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

[Goon]

Muddy, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was like a reading a novel, I couldn't put it down. All of your posts were well written and very detailed. You even took the time to read the thread and answer questions.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Congratulations! Great read.

 

[JINKS]

Coming on the 17 to try some of your brews.

 

[ubnserved]

Absolutely great thread.... and this one even had follow through. Thanks for all the great information it will definitely be an eye opener for those who are wanting to take the plunge.

 

[SteelManCM]

I finally finished this thread. Congratulations on the Happy Ending! At the same time, it's just the beginning.

Thank you for being so forthright with the information.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Muddy, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was like a reading a novel, I couldn't put it down. All of your posts were well written and very detailed. You even took the time to read the thread and answer questions.

I used to be an English Major a lifetime ago. It's difficult for me to write really really badly. (Though I still manage it often enough.)

 

[MuddyCreek]

I'm updating a couple of my spreadsheets. Particularly my bittering worksheet that helps me figure out the amount of hops to add to my large batches as well as my soft-drink sheet that helps me manage scaling for the Root beer and lemonade.

However, I am also working on the master spreadsheet that we used to figure out if the brewery would be a viable cost-effective business in the first place.

We originally (Ok, I originally,) worked it up when I had pretty much no idea whatsoever how much beer we'd be able to sell or how much it would take in terms of employee help in the brewery or the taproom. I had virtually no idea what we'd have to pay for excise taxes, for rent, for utilities etc.

In short almost everything was a S.W.A.G. But I knew that. So I was very conservative in order to prove to myself that the brewery could, in fact, make a profit. Not only did I dramatically under-estimate how much beer we may sell, I over-estimated what we may pay for utilities, insurance etc. Then just to be sure I added a huge "Buffer" each month that was our "You have no idea what you're getting into" insurance.

That's what we took to the bank and they accepted it as being on-point enough and conservative enough that they were willing to go ahead and back us.

Now that we're actually up and running and I'm starting to get real numbers to plug in, I can actually retroactively update the thing with more realistic numbers and see what a real projection looks like on it. The good news is, our conservative estimates were precisely that, extremely conservative. We're selling probably 2 or 3 times as much product as I expected. Admittedly, our staffing has gone up a great deal over what I planned as well, however our margin is great enough that our increased sales dramatically over-rides that.

Let's keep in mind of course that the owners still aren't getting paid anything. We don't expect to for some time. We would rather pay down the loans, upgrade the equipment and generally secure the future of the business. We're just barely into things and we fully intend to reinvest every dime into the brewery in order to keep the customers happy. So far we've been blessed with great reviews and very happy customers. We have restaurants around town clamoring to put our products on tap and we want to keep it that way. The best way to do that is to not get overly aggressive and slowly upgrade our equipment and processes.

On the way + side, as owners who have invested a TON of personal finances into the brewery over the last year, since the brewery has thus far shown a huge and tremendous loss on the books to this point, we can count on a very enjoyable tax return in a few months. We're talking "Should I pay off the Honda or take the family to Hawaii?" type of return. (Sigh... I'll pay off the Honda... I really hate debt.)

Anyway, over the first 8 days of being open, we went through 16 bbls of product clean. (By that I mean that's the empties that came down from upstairs. We still have quite a few partials upstairs so I'd guess we probably went through closer to 18 to 20 bbls altogether.) That's just in the taproom without any outside distribution yet. It's been exciting if exhausting.

I suppose it's a good problem to have.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Been quiet for awhile. We've been getting ready for tomorrow. St. Patty's day in Butte is quite a spectacle. So far things have gone well. Good reviews and good customer returns. I'm getting ready to add another beer on tap and I expect by the weekend we'll open up our first accounts with 2 or 3 local restaurants. I need to do some research and make sure we are charging appropriately for our kegs and that we have proper contracts set up for our accounts.

