Muddy Creek Brewing Co. Brewery Build- Start to Finish Thread

[MuddyCreek]

So, that went well. Within an hour of meeting the bank, they called back and told us we were approved. It's a good Friday!

So, without further ado...

 

[MuddyCreek]

So, today we got our 'first' surprise.

We have been talking to our local building codes guy from the beginning and he told us we were good to go except he had to look at our capacity and make sure we had enough exits etc.

Our taproom is on the 2nd floor of the building (anybody's inner alarm going off yet?) and today when I dropped off yet another permit the inspector happened to be there and told me "Hey, I've been meaning to call you guys. You have sprinklers on the 2nd floor, right?

"Uh, no." I said.

"You have 'sprinklers', RIGHT?" he said in a kind of a wink-wink, nudge-nudge way.

It turns out, if you are serving alcohol on the 2nd floor of any building, that floor must be equipped with sprinklers. We called our plumber who told us, "****, that's a 30 or 40 k job..."

My partner freaked, I calmed him down and we called for specific clarification from the building inspector. "I don't care how you turn them on, or how fancy they are. The code says you need 'sprinklers'. You can do it yourself for all I care, just make sure I see some sprinklers when I go through."

So, after a bit of research, we found where we can get a system installed for under 5k but it was our first, "Oh Crap" moment in the process. My partner was a bit freaked out and I explained "This is how it works. There are going to be 2 dozen things come up that you never even thought of." In fact, when he got the initial quote from the plumber for 30k to 40k my first response to him was "So it begins..."

Anyway, we dodged the first iceberg!

You guys thinking about breweries in the future, 2nd floor taprooms need 'sprinklers'. And you should work really really hard at making friends with your building inspector.

 

[Dave37]

I am officially throwing my hat in the ring.

Our building is leased, our contractors have had their fun sodomizing me, our LLC and EIN numbers are filed and our applications for a brewing license are en-route.

Muddy Creek Brewing Co. is on it's way.

I will try to keep a running thread about the journey. Having read ALL the threads about other guys who have started (or attempted to start) their own breweries I feel as though I am about 1/4 aware of all the crap that's about to be thrown in my way.

First thing... I have made every effort humanly possible to keep costs down, including arranging for a ludicrously beneficial lease agreement and this thing is STILL going to cost my partners and I a TON of money. I cannot find an inexpensive way to start a brewery. (And believe me, I have researched every possible method.)

I'll post photos and a running documentary on the process.

Have a heart, wish me luck!

Awesome man! Good luck. So far it seems like you have been on the ball with planning and dealing with issues that have arisen. I like the logo as well. Best of luck and if I'm ever in MT I'd love to swing by and have a pint or ten.

Looking forward to following the thread as well.

Cheers

 

[Renoun]

You should defiantly make some discreet inquiries into the possibility of using a sprinkler system plumbed with PEX or CPVC rather than iron pipe. It could be a substantial savings in both materials and labor. Not all jurisdictions are allowing them, especially in commercial occupancies, but they are defiantly gaining popularity in residential applications that would otherwise be built without sprinklers.

 

[Dave37]

Any updates on this? Looking forward to reading the next chapter in the the muddy creek saga.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Hey everyone, back for the new year! Been busy with well, busy work. Filed for our permits, our funding is coming through around the middle of this month, finalizing equipment and trying to map out brewhaus flow diagrams.

We needed to gather a few more quotes to qualify for urban revitalization grants which we will apply for on the 16th of this month. I also had a couple of personal setbacks health wise that have slowed me down a bit.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll be cutting the floor for the drainage system. I need to run a trench through the fermenting areas, over to the brewhaus and out to the sink and keg cleaning/filling station. Then the plumber will joyously install our drains and general plumbing for brewhaus water.

I will start putting up pictures so you can see the transformation.

 

[Punity]

Awesome good to see it coming together. One thing I'm finding if you don't have patience you'll never make it haha.

I'm still waiting on burners that supposedly were coming in a week. Month later that box has eluded our buisness somehow.

 

[moti_mo]

Congratulations on the big jump. You're starting out almost exactly as we are, with some slight differences, so I'll keep up with your progress. We have an 8-barrel system with 6 8-barrel bright tanks, and will only be doing a tap room with no food sales. We also all have day jobs, and like you guys will probably spend the first year of the business getting our asses handed to us in terms of hours-worked-per-day.

