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I went "pro" - What it actually takes to do so

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you. all of you are. massachewsits doesn't actually exist to the rest of the country; it's just "boston".
 
Haven't seen you in a while!

Yeah I've been pretty busy.. did the whole "bought a house, got a new job, got married, got a scholarship to travel the world to study beer (taking the Master Cicerone exam next week), had a baby, and renovated every room in the house" thing and then got fed up when all my friends were brewing except me so I started back up again a few months ago and it led me back to this corner of the internet.
 
All of that stuff is nice and all and I'm sure that everybody is wondering what the wife and the kids names are but what we really want to know is about that travel around the world studying beer thing. Once you give us an exhaustive description of that I'll fake interest in the kid.
 
You know, you read the stories of what people go through to start a business and wonder why people bother. You're creating something that will employ people and benefit the community. Creating an entity that will pay taxes to the community. The whole regulatory paperwork process is almost like you're creating an inconvenience to the community and they're hoping you'll find it burdensome enough to just give up.

Friend of mine bought an existing building and remodeled the inside. He got popped for having the thermostats for the climate control system too high. The height required made him have to bend over uncomfortably to read or adjust them. The height though made them handicapped accessible.

Had to put motion detectors on the lights over his employees work station. If you don't move, your light goes out after a short period. Gotta keep moving.

It's stupid.

All the Best,
D. White
 
it was nice to see matt menard and some person with a big baby face winning fan of the game at the bruins game tuesday night. even saw fw in the background.
 
Interesting. Thread necromancy to shill for your site?

Nothing wrong with promoting an on-topic homebrew blog post. I moved it to the Blog & Articles subforum. Next time, instead of commenting, if you think something is out of line, hit the report button (to the lower right) and one of the moderators will take a look at it.

Honestly didn't look at the last comment date until now. Just was browsing and thought "hmm, Will just wrote something along these lines."

I moved your post, into its own thread, in the Beer Blog subforum. Good article, thanks for sharing it.
 
I know this is an old thread but I was enjoying reading of your ever evolving successes. Havent heard from the OP since 2015. How are you doing now? 15BBL system working well?
 
I know this is an old thread but I was enjoying reading of your ever evolving successes. Havent heard from the OP since 2015. How are you doing now? 15BBL system working well?


15 bbl brew house is working great.... although we did fry a pump the other day... but other than that, it's been awesome.

We are up to four 15 bbl uni tanks and two 20's. We still run ten small fermenters off of our small, original 3 bbl brewhouse and are on pace to do about 1,100 bbls this year vs about 470 in '16 so.., so far so good.

I'm also now at the brewery full time which is phenomenal.

Our big challenge is now space as there are a bunch of space constraints we didn't anticipate. We started in 399 sq feet and are now in about 8,500... and need to get out of our building as quickly as possible.

One thing we're still really proud of is that we still don't have any debt. That's not sustainable given what our plans are for our space. That said... we're really proud of proving all of the people that said "you can't start a brewery that way" totally wrong.
 
15 bbl brew house is working great.... although we did fry a pump the other day... but other than that, it's been awesome.

We are up to four 15 bbl uni tanks and two 20's. We still run ten small fermenters off of our small, original 3 bbl brewhouse and are on pace to do about 1,100 bbls this year vs about 470 in '16 so.., so far so good.

I'm also now at the brewery full time which is phenomenal.

Our big challenge is now space as there are a bunch of space constraints we didn't anticipate. We started in 399 sq feet and are now in about 8,500... and need to get out of our building as quickly as possible.

One thing we're still really proud of is that we still don't have any debt. That's not sustainable given what our plans are for our space. That said... we're really proud of proving all of the people that said "you can't start a brewery that way" totally wrong.

Congrats, Brian. Great to hear things are still going so well.

Any major changes planned? Or just keep plodding along and growing/expanding as the finances allow?
 
Congrats, Brian. Great to hear things are still going so well.



Any major changes planned? Or just keep plodding along and growing/expanding as the finances allow?


Thanks and just on the space side. Going "zero debt" forever isn't realistic and, actually, isn't smart business (especially where rates are now). We have had the luxury of being able to take our time and do things without it but given the space situation, it makes all the sense in the world to take some on.

By far the biggest change is on that front. We're in negotiations (just started in earnest) to buy a piece of land that is not currently on the market and then put up a building. Who knows if or when that'll actually happen (we think it WILL but timing is unclear) but that's the monster we're fighting now.

That's the one huge lesson we have learned, somewhat, the hard way... and that is that you need to have plans in place for multiple expansions down the road. We were left a little flat-footed when we found out that we hit some limitations in our current space.
 

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