OP
OP
Another one
I went "pro" - What it actually takes to do so
- Thread starter Cape Brewing
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He was probably 'networking' (drinking all day), give him a break 
OP
OP
I didn't take the pic.... I am the "tall" one behind the bah.
(I was standing on a chair... serving samples over the tap box)
(I was standing on a chair... serving samples over the tap box)
It was cool to meet you after reading this thread. Finally got to try your beers without a drive down to Norton. I'm glad to have met you in person.
FYI - I work for Clown Shoes doing these fests. This was a good one. Busy and a lot of good "cheer".
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Hey Bri, did you go through all of your kegs? How long did it take?
![Craft A Brew - Safale BE-256 Yeast - Fermentis - Belgian Ale Dry Yeast - For Belgian & Strong Ales - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bcKEwQmWL._SL500_.jpg)
Dude, what was at the stall to the left of you guys? You guys look busy as and they are standing there staring at all you punters! Good job!
OP
OP
Hey Bri.... No... we didn't remotely go through all of our kegs and that wasn't because we weren't busy, we simply brought WAYYYYYYY more than any brewery went through. We had no idea what to expect and erred on the side of caution, to say the least. The nice thing is we now have a pile of kegs in stock... although we got an order for 8 yesterday so that'll make a dent.
We DID go through 17 1/6th kegs... which... when you're pouring 2 oz. pours, we thought was pretty good.
OP
OP
Dude, what was at the stall to the left of you guys? You guys look busy as and they are standing there staring at all you punters! Good job!
Haha... NO!! That booth was actually empty.
I think there was only two empty booths in the whole place and they were both to our left when you were facing us.
That woman standing there is my partners wife who was just taking a break for a second.
That's funny... it does kinda look like that though.
JeepDiver
Well-Known Member
And after the electric bill to heat 1 or 7 or 10 bbl batches several times for a month, you would go broke
Man, where did you get that table/booth/bar? I've seen a lot of tradeshow displays, and that is one of the nicer ones.
OP
OP
Thanks. I actually built it. It collapses down into four pieces and is pretty easy to put together and lock in place.
Sorry if this has been answered but are you guys still buying supplies from your homebrew sources? Or are there other companies more geared toward buying supplies at a much bigger scale?
OP
OP
We love our local homebrew places and we still use them for odds and ends but no, we have a commercial account at a wholeseller where we buy all of our grain in bulk. We then have a commercial account at a hop dealer and have even entered into forward contracts that meet our annual needs for hops.
dmiller224
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Cape Brewing said:
Are these easy to find a wholeseller? Or get a commercial hop account? And how much do you save by having one of those?
OP
OP
Yeah... They aren't that hard to find (at least by us they aren't too hard). We get our grain through BSG (Brewer's Supply Group) in Rhode Island which is a pretty easy for us and we have hop contracts with Niko.
50 lb sacks of grain run us $28-$30 and I am not sure what the hops are per pound but they are dramatically cheaper than retail prices.
Any of those places will require paperwork to be filled out to open a commercial a count including your TTB Brewer's Notice # and likely a credit check.
50 lb sacks of grain run us $28-$30 and I am not sure what the hops are per pound but they are dramatically cheaper than retail prices.
Any of those places will require paperwork to be filled out to open a commercial a count including your TTB Brewer's Notice # and likely a credit check.
HeavyKettleBrewing
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Cape Brewing said:
Add to that minimum purchase requirements.
OP
OP
Haven't updated in a while... figured I might as well...
Well... our whole "we'll see how it goes for a year or two" plan went out the window. It's Aug. 8th today and almost all of our new 3bbl equip is in. We signed a lease on space next to ours and need to knock down a wall and get all of our new equip set up ASAP. It was a jump that was made much quicker than we had anticipated. We decided to just do a 3bbl because anything else would likely mean a move of location and since the current operations of the brewery could fund the upgrade and hold us over for another chunk of time, we thought it was the right call.