Any reason you guys are going with all kegs and no bright tanks? Cost, I guess? Hopefully you can upgrade to brights relatively quickly, seems like it would cut a lot of man-hours dedicated solely to packaging and cleaning.

Good luck!!

 

[Hello]

Sounds like some decent progress. Nothing over the holidays progresses as fast as we'd all like. Keep us posted and show pics!

 

[MuddyCreek]

Moti, the cost associated with the brite tanks is the predominant reason we are holding off on them at first. I love shiny brite tanks as well as the next guy, but frankly the shiny stuff is generally pretty expensive.

You may want to consider doing 'some' keg distribution to outside parties though. All my research indicates that taproom sales more or less pay for operations but distribution (despite the much worse profit margin) basically give you your profit and opportunities to expand into other areas and markets. Even if you're only doing 5 kegs a week outside your taproom you're looking at $500 or $600 in sales per week, about 1/2 or 1/3 of which is net profit. That's a conservative estimate of a little under $700 a month extra profit coming in AND more people trying your beer and hopefully doing some marketing for you. Once you've got a few local restaurant and pub accounts it gets much easier to walk in to new places and attempt to generate new accounts.

In fact, we intend to do some marketing in which we invite nearby business and community leaders to the taproom in the week before we have our grand opening. The guests are invited to come in and try a few pints for free, all we ask is that they provide honest, constructive feedback on our facilities, staff and products. This helps us train our staff and work out any wrinkles in the P.O.S. system (They'll be 'rung up' but not charged.) as well as our serving and atmosphere.

(It also has the uber-sneaky benefit of subliminally generating a preference and loyalty for the brewery because they got to come in, get free pints and feel as though they were contributing to our success.)

Many of these business folks will be restaurant and pub owners and managers. Ideally we will be able to generate some inroads with these folks so we can have some positive relationships developed when we consider contacting them about potential accounts.

Ya... I'm evil.

 

[Punity]

Moti, the cost associated with the brite tanks is the predominant reason we are holding off on them at first. I love shiny brite tanks as well as the next guy, but frankly the shiny stuff is generally pretty expensive.

You may want to consider doing 'some' keg distribution to outside parties though. All my research indicates that taproom sales more or less pay for operations but distribution (despite the much worse profit margin) basically give you your profit and opportunities to expand into other areas and markets. Even if you're only doing 5 kegs a week outside your taproom you're looking at $500 or $600 in sales per week, about 1/2 or 1/3 of which is net profit. That's a conservative estimate of a little under $700 a month extra profit coming in AND more people trying your beer and hopefully doing some marketing for you. Once you've got a few local restaurant and pub accounts it gets much easier to walk in to new places and attempt to generate new accounts.

In fact, we intend to do some marketing in which we invite nearby business and community leaders to the taproom in the week before we have our grand opening. The guests are invited to come in and try a few pints for free, all we ask is that they provide honest, constructive feedback on our facilities, staff and products. This helps us train our staff and work out any wrinkles in the P.O.S. system (They'll be 'rung up' but not charged.) as well as our serving and atmosphere.

(It also has the uber-sneaky benefit of subliminally generating a preference and loyalty for the brewery because they got to come in, get free pints and feel as though they were contributing to our success.)

Many of these business folks will be restaurant and pub owners and managers. Ideally we will be able to generate some inroads with these folks so we can have some positive relationships developed when we consider contacting them about potential accounts.

Ya... I'm evil.

Naaaaah just good buisness practice

I agree with the brites we are keg only right now exactly because of cost for brites and also room to operate. It was an either or situation with room to operate in and brite tanks lost out haha.

 

[moti_mo]

Moti, the cost associated with the brite tanks is the predominant reason we are holding off on them at first. I love shiny brite tanks as well as the next guy, but frankly the shiny stuff is generally pretty expensive.

You may want to consider doing 'some' keg distribution to outside parties though. All my research indicates that taproom sales more or less pay for operations but distribution (despite the much worse profit margin) basically give you your profit and opportunities to expand into other areas and markets. Even if you're only doing 5 kegs a week outside your taproom you're looking at $500 or $600 in sales per week, about 1/2 or 1/3 of which is net profit. That's a conservative estimate of a little under $700 a month extra profit coming in AND more people trying your beer and hopefully doing some marketing for you. Once you've got a few local restaurant and pub accounts it gets much easier to walk in to new places and attempt to generate new accounts.

