Living the Dream - your own Brewery

[abridgel]

Okay I have no idea even where to start or what to do but I've homebrewed 2 batches and I am hooked I could seriously see myself making this into a business one day - however just in my limited research seems like a ton of startup money (which I don't have) and like with any business in life you have to take a chance.

My dream is to one day not to be at the mercy of "da man" that I work for myself - I'd be okay putting in long hours if it was something I truly believed in.

Any others with the same feelings? Thoughts? Just talking outloud here.

 

[rhamilton]

Business starts with a fine product -- it'll make collecting capital much easier if you can pour an incredible beer and say "Give me money so I can sell this".

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I think my passion fopr brewing come from teh fact tha I am not doing it as a career and thus need not concern myself so much about the bottom line or saleability of the final product.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

I too am scheming for a nano brewery one of these days. There's actully an empty commercial space half a block from my house that would work great for a pilot start up. It's kind of small. It's in a small strip mall type set up. Problem is, there's no refridgeration and I'd probably have to swithch my rig over to electric to make it work.

 

[Phunhog]

I think a lot of use have the dream, you just have to keep it realistic.

 

[abridgel]

What would you guys guess would be the total start up cost?

There is definatlely a market for small breweries in my area.

 

[fishkid]

This is a funny phenomenon because I feel the same way and it seems a lot of homebrewers do. What is it about beer though? I play disc golf and don't want to join the "pros" and I also fish as a hobby but I'm also not interested in joining the tour...

Beer is magical

 

[BradleyBrew]

What would you guys guess would be the total start up cost?

There is definatlely a market for small breweries in my area.

I have a "quasi" friend that is starting up a small brewery in the Cincinnati area. Supposedly, it is going to take him around $900,000 to start up.

 

[abridgel]

Business starts with a fine product -- it'll make collecting capital much easier if you can pour an incredible beer and say "Give me money so I can sell this".

Funny you should mention that - the first brew I made was from a kit - I tasted it and eventhough I am sure I didn't do all of the steps correctly I honestly thought it was one of the freshest, greatest tasting beers I had ever tasted.

 

[abridgel]

Ouck 900K that's pretty steep I was hoping more like 100K max. LOL.............

 

[abridgel]

Who has 900K lieing around?

 

[509inc]

Ouck 900K that's pretty steep I was hoping more like 100K max. LOL.............

I heard 750K for the Dallas area.

 

[bernerbrau]

I've got a buddy who has an MBA and his bachelor's in hospitality.

We've talked about going in together. I figure with enough hard work, he could secure the funding and administrative overhead, and I (along with the necessary brewing staff) could do the brewing.

 

[tom_gamer]

I don't know the exact numbers but 900k doesn't seem wrong. I think the offical average is 800k. You can double that if you want to do a brew pub.

I would like to do the whole brewing thing, seems amazing. I am talking professional brewing. It just seems that at one point its not going to be fun anymore. It will turn into work...surprise. How much fun can you have brewing the same IPA over and over? And if you're the bossman it won't even be about brewing anymore and just running a business. That's the end of my tangent

 

[shoreman]

If you really want to do it than you might want to move to an area in the US that #1 doesn't have a small town brewpub or on premise and has really lax laws on commercial brewing - you could do it for way less $100k - you just have to be willing to move somewhere obscure.

It's all about the situation - you could approach a pub - there's tons of ways to think outside the box.

Good luck!

myself - I just love making brews for myself and my friends and have given up on any dream of brewing as a job - I did a stint in the craft business - its really not all its cracked up to be.

 

[abridgel]

Way to crush my dreams guys - LOL

 

[abridgel]

I live in Canada - not sure what the local laws are but pretty sure can't brew out of my basement.

 

[weirdboy]

I already have my own brewery, in which I make 5-10 gallon batches of beer.

I really love brewing, but I don't want it to be my whole life. Right now I have the option to not brew if I don't feel like it, and I don't sweat it if a batch didn't turn out the way I was expecting. If I had to do it for my livelihood I think being forced to do it every day rain or shine, whether I'm sick or not, and then the added stress of dealing with things going wrong that could literally bankrupt me would suck all of the enjoyment out of it for me. Well, maybe not ALL, but enough that I would consider several other options before starting my own brewery.