If things continue, absolutely, we'll start thinking about upgrading again... but the nice this is now, we should be able to grow capital even quicker to afford that larger brewhouse with the 3bbl opposed to the 1.5 we were on.
Well... our whole "we'll see how it goes for a year or two" plan went out the window. It's Aug. 8th today and almost all of our new 3bbl equip is in. We signed a lease on space next to ours and need to knock down a wall and get all of our new equip set up ASAP. It was a jump that was made much quicker than we had anticipated. We decided to just do a 3bbl because anything else would likely mean a move of location and since the current operations of the brewery could fund the upgrade and hold us over for another chunk of time, we thought it was the right call.
If things continue, absolutely, we'll start thinking about upgrading again... but the nice this is now, we should be able to grow capital even quicker to afford that larger brewhouse with the 3bbl opposed to the 1.5 we were on.
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You gonna keep the 1.5 going to in essence triple production?
OP
OP
No... we're selling those pots shortly and will re-use the burners, etc.
paulthenurse
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Yeager's in the market for equipment.
Oh wait. You knew that.
Oh wait. You knew that.
OP
OP
We started woth just carbing in the kegs, went to a brite, blew a seal on the brite, went back to just in the kegs, and then we just got a shiney new 3bbl brite delivered so that is getting hooked up in the next couple of days.
Going with a brite is dramatically easier. <---- understatement
Going with a brite is dramatically easier. <---- understatement
OP
OP
No, no!! It's just vanilla ice cream!!
(Always loved that joke)
(Always loved that joke)
Glad to hear things are going so well for you. Was reading an article in DRAFT about how the whole "craft" beer movement is really challenging smaller breweries to bring their A game right out of the gates. I give you tons of props!
In FL, where I live (now), the "craft" scene is just starting to take off but seem, to me anyway, inhibited by the terrible 3 tier system and guess which tier bribed the most politicians to make the rules (or so it seems). Earlier in the year I had a fantasy about doing this, and if I was smart I'd proceed, but I'm stupid and going to continue in my career and maintain the hobby. However, some pipedreams die harder than others, and I continue to wonder if I should consider investing in a start-up brewery at least, rather than jumping in like you've done and trying to brew myself. Huge Kudos to you, and thanks for sharing with us!
Was curious about your operations as far as ingredients, and QA/QC. There have been times I wanted to brew a particular recipe (usually an IPA that's not distributed to my state) but ingredients (usually hops) were not available. In a similar logistical nightmare, I'd be ordering from like 2-5 different mail order re-sellers in order to get everything I needed (and there is NO LHBS) and after 2-5X $7.99 flat rate shipping (or worse, ACTUAL S&H) prices, its now seeming stupid to spend the cash on brewing and just buy finished beer online! Anyway, was wondering how you've been negotiating the often unpredictable availability of ingredients. Also am extremely curious about your yeast management, as yeast is often pricey and can be considered a renewable ingredient if you harvest, and all repitch plus all that entails. Obviously (or maybe not) the next logical step might be a yeast lab, and also a QA/QC lab.
Some of this stuff is far beyond what most homebrewers attempt to tackle or consider in many instances. How have you been dealing with this? Also sort of curious if this has reached a point where side project vs full time career, or hiring employees, has developed. I could imagine you've got to be getting close.
well anyway, tomorrow morning comes early and its back to work for me.
Happy Brewing!
Rick
In FL, where I live (now), the "craft" scene is just starting to take off but seem, to me anyway, inhibited by the terrible 3 tier system and guess which tier bribed the most politicians to make the rules (or so it seems). Earlier in the year I had a fantasy about doing this, and if I was smart I'd proceed, but I'm stupid and going to continue in my career and maintain the hobby. However, some pipedreams die harder than others, and I continue to wonder if I should consider investing in a start-up brewery at least, rather than jumping in like you've done and trying to brew myself. Huge Kudos to you, and thanks for sharing with us!