Yeah, we got lucky in that our brewery purchase (used) came with 6 bright tanks, lots of kegs, a kegging system, and a bottling line. So we'll be doing some packaging to hopefully get some periodic taps at tap houses and restaurants. We know the owners of one of the city's better tap rooms, and they carried my pro-am beer a couple of years ago per request, with good reviews in-house. So we hope to have some spots on rotation there as a start.

 

[JohnSand]

Punity is right Muddy, it's good business. A chance for everyone to benefit.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Alright, new update! I have a couple of 'before' photos of the taproom area. We plan on maintaining an "industrial warehouse" kind of feel. The framed wall on the west end of the taproom is the divider between the taproom and the owners future kitchen area. (photo 2) The taproom space is about 1700 sq feet. I don't currently have a photo, but there's a skylight in the SW corner of the taproom.

We'll be putting in a gas heater (hung) in the NW corner by the kitchen door area (photo 2) and an additional gas fireplace in the SE corner. (photo 1) We also will put in a gas furnace and AC unit which will vent air through the ductwork you see in the taproom 1 photo.

We'll 'rough finish' the floors to give it a rustic feel, place couches and chairs by the fireplace which can be moved when we have live music.

The 'shack photo' is an old homestead building with weathered wood that we have permission to strip for our bar fronting and trim as well as for trimming which we will herringbone for our merchandise display area. (The wood paneling on the wall in photo 1. need to do some work on it but that's where the merch will go.)

I'll get some photos of our brewing area and will update as we make progress. As far as I know we are on schedule to receive our initial funding (150k) sometime next week. I'm also working on submitting our urban revitalization grant request this week which should give us an extra 25k for free. If all goes well, the contractors should have all their worked finished sometime in mid to late May. (ya. sure they will...)

Anyway, here are some of the "from humble beginnings" photos including my E-herm home-rig which will shortly be moved to the brewery and used for new recipes and experiment batches.

 

[JohnSand]

I love the space. I've been in a microbrewery in an old brick industrial building in VT, it was cool. But Great South Bay Brewery on Long Island is in a modern warehouse, concrete and steel, yuck. People still go there to drink great beer. Are you keeping the classic iron radiators?

 

[ThreeSheetsBrewing]

This is anecdotal, but it seems the breweries that have the most bustling taprooms in the Minneapolis area also have local food trucks set up shop nightly in front of their place.

 

[tsl346]

Looks great! Good luck!

 

[MrSpaz]

This is anecdotal, but it seems the breweries that have the most bustling taprooms in the Minneapolis area also have local food trucks set up shop nightly in front of their place.

Agreed. The brewery close to my house has a food truck every night. You can also bring in your own food.

As far as the pictures, the place looks great. I'm excited to see the final product. Good luck.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Home Brew mobile app

 

[jiMithing83]

This is awesome, congratulations to you sir!

Although I must admit, I cringed when I saw "$1500/mo for 1700 sq ft"... my apartment is $1400/mo for 765 sq ft
Definitely time to get out of the city.

 

[MuddyCreek]

It's even better than that.

We are only required to start paying rent when we actually open the brewpub for tap sales. Until then we can occupy, work on the taproom and brewhaus and even start brewing beer after we get our licence and clearance finished.

THEN we only have to pay 1/3 rent until we start hitting month by month break-even revenue. (At that point our rent begins increasing monthly at a rate of $75 per month.)

and the rent amount (from $500 to $1500) covers not only the 1700 sq ft taproom, it also covers the entire basement where the brewery will be located, giving us lots and lots of expansion. We have currently set the lease term for 5 years from the point we begin paying rent.

We will have to adjust for cost of living increases etc., but any way you look at it we got a ridiculously good deal from the landlords. (Now, it should be reiterated that Muddy Creek Brewing Co is paying for some significant improvements / renovations on the building. A big reason the landlords are so cool toward us is because we are throwing a pretty significant chunk of money at improving property we don't own. However, the landlords have agreed to look at a list of our proposed improvements and they will sign off on what they feel will improve their property and subsequently do some additional rent reduction until our renovation balance has been repaid. Basically, we're loaning them money to make some significant improvements on their building so they will pay us back with reduced rent and some really awesome lease terms.

And now for the really good news...

Our funding is available for our usage tomorrow at noon. I'm going to have a GREAT weekend. (Making a celebratory IPA.)

 

[Doctor_M]

It's even better than that.