I know that a couple restaurants want a 2 to 3 taps on hand. (That will bring us in somewhere in the zone of $600 to $900 extra for each rotation they cycle.) I don't know how quickly they'll go through them though. We'll have to see. Of course we have to reimburse for returned kegs etc. (This is why self-distributing is a serious p.i.ta.) You have to weigh the kegs going out, mark them down and have a signed sheet with the client and then weigh them coming back in and have a signed sheet so there's an agreement about the beer distributed on the client site. (Good stuff for you guys who want to do this in the future, I expect...) Then you can calculate you amount distributed both for your sales and for your taxable output.

(You'll soon learn that your entire life starts to revolve around calculating what you can be taxed upon.)

 

[xcxgh]

Good luck! What size system?

 

[MuddyCreek]

10 bbl

 

[MuddyCreek]

St. Patty's Day in Butte.

Strap in!

I'll post pictures if I manage to get any worth posting.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

St. Patty's Day in Butte.

Strap in!

I'll post pictures if I manage to get any worth posting.

Around here we'd say "rig to flip"! Cheers! And good luck!

 

[Owly055]

At last count, Montana was #3, behind Vermont and Oregon.......... But we are gaining!!

Big Sky country has the most breweries per capita in the country from what I remember. But that's because there's no people from what I can gather... lol. Good luck with the adventure. I've watched a lot of small breweries open and struggle here in the Philly area. Our market is what I would call over-saturated at the moment. I do some freelance design work for one of the local places so I get to see first hand what they deal with. I work in the industry in other manners locally as well so I know a lot of brewery owners and brewmasters. It's a wild ride to say the least. Good luck with signing a distribution agreement. I know that can be a make or break decision depending how your 3 tier distribution is actually written in MT. Best of luck man...

 

[JINKS]

My haul from Muddy Creek today.

Muddy Creek chocolate stout, No Paddle amber, Lemonade, and Root-beer. and a Good time Wheat ale.

Met Chris (nice guy), and I am impressed with the business its a nice place.

 

[MuddyCreek]

I hope you enjoy them Jinks. We'd appreciate it if you'd give us an impartial review on Facebook and untappd.com.

Did you try a Dirty Muddy Cow? (Our three level black and tan with Dirty Blonde, Muddy Creek and Skinny Cow?)

 

[watermelon83]

Congratulations on your success!! I'm glad your opening went so well. Screw what the haters think of your fermenters, after all you're accomplishing what so many here dream of. Keep on keeping on brother!

 

[IndyBrewman]

Whew. What a ride! This has been a captivating story from the very beginning. I love the post about the reality TV show idea. That is a money maker for someone!

You are living my dream. Even after reading about all the money, time, blood, sweat & tears you guys have endured & hearing about the constant paperwork, tracking & cleaning, I still want to one day pull the trigger & go big! (We must be a crazy bunch) Just like you, I don't want to be rich off of it, but more to watch the enjoyment I can bring to peoples tastebuds. (and to put one more skewer in macro brew) *sips pumpkin peach ale :cross:

Congrats on your opening & cheers to all your hard work on making your dream come true, also for taking us all along for the ride! If I ever get a chance to be in the area, I will, without a doubt, stop in.
Cheers!

 

[plumber_bob]

MuddyCreek,

I may have missed it, but what do you guys do with the spent grains?
I know from working in a 7bbl op, there is a bunch of grain to get rid of. (spent a total of 3 days helping a buddy). They had a farmer come get theirs.

pb

 

[JINKS]

I hope you enjoy them Jinks. We'd appreciate it if you'd give us an impartial review on Facebook and untappd.com.

Did you try a Dirty Muddy Cow? (Our three level black and tan with Dirty Blonde, Muddy Creek and Skinny Cow?)

Did not try the Dirty Muddy Cow 10ish am is a little early to exbeeriment for me. We were there pretty much at opening. What I have drunk so far is goooood though.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Bob, we have a local rancher come and pick up the grain on weekends. (We brew on Saturday and occasionally on Sunday.) He mixes it with his regular feed and gives it to the cattle. So our brewing assistants take the spent grain out of the mash tun, haul it up to the containers out back of the brewery where it waits for him to pick it up. We usually leave somewhere between 500 and 800 lbs a week for him. When we double batch it'll be twice that.