Was curious about your operations as far as ingredients, and QA/QC. There have been times I wanted to brew a particular recipe (usually an IPA that's not distributed to my state) but ingredients (usually hops) were not available. In a similar logistical nightmare, I'd be ordering from like 2-5 different mail order re-sellers in order to get everything I needed (and there is NO LHBS) and after 2-5X $7.99 flat rate shipping (or worse, ACTUAL S&H) prices, its now seeming stupid to spend the cash on brewing and just buy finished beer online! Anyway, was wondering how you've been negotiating the often unpredictable availability of ingredients. Also am extremely curious about your yeast management, as yeast is often pricey and can be considered a renewable ingredient if you harvest, and all repitch plus all that entails. Obviously (or maybe not) the next logical step might be a yeast lab, and also a QA/QC lab.
Some of this stuff is far beyond what most homebrewers attempt to tackle or consider in many instances. How have you been dealing with this? Also sort of curious if this has reached a point where side project vs full time career, or hiring employees, has developed. I could imagine you've got to be getting close.
well anyway, tomorrow morning comes early and its back to work for me.
Happy Brewing!
Rick
OP
OP
In terms of ingredients, that hasn't been an issue at all. We have a commercial account at a local wholesaler and buy all of our grain in 50 lb sacks... even the speciality grain we use. We pick it up ourselves so no S&H charges. We did have one speciality grain that was recently discontinued and we had to substitute for it permanantly. It makes up a verys mall % of one of our grain bills and luckily we can't taste the difference at all with the substituted grain. So... grain is never a problem.
Hops... we have hop contracts with a commercial hop wholesaler so we're gauranteed to get the hops we need. We basically set up a contract for the hops we'll need over a year and then take shipment on small chunks of that overall order and pay as we go. Now that we have the contracts, hops are not an issue either.
Yeast... we use simple US-05 for three of our beers, US-04 for one and then a lager yeast for one. We get the 05-04 in bricks from our grain wholesaler so that's never a problem and the lager yeast, we source differently but that's never been a problem either.
In terms of re-using yeast... It's not uncommon for us to re-use a yeast cake but we only do it once. We're not harvesting anything at this point. It's just not worth the effort and time compared to the money we would be saving. Maybe down the road we'll look into that but since we are using really basic yeasts that aren't expensive at all to just buy, there's no reason for us to spend that kind of effort.... so... no, I don't see any kind of yeast lab any time soon.
And yeah... the employee conversations are starting... we don't have any kind of time table on that but I don't think it'll be too long before we need to cross that line and bring someone on board as an actual employee. Other than bringing someone on, I don't forsee it being a full-time job for me or my two partners any time soon (I don't ever see it happening for me personally).
Hops... we have hop contracts with a commercial hop wholesaler so we're gauranteed to get the hops we need. We basically set up a contract for the hops we'll need over a year and then take shipment on small chunks of that overall order and pay as we go. Now that we have the contracts, hops are not an issue either.
Yeast... we use simple US-05 for three of our beers, US-04 for one and then a lager yeast for one. We get the 05-04 in bricks from our grain wholesaler so that's never a problem and the lager yeast, we source differently but that's never been a problem either.
In terms of re-using yeast... It's not uncommon for us to re-use a yeast cake but we only do it once. We're not harvesting anything at this point. It's just not worth the effort and time compared to the money we would be saving. Maybe down the road we'll look into that but since we are using really basic yeasts that aren't expensive at all to just buy, there's no reason for us to spend that kind of effort.... so... no, I don't see any kind of yeast lab any time soon.
And yeah... the employee conversations are starting... we don't have any kind of time table on that but I don't think it'll be too long before we need to cross that line and bring someone on board as an actual employee. Other than bringing someone on, I don't forsee it being a full-time job for me or my two partners any time soon (I don't ever see it happening for me personally).
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