We are only required to start paying rent when we actually open the brewpub for tap sales. Until then we can occupy, work on the taproom and brewhaus and even start brewing beer after we get our licence and clearance finished.

THEN we only have to pay 1/3 rent until we start hitting month by month break-even revenue. (At that point our rent begins increasing monthly at a rate of $75 per month.)

and the rent amount (from $500 to $1500) covers not only the 1700 sq ft taproom, it also covers the entire basement where the brewery will be located, giving us lots and lots of expansion. We have currently set the lease term for 5 years from the point we begin paying rent.

We will have to adjust for cost of living increases etc., but any way you look at it we got a ridiculously good deal from the landlords. (Now, it should be reiterated that Muddy Creek Brewing Co is paying for some significant improvements / renovations on the building. A big reason the landlords are so cool toward us is because we are throwing a pretty significant chunk of money at improving property we don't own. However, the landlords have agreed to look at a list of our proposed improvements and they will sign off on what they feel will improve their property and subsequently do some additional rent reduction until our renovation balance has been repaid. Basically, we're loaning them money to make some significant improvements on their building so they will pay us back with reduced rent and some really awesome lease terms.

And now for the really good news...

Our funding is available for our usage tomorrow at noon. I'm going to have a GREAT weekend. (Making a celebratory IPA.)

Sick! Your living the dream, I can only imagine the whirlwind of life your experiencing but try and take a step back for a moment and take it all in.

 

[plumber_bob]

And I'm just dreaming for a 1barrel operation!

You go big guy!!!

pb

 

[JohnSand]

The rent agreement sounds like good business for everyone involved. An old empty building pays no rent.

 

[MuddyCreek]

That's exactly it, John.

 

[CA_Mouse]

Sounds like you got a sweet deal on the lease! I could only hope to get a sweet deal like that in So CA!

 

[MuddyCreek]

Ya... Southern California is a different world. I spent a few years in Tahoe and even that was something of a shell-shock.

At any rate, we signed our papers on Friday. We have a line of credit to get started. I am trying to get some information from GlacierTanks so I can order my BK, MLT, HLT and WP tanks.

(I considered just putting some whirlpool inlets at the top of the BK, but since I am using an electric system I'll have 5 or 6 15k heating elements protruding into the BK and I'm concerned that they'll interrupt the whirlpool because they baffle the flow of the wort. I'll be asking their opinion on this as well.)

It aint easy bein' cheap.

 

[MuddyCreek]

You may note I edited the above. It took very little thought to come to the conclusion that too much tinkering with the function of the various tanks is a path to doom!

 

[MuddyCreek]

Ok, I have some updates. They aren't sexy but they're a necessary part of the business.

The lease has been finalized and signed. That has allowed us to submit the state and federal applications for brewery licensure. This is a mildly tedious process, but considering the motivation you breeze through it in no time.

I have gotten through the bulk of the equipment ordering. I'm working with Glacier Tanks in Portland. I am hoping my brewhaus is ready for pickup in 3 months or so. Then the brewhaus and our kegs will be driven back via delivery truck. Our kegs are coming from Stout tanks. They have given us the best deal that I've been able to find and I've been happy with them.

We started cutting the floor drain system last week and hope to have it finished a couple weeks from now. Then the real fun starts. Our plumber will start laying out the brewery drainage system and our electricians will start laying out everything for our electric brewery from the milling room to the brewhaus to the fermenting and cold room to the keg storage room. Upstairs we will start work on the insulation, floor, skylight, tiling, walls and bar in the taproom. Of course the plumber and electricians will have to do all their work up there as well.

So much has to be done and I'm admittedly freaking out. But it's a good freak out I suppose. I'll try to put some pictures up as we tear the floor apart for the drainage system. Our facebook page isn't quite up yet and our twitter feed is quite new but you can follow us as we begin our progress in earnest if you like. @muddycreekbrew

Wish us luck. We cut more floor this weekend!

 

[plumber_bob]

Having been in a few breweries, and actually frequenting a local one,...I envy you sir!

pb

 

[MuddyCreek]

Submitting our Product list to the state is great fun! A few of our beer names...

Muddy Creek Stout (Go ahead, get a little dirty!)

Dirty Blonde (You know you want one...)

No Paddle Amber (You're up Muddy Creek with No Paddle)

Storm The Door Porter

Good Time (As in, "I'll have a Good Time...")

8 Seconds

Seeing Other People (Special Bitter)

Head Turner (She'll ruin your life. And you'll thank her.)