Muddy Creek Brewery: Hot Break!

[MuddyCreek]

We can self-distribute in Montana, we just aren't staffed to do that conveniently at the moment. And there are a couple of mobile canners in the area code that we can use. The issue is that unless you plan on doing a canning run of 20 or 30 bbls or more, the cost is so high that you really aren't making much money on the run. Now if you've got a production facility and you can kick out 60 to 100 bbls in a batch, you can make a decent turn on mobile canning. You don't want to do it forever, but you can get away with a few cycles of that in order to gather revenue so you can purchase a canning line. Our current max capacity is 40 bbls and that puts us at a price point that is closer to tolerable. We have considered it.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Well, we've made another small equipment upgrade to the brewery. Following the advice of a good friend of mine as well as our own inclination, we have purchased an Oktober can seamer. We can now offer cans-to-go. We're getting a display fridge and we're getting organized to submit for a couple TTB approved labels.

Obviously, the seamer can't do any kind of full scale canning, however we can offer a display fridge full of our approved products for sale. We also had a pretty cool opportunity arise with our last sales trip. We visited a pub in a neighboring town that does "Mule Mondays". They apparently go through 10 cases of Cock n' Bull a week. We had 8 oz sample cans of several of our products to run by them, and we I had the manager mix up a Moscow Mule with Cock n' Bull and another with our ginger beer, Mule Fuel. She may be in the market for around 7 cases a week, which we CAN fill. Admittedly, it does not give us a margin worth writing home about, but we plan on getting an actual canning line down the road and if we can begin securing a few sample accounts that can be managed in the meantime and still make some kind of margin, we would like to begin the process of branching out a couple products and developing a base. Our concern is that the Mule Fuel may be so popular we will be hard pressed to keep up with demand if we let too many folks get in on even limited distribution.

Anyway, regarding the seamer, we are throwing a "Can Launch" party on the 10th. 25% discounts on all canned items and some live music in the taproom to get folks feeling groovy. I'll let you know how it goes. One of the things we're most excited about with the seamer is the ability to know definitively what our beer is going to taste like and how it's going to hold carbonation when we send it off to festival. We have bottled in the past with a beer gun and we've never been very satisfied with the consistency of the beer after bottling and letting it sit for a while. We almost always get notes about under-carbonation. (When we've tried to bottle with the beer-gun in the the past it's a terrible fight to keep it from over-foaming, which ultimately drains all your carbonation out of the beer once you do get a fill and cap it.) Now we can avoid that and pour beer just the way we want it, from our tap and seam it up with a head of CO2 to preserve it.

In other news, we just got back from a modest festival up north of us. We have a decent representation in that area and we wanted to go up and let folks try a few of our new products. Always fun to run off to a festival.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Hey all.

The Oktober seamer is doing a great job for us. We received it Nov. 3 and we've already gone through more than 600 cans. So THAT's pretty good.

We did a Black Friday can sale, 25% off and we do a random Beer of the Week, where THAT beer in cans is 25% off. Turns out MOST folks like mixed 6ers with the 12 oz cans, even though the way we price it that's just a bit more expensive than a 4 pack of 16s.

In other news we have a couple more festivals sneaking up on us and we're experimenting with a coffee blonde. It should be ready in a week or two.

Other than that, not much news to print right now. Just plugging along, working to pay the bills and feed the gremlins.

 

[btbnl]

Still interested to hear what happened that you had to kill the music.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Sorry, there are 3 music licensing companies, ASCAP, SESAC and FUGUYS (Can't remember the last one. ;-). They all have catalogues of music that they license for published artists. If you play live music or even canned music, they hound the living **** out of you to pay them monthly or quarterly fees to pay for music licensing. We were literally getting 5 or 6 emails daily threatening to sue us for taking advantage of published musicians property.

The way they see it, if I have ANYONE in my place performing music, they could do a song by say, Tom Petty. Well if you have a musician covering Tom Petty, then Tom Petty (or his estate anyway) deserves royalties on that music. Of course they aren't going to pester the artist - Oh No! They swarm like bloat-flies on the business that hires local musicians to play in their places.

We dealt with it for about a year, we were so consistently heckled by these guys threatening more and more aggressively to sue us that we finally said no more music. Now we are finally working back into a model where we will have artists who will ONLY play originals. That way we can defend that they aren't covering anyone else's intellectual property.

In short these companies are leeches that ultimately do nothing but choke out small, local artists because they essentially make it extremely unpalatable to hire them.

I kinda hate those guys. I may have recommended to one or two of them that they go die in a fire. Shockingly, they did not respond well. I have NEVER met one musician who ever got any royalty payments from these tools. I'm not a fan.

 

[MuddyCreek]

I don't know if it's a sign of success or impending cataclysm, but we have to order 2 more pallets of kegs to keep our distributors happy. We need another batch of 1/4s and 1/6s.

I have something of an update for you on that front as well. Remember we had a distributor that we had a kind of tumultuous relationship with? In truth it was as much our fault as theirs. We quite often struggled to produce enough beer to facilitate their maintaining handles for us. But that would then lead to a lapse in their effort so when we HAD built up a supply for them, they were reticent to go and get more accounts. It was all one big stress-ball. Add in their frustrating tendency to pay very very late on their invoices and it all was rather difficult.

Well, that problem sort of worked itself out. Sometime in mid October or so we got a call from our OTHER distributor that works the northern counties. They informed us that they had purchased part of our primary distributors territory and they wanted us to know that the primary distributor would be sold and out of business by Monday. (We were called Friday afternoon.) Neat! 2 days notice that your primary distributor is going out of business...