 

[JINKS]

I forgot to mention that my 2 friends that came with me also bought growlers of beer, so between the three of us we have every style you brew.
We're waiting for another friend (we are all home brewers) to get back from Arizona, and at that time we will crack open all the growlers, drink and be merry, and have some feedback for you.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Around here we'd say "rig to flip"! Cheers! And good luck!

I like that.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Well Jinks, I see you have a couple of the growlers there. On the back you'll see three quotes. Each of the owners selected a quote to add to the back. One of our unique little twists with the brewery, I guess.

You get to guess which quote I picked to add to the growler. The regulars enjoy trying to match up what they know of the three of us and figuring out which of us picked which quote.

 

[JINKS]

Well Jinks, I see you have a couple of the growlers there. On the back you'll see three quotes. Each of the owners selected a quote to add to the back. One of our unique little twists with the brewery, I guess.

You get to guess which quote I picked to add to the growler. The regulars enjoy trying to match up what they know of the three of us and figuring out which of us picked which quote.

Well I don't have a lot of info to go with, but from what I have read here I guess your quote is about being able to tell a great beer from a taste but better to drink the whole thing.

 

[MuddyCreek]

That is correct.

People who know me generally attribute the Napoleon quote to me as I was a French major in college.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Alright, so the next phase of the whole brewery thing is commencing.

We've been open just about a month now and the taproom is beginning to settle into a regular pattern. That means we can pretty much predict how much beer we are going through in a week give or take so I can feel safe saying "Ya, we can commit to some accounts."

So, with that said, we're opening our first account tomorrow I guess.

We'll be sending a keg of our blonde ale over to a local restaurant. They wanted a light ale and members of their staff said they really liked Dirty Blonde so last night our partner who happens to be the business manager was out to dinner at the restaurant. He talked with the restaurant owner and BOOM, just like that we have an account set up for one tap.

Tonight we have MacKenzie River Pizza coming over to do a formal tasting of our beers and decide which ones they want to put on tap. I'm also trying to get the Montana Club restaurant and Sparky's over to do that as well. (It would be nice to do that tasting all at once. I'm also not against fomenting some competition against them as I'm only willing to put 2 kegs of any one beer out at this time and with three restaurants that leaves one of them as the odd man out on the stout or IPA.)

The reason I only want to put out two kegs of a given type is to manage my production schedule. With a 10 bbl system and with us putting 2 new beers on in the next month we have to be a little reasonable with how many kegs we send out to restaurants and pubs in the area. So I'm not just being a jerk.

Anyway, the accounts should boost weekly sales a bit. We're always happy to see that and they'll increase our profile in the community as well.

 

[plumber_bob]

1st off, I'm glad you guys are not just throwing away the spent grain.

2nd, I am having a blast watching you guys progress. I like that you are trying to learn how to walk before you try and run.

You and your team are handling the learning curves very well and skillfully. That should be a big factor in your success.

Now for my big question.

When do you start the mail order side??? I would like to get a 12 pack each week of a different type until I've tried them all!

And then there's the beer of the month club,... when does that start for us mail order customers? Bound to be more of us rooting for you than the locals. ;-)

pb --- who do I make the check out to and how much?

 

[MuddyCreek]

We have two kegs going out of town tonight to Helena Montana at Miller's Crossing. They'll be featuring Muddy Creek Chocolate Stout and Dirty Blonde Ale. Basically they'll be covering both ends of our beer spectrum.

Meanwhile, back home we're featuring a couple of groups at the brewery tonight. 5,6,7,8 (A ballroom dance studio,) is having their end of session classes party at our brewery tonight and the local homebrew club is also meeting at the brewery this evening.

We should have a fine evening getting these two together.

 

[conglominoid]

Just read this thread start to finish, it has been a ride!

Could you discuss a bit more about the licensing process? Both federal, state, and local. What did the inspections entail? Any tips on licensure or inspections?

Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated with your detailed posts!

 

[MuddyCreek]

Will get back to that question. Just saw it this morning. Been busy. And I have to get to the brewery this morning to make a blackberry pale ale.

Licensing wasn't too bad. You simply need to communicate with the state and local agents. Know what they want and be prepared. I'll go into that in detail.