 

[abridgel]

I already have my own brewery, in which I make 5-10 gallon batches of beer.

I really love brewing, but I don't want it to be my whole life. Right now I have the option to not brew if I don't feel like it, and I don't sweat it if a batch didn't turn out the way I was expecting. If I had to do it for my livelihood I think being forced to do it every day rain or shine, whether I'm sick or not, and then the added stress of dealing with things going wrong that could literally bankrupt me would suck all of the enjoyment out of it for me.

What's your income like - how much did it cost to start up? I'd love to do it part-time in my evenings and on weekends first.

 

[spenghali]

I think he is talking about brewing as a hobby, not an actual brewery business.

 

[abridgel]

LOL that went right over my head...............

 

[tom_gamer]

i think he is talking about brewing as a hobby, not an actual brewery business.

+1

 

[BBL_Brewer]

I'm thinking more like 50K for a 3 bbl per week capacity. And most of that will be wrapped up in fermenters, temp control and kegs/kegging equipment. No brew pub, just a watered down nano on the cheap.

 

[Curtis2010]

Okay I have no idea even where to start or what to do but I've homebrewed 2 batches and I am hooked I could seriously see myself making this into a business one day - however just in my limited research seems like a ton of startup money (which I don't have) and like with any business in life you have to take a chance.

My dream is to one day not to be at the mercy of "da man" that I work for myself - I'd be okay putting in long hours if it was something I truly believed in.

Any others with the same feelings? Thoughts? Just talking outloud here.

Don't forget that the most fundamental purpose of a business is to make money. It is a great asset to have a passion for what you are doing, and to hopefully instill that in employees and customers, but if you are not making a profit then it wont last long.

Run the numbers. How do you plan to make a PROFIT (not just revenue)?

 

[abridgel]

I have no idea like I said I am just thinking out loud here and dreaming. I want to get away from "da man".

 

[abridgel]

I'm thinking more like 50K for a 3 bbl per week capacity. And most of that will be wrapped up in fermenters, temp control and kegs/kegging equipment. No brew pub, just a watered down nano on the cheap.

That sounds amazing - but you would have to brew offsite for sure.

 

[TheBreweryUnderground]

A start up could be very frugal and use electric and steel drums to do 1.5 bbl batches and probably get started for 50k or less. If you're brewing more than that it'll be difficult as you would need used equipment and the professional stuff is crazy expensive. Find a state where you can self distribute or run a brewpub/tasting room as getting retail dollars is huge for a small brewery (you'd make ~4 times as much). Another difficult part is renting/buying a space with the proper set up, trench drain, tons of sinks, electric hook up (3 phase would be ideal). A lot of states require your brewery to be set up before months of paperwork so that's a huge drain on funds, especially if you have storefront space. it would also help to keep your day job until your brewery is officially opened. HBHoss actually built a structure in his backyard for his brewery so that would also significantly cut down on the start up costs. There's a number of threads on here of start ups that had minimal money and were glorified homebrew setups so check those out. I'm hoping to get started in the next year and a half if I can get the funds, and I'm looking at anywhere from 30k-50k depending on the space I get.

 

[shoreman]

Way to crush my dreams guys - LOL

Dood - you are just homebrewing then - not starting a brewery. Go nuts

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I have no idea like I said I am just thinking out loud here and dreaming. I want to get away from "da man".

Who exactly is "da man"? A boss?

Well, guess what. In a brewery, "dah man" becomes health inspectors, licensing inspectors, distributors, etc....

As long as you "have" to work to earn a living tehre will always be "dah man".

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Who exactly is "da man"? A boss?

Well, guess what. In a brewery, "dah man" becomes health inspectors, licensing inspectors, distributors, etc....

As long as you "have" to work to earn a living tehre will always be "dah man".

True, but you get to reap the full benefits of your hard work instead of making X amount of money for someone else and getting a measly Y paycheck.