Fortunately, we were able to (relatively) quickly find another local distributor that we did some diligence on and eventually signed with. In the interim, we lost some handles around our area, but we're recapturing them now. We believe the new guys are significantly better than the old ones and having learned our lessons, we put some good verbiage in the distribution contracts that helps protect us a bit better and gives us more information and control regarding where our beer is.

For those of you considering ever starting your own brewery, make CERTAIN you understand the distributor laws, rights and limitations in your state. Not knowing all you can is a recipe for frustration and potentially failure.

And as I close, we are closing in on our 4th birthday! Yep, been a minute. In following with the full disclosure thing, we are not "profitable" on a month to month basis. We do show black on an annual basis, but unfortunately, due to equipment purchases, inventory management and the up and down cycles of our distribution and patronage, we have some months where we're good and some months where we're low yet. Our goal (obviously) is to get over that hump so regardless of customer patterns we have enough critical mass to be profitable on a month to month basis rather than just "on paper". If you know what I mean.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Here in NJ most of the newer craft breweries self distribute. (It's allowed here)
As for canning there are several good mobile canning companies (Iron Heart canning does canning for a lot of craft brewers in the northeast)
Some breweries have already moved to setting up their own canning lines.
Self distribution seems cool because you have total control over who you work with and what special beers get released to who. Having to buy or rent trucks and pay drivers can be a hassle I'm sure.
LOL, i remember visiting a craft brewery a few years ago and they were loading like 10 or 12 sixtels into the back trunk of a bmw 3 series.

(When we self-distribute, we use a mini-van! Like a Boss!) ;-)

 

[MuddyCreek]

The Struggle is Real. Nothing new to report really. We're just forging onward. January is a terrible month for us historically. Too many foks are either too cold to get out or they are hanging on to those new year resolutions. Things will pick up in Feb. and March, but January is not our friend.

On the positive side, one of our distributors made their largest ever order this week.

On the negative, our lead brewer is really struggling. Difficult conditions, long hours and lack of sunshine are really beating him down. I am worried about him. He's not only a talented brewer but a good friend.

 

[MuddyCreek]

4th Birthday coming up.

Planning on having music and some food. We'll throw out a couple fun activities and we will let them eat cake!

 

[MuddyCreek]

As you can see my posts have gotten very few and far between. Just so darn busy all the time. I do feel badly about it in the unlikely event anybody ever reads these.

Anyway, every now and then you have an opportunity to be humbled. (We attended a festival last week and failed to medal, but that's not what I'm talking about. ;-)

I met a fellow from another brewery here in MT and he told me he'd followed the build-out thread and this one and he said it had offered some helpful insight. I could not have asked for a better way to finish a less than perfect weekend.

Anyway, having somebody mention that all that crap I wrote about as we were working our way through the process and getting up and running, all the way to opening, brewing, competing and distributing... I'm just happy if it not only entertained, but possibly helped anyone. I have never claimed to be anything but a guy who wanted to share the honest to God truth of the journey.

Anyway, THAT guy won an award. Lol.

 

[MuddyCreek]

We brewed a Kolsch a couple weeks ago (ya, I'm not going to go dig up the o with the accent symbol...) That should be about ready in another couple weeks. Some other things have happened that I ought to update you guys on should you still be following...

We were fortunate enough to hire a fellow a few years ago that grew into a really good brewer. He was from the Portland area and had just moved to MT. Anyway, about 3 years and some very good brewing later, he decided to return to Portland. As always there was a lot to the decision. It was difficult and emotional for all of us. He has landed a gig at Thunder Island on the Gorge though, if anybody is from that area.

So, one of the questions we always get from our customers - "Now that Chris is gone, are you not going to brew the beers he came up with anymore?" Well, some of you probably already know this answer, but of course we will still brew Ry Dog Red and Ornery Goat. The brewery, obviously, owns the recipes. They also own all my recipes and the recipes our "Walter White" came up with. That's just the way it works. As with any business that creates sellable assets, your employees all sign a non-disclosure, non-compete agreement that makes it clear their contributions belong ultimately to the business. Having worked for years in the software industry, this, of course, is second nature to me. However we have any number of customers who are surprised about this.

We hired a fellow about 6 months ago to help out in the brewhaus and get some experience with our system and our processes. He has classes from our local college in brewing as well as a business and brewing degree from a college down the road. Where our previous brewer was passionate, Patrick is cerebral. I've enjoyed working with him and he helps make the loss of Chris a bit easier.

Anyway, nothing very exciting to report. Just trying to be less invisible than I was in the past.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Happy Nearly Independence Day Folks!

I hope everyone is well. We are about to release our first ever Kolsch. I'm excited about it. We're informally calling it "Lawn Mower" although we know due to infringement we can't use that name in our formal releases.

Not much to report. Just enjoying the summer and playing with a few new beers. Hope you guys are all having a GREAT summer.

 

[SouthBounds]

What a fantastic thread! Thanks for showing us the "ins and outs" of growing a brewery.

 

[Jmarsh544]

Agreed! Thanks MuddyCreek for giving us all the “behind the curtains” insight.

 

[kaffeenjunkie]

I just saw your post on the other thread.
As a restaurant owner I can only offer condolences and prayers. Do not give up on your dream. We have faced a few trials and tribulations over the years. I have watched by sister and her husband go through some as well.
Do not settle for anything less than full restoration from your insurance company. Keep hounding and asking for it , do not settle.
Make sure you're taking care of your employees as best as you can. Hopefully you can get back open in a hurry and be able to get back your crew.
Make sure you're continuing to market to your guests through email, Facebook, Instagram and others. Keep them informed of your progress. Try to turn this into a marketing opportunity. Thanks the fire personnel with a keg of beer when you get back open. Brew a beer and somehow work fire into the name put it on tap.
Hopefully you will continue to post here as well.
Hang in there, this too shall pass.

 

[NewJersey]

Did they rebuild?