find a way to sell those 500 somehow.

Can you have a manufacturing business on the same residential property within your city limit like Gordie?
I can't.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[ohad]

If you are really going to make a go at this i would find a niche market like lagers or something, do something that most breweries aren't doing.

who would have thought the day will come that a brewer will call lagers a niche...

 

[jajabee]

Nah, we'd get one of those tabletop bottling systems. So it'd still be manual labor loading them on and off the machine and labeling them, but the filling and capping would be done by the machine.

I think what I'll do is talk to a zoning lawyer before we buy a house (we're renting now) and see what they think about the on-site brewery possibilities. It might mean moving a little further out of town than I was thinking, but I think it'd be a worthy tradeoff for owning a nanobrewery.

 

[farmbrewernw]

I looked at the OLCC (Oregon Liquor Control Commission) last night and it seems that you can self distribute in Oregon. Even with a table top bottler doing 500 bombers is going to be labor intensive, you know you could always do party pigs or something. I know some of the food cooperatives in oregon sell party pigs. Oregon Trail brewery in Corvallis sells party pigs on site and at First Alternative Cooperative in Corvallis. Really at first I'd stay to keg sales but that's just me, I know how labor intensive it is using a fully automated machine like a 4 head Mahean so I'm only guessing a table top would be a pain. You might have to buy a whole pallet of bottles as well unless you can go in with another brewery, which is probably a possibility.

 

[Jumbo82]

I've toured two small breweries in New Hampshire and I'll tell you that bottling can be done on that scale. The first one I checked out has a 4 bbl brew system. Their bottling operation is as follows; two bottles are placed by hand under the machine. The machine back flushes and fills both bottles. The bottles are removed and replaced with two more empties. The full bottles are capped BY HAND using a Red Barren wing capper. I kid you not. Their fermenters are 7 barrel size, so they have to brew two days back to back to fill each one. Then they bottle the 7 barrels as I described and use a little hand labeler to affix the labels to the bottles. They are profitable and in the process of expanding. And they only sell in 22 oz bottles, no kegs.

The second brewery I toured opened recently and his brewery uses a MoreBeer brew sculpture. The owner brews 15 gallon batches on it himself and bottles using a 5 gallon bucket and bottling wand. He caps, prints labels off his computer and attaches them by hand. His 22 oz beers are currently being sold in 3 stores. Labor intensive? Yes. Is it working for him? Yes.

One other thing to point out. When you see a bottle being sold for $8, remember that the brewer isn't getting $8. If you self distribute, you could sell that bottle to the store for maybe $5 or $6 so the store can turn around and make a profit off it at $8. If your state doesn't allow self distribution, you'll have to sell it to the distributor who will mark it up 30% and they'll sell it to the store who in turn marks it up to $8. And $8 bombers don't have the same turnover as $3 bombers. If the store can't sell many of your beers at that price they will just replace it with a better selling brand. Shelf space is valuable. It has to be cheap enough to have decent turnover, but not so cheap that you don't make a profit. Just some food for thought. Good luck with the brewery!

 

[Desert_Sky]

Well, I've reached that point in a young girl's life when she starts daydreaming about opening her own brewery...

I'm sitting here looking at 3bbl systems on the web, and wondering what the costs would be in brewing a 3bbl batch. I currently spend about $30 to brew 5 gallons AG.

About how much grain would you need for 3 barrels? How many hops? And does the cost of cleaning and sanitizing get pretty high at that point?

Just fun to think about....

.....and this ladies and gentleman is how it starts.

 

[ImperialLover]

22oz bottles would mean half as many bottles but would probably cost you just as much as normal 12ozers. Caps would be cheaper unless you go with corks/bird cage/swing tops.

 

[Babylon]

Don't forget taxes (fedreal, state, local), your time, utility bills, if bottling the bottles, if kegging the kegs, etc etc etc.

Labelling costs, That's pretty time intensive if doing it by hand.

 

[passedpawn]

Let it die, necromancers.

 

[JJL]

Guh? I can get both cheaper than that and I don't pay wholesale. My LHBS will sell me a 50# bag for $38, and if I'm willing to drive another 10-15 minutes farther, I can get one for $35. I know some guys who have a local brewery here and they say they pay a bit over $27 for a 50# bag shipped which comes out to around $0.55/pound by my calculations.

I have to agree. That sounds a bit high. You can buy 2 row pale for about $0.72/lb at NB in 50# sacks. My guess is you would be ordering by the pallet from someone like Mid-Country or direct from Rahr or Briess at a lower cost. Also, depending on the variety, you can buy bulk hops from hopsdirect for $6/lb. Again, in bulk bails, they are probably cheaper still.

 

[Jlevac]

so any news on the nano brewery? we're thinking of doing the same.

 

[DrawTap88]

Let it die, necromancers.

NEVER!!!!!!

 

[fezzman]

Ouch, a minimum quantitiy would suck! And yeah, I'm sure it doesn't make sense to brew 3bbl's commercially, unless you charge a lot... I wouldn't want to be a "commercial" brewery, though. I envision something more like a neighborhood bakery, where I brew whatever the heck I feel like making, without worrying too much about making each batch exactly the same each time, and people who are interested in unusual beer can stop by and pick up a few bottles. Very low-key. I wouldn't want to *lose* money on each bottle, though, so I'm curious how much I'd have to charge to cover the cost of the consumables and packaging and still make a little profit.

http://cocoabeachbrewingcompany.com/

Cocoa Beach Brewing Company only has a 1.5 bbl system. I view something like this when you say you want something like a neighborhood bakery. This place has a very homey feel...I suppose that is because it is built in a converted house.

His permit didn't allow bottling when he first opened. It seems as though he finally made it through that red tape and now bottles in bombers by hand.

 

[corwin6654]

There is also a pretty cool brewery called Captured By Porches out of St. Helens. They claim to be the smallest brewery in Portland. They do swingtops in New Seasons, and are out at Krugers Farm on Sauvie's Island in a beer bus on the weekends. I think they are opening up a brew cart somewhere in the Hawthorne area soon too. I'm sure they would be willing to give some tips for starting a small operation. http://www.capturedbyporches.com/about.history.html?lcat=1

 

[dozer217]

Hey there. I'm a lawyer with my own licensed and bonded brewery in my garage with a 1bbl brewhouse. I've been legal and selling as a nanobrewer for over a year and a half. There's no legal minimum amount or minimum sized equipment.

In terms of cost of a 3 bbl batch of beer, wholesale grain prices are around $0.70 a pound and hops are $14.20 a pound. A hypothetical respectful 3 bbl batch would have a grain bill of about 150 lbs of grain and roughly 3 lbs of hops. That's $147.60 in materials. Then figure in the cost of running the system (utilities, etc.) and the brewer's time and whatnot. A slightly high estimate would be that you could produce 3 bbl of beer for about $200 - $250.

I'm guessing the rules are different for a brew pub vs. a nano brewery.