New nano comming to KCMO

[Brewstress]

Hello all,

I wanted to introduce myself to the community. You guys are a fun and informative group and I am always looking through posts to find answers to my questions but have never written anything. So here goes!

My fiancé introduced me to brewing a few years ago for a fun night it. I don't think he knew what would happen next you can't just introduce a microbiologist/ chemist to the art of brewing and think she won't obsess over it. I fell in love with the art immediately! Soon he was making a lauter tun out of 5 gal buckets and it just spiraled from there to the point where we are now building a 1 bbl design to start our own brewery. We are working through this slowly, but will be taking on the KC area hopefully by the end of the year. I thought that it would be fun to post here so others could follow our progress if interested. There are so many success stories out there that have inspired us to give it a go too.

 

[cfinan]

That sounds awsome, I live in leavenworth. Ks and look forward to hearing about your progress and eventually trying your beers.

 

[BrewMedic]

Good luck!! Starting a brewery, even a nano is a LOT of work and $$$$. If you need an impartial evaluation on your pilot brews, I would selfishlessly volunteer my palate

 

[Brewstress]

So I guess that I will start with our current status.

Aaron is the brains of the setup and I am the brewer. Kinda funny as he was the one that really started this.

Our current status is that we have almost all of the pieces in the basement for the brew station sans the pot (has been on the way for almost a month now). Aaron is currently finalizing the control panel and then will be moving on to the brew stand. We have both learned a lot about electronics already, and will be moving on to welding soon I guess. After the brew station is setup we will start brewing a lot of variations on a them of a few successful recipes that I have developed over the years. Once all that is done, we will have a tasting event to assess the labors of all of our hard work so far. We are both currently employed full time so this is what we do in out spare time. That being said, we will have a novel brew station design in little over 3 months from idea to operational. The next major hurdle is finding a space that we can afford until we can legally sell our beer. There are a few spots that I have in mind, but I am still working on our business plan to see what would fit in best.

 

[JerseyBrewer]

Many of us only dream of opening a brewery (mostly while starring blankly at a computer screen in a cube farm while growing fatter and fatter every day). The prevailing wisdom seems to be that starting a brewery takes a commitment of at least a 7bbl system and many many years of starvation levels of cash-on-hand to get it started. For many of us this barrier-to-entry is too high and too risky to overcome(especially with a wife and 2 children who are living quite comfortably from our cube sitting efforts). However, Nano brewing seems to be the reasonable answer to starting small and growing. I'm just now sure how to go from Nano -> Micro -> Craft levels.

Would you be willing to share your plan with us on how you intend on making the Nano brewery profitable? Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for numbers, just wondering what strategy you are thinking about taking for growing (or not) your business.

Thanks. I don't mean to pry.

 

[Brewstress]

A very good question! The basic idea started when Aaron and I were down in the basement in mid feb with me near the opened back door boiling away and he at his computer concerned that I was going to kill us both if I don't keep that door open (too cold though). So he started coming up with an idea to go electric. He has a friend who owns their own electrical contracting business that we asked to come over and look at our design. He then implanted the idea in our brains that once we complete the design we should sell it as a kit and make our money back. So we started down that path and are still on that path. I have crunched the numbers slightly for just the brewery and cannot see it sustaining us full time even if we sold 200 bbl a year. That was a little frustrating. So I started looking around at many of the other successful operations out there to see if I could figure out what their secret was. It looks like most have to be a bar/restaurant to be successful. So here is our rough idea so far, it is obviously in the process of constant revision. We have two paths: 1) the diy path of no investors or loans. This is a much longer path, and we would be putting all of our excess money into the business until it started to become self sustainable. That includes depending on the brew station profits to fund the brewery until we can get enough money to invest in a larger system and become a microbrewery. There are two empty brewhouses that I know of in the KC area that need new occupants. Until then we will be perfecting our recipes and having tasting events. 2) The other idea is to start a brewery/convenience store. Where one could take a beer out of the fridge and sit down and enjoy a nice drink or just take it to go. We would sell our beers on tap but also carry other craft beers. This would require an investment to buy the inventory and set up the store. However, we would be able to increase our sales with the convenience store side that will hopefully make it possible for one of us to quit our day job and support the store full time. We would still have the nano brewery size, but a larger income. Aaron also wants to sell BBQ supplies. All just ideas right now, but we keep working on them everyday.

 

[cfinan]

Ever think of instead of the store idea do a homebrew shop next to it. I've been thinking that there needs to be a homwbrew shop in kc on the Missouri side. I think north kc would be an ideal location. What homebrewer wouldn't love a homebrew shop where you can get good beer too.

 

[Brewstress]

Yes, that is a good idea too. Hmmmm.... I have to run it by my partner and see what he thinks.

 

[SevenFields]

Best of luck to you. I will be keeping an eye on this from down the road in Topeka!

 

[Brewstress]

Thank you! It is nice to know that The Midwest has so many craft beer fans!

 

[BtotheG]

I've often thought about option 2. I recently went to BierKraft in Brooklyn and it's a pretty cool idea. They sell all kinds of craft bottles and also do growler and pint fills from local breweries. They had a lot of Sixpoint on tap. Not sure what the laws are for something like that here in MO, especially if you were also brewing, but I've always heard we have some of the most lax drinking laws in the country. I like the option of buying a bottle or pint and having a seat or taking a bottle or growler to go.

 

[Brewstress]

I went to school in flagstaff AZ. They have this awesome place called the Pay 'n Take which is like our option 2 though they didn't brew any beer but did have an espresso machine be hide the bar as well and a very small patio. Aaron and I would like to bring that style here to KC, and I think that KC would be very receptive to it. I spent the day shopping around for a space and found a few options in the west port and 39th street area (if anyone is familiar with KC). Btw, we are called Option C Brewery. Keep a look out for us at the end of the year. We have lots of connections in the liquor industry and have some people lined up to buy. We just need to get it to them.

 

[theschick]

You should come to the local beer club meeting: http://www.kcbiermeisters.org/ and meet a bunch of other local brewers!

 

[Brewstress]

Will do! Thanks!

 

[NWMOBrewer]

Hey, brewer 2 hours north of KC. welcome, and would love another brewstore (I don't own one so can't have too many)

 

[Brewstress]

Ok. I have been working away on the old business plan and am stuck at packaging costs. I have looked around a little bit but the prices that I am seeing can't be what other breweries are paying. Right not they are almost 70% of the cost! Geez! So I am appealing to any nano/micro breweries out the to see where they are getting their bottling supplies. Any input is much appreciated!

 

[jiggs_casey]

I like the idea of a homebrewshop / bbq supply store. They tend to go hand in hand, especially in this part of the country. I also agree that it seems the only way to 'hope for success' in the business is by having a restaurant tied to your brewery. With that, it's the waiting game that would kill me... Everything I've read says that once you set up your brewery, it could take upwards of a year for everything to clear the legal channels just to be able to sell. At which point, without a restaurant, you're stuck with dealing with distributors and trying to get your 'foot in the door' with them.

I joked with a friend of mine recently that everytime I go to a restaurant that has comment cards out, I was going to reply with "You need your own brewery" under the 'how can we improve our service' section. Who knows, maybe somebody will bite!

I read through these a while back. Lots of blah, blah but might be a good place to help for a business plan...

http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/c311.htm

 

[theschick]

Also, apparently you are not alone. Here is another nano brewery trying to come to KCMO. They've also have gotten a lot of exposure from various beer blogs: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1693254250/wilderness-brewing-co

 

[Jersh]

I grew up in the 'ville and was just there this past weekend to visit family.

Good luck to OP with the nanobrewery, it sounds like an uphill battle but hopefully you succeed!

Hey, brewer 2 hours north of KC. welcome, and would love another brewstore (I don't own one so can't have too many)

 

[NWMOBrewer]

I grew up in the 'ville and was just there this past weekend to visit family.

Good luck to OP with the nanobrewery, it sounds like an uphill battle but hopefully you succeed!

You left to head to tampa. You are a genius.

 

[Brewstress]

Well, it's been awhile since we came up with this crazy idea, but we have grown a lot in that small amount of time. We have gathered and built all of our equipment and are now in the process of finding a space to start the brewery application process. So today we are celebrating our year of successes by brewing up a 32 gal batch of our favorite brown porter! We hope everyone is having as good a day as we are! Prost!

 

[BrewMedic]

Congrats on your success so far.

I enjoy following up and coming breweries. Post some pics of your builds and progress. That way we can live vicariously thru your experiences!!!

I'd be happy to provide QC for that Porter

 

[Kegcowboy]

Good luck!- Jeff

 

[Brewstress]

Well the porter turned into 40 gal due to increased efficiency: 92%! We didn't want porter wine . We have been forced by our lovely city to find a place in a manufacturing zone and are in the process of hunting down the right space for our needs and price range that the city will allow. Luckily, they have a good GIS zoning map online. We will be the second brewery in Kansas City at the moment and the smallest one at that, but it is not fun fighting city hall so we will roll with it at the moment. We have plenty of pictures on our Facebook page. Just look up Option C Brewery and you will see what our obsession has led to I will also post some pics here tonight as well for your viewing pleasure. I think that my husband have a winning combination: he is the creative engineer and I am the brewery chef/scientist. I think that we can do anything together! We are working on a website so that will be up eventually as well. Well, have a good day everyone! Prost!

 

[Brewstress]

Correction: we will be the second brewery, however there are several brewpubs in the city. They are all in business zones though...a point that we have gone round and round with the zoning board about, but that are stubborn and we are poor so manufacturing zone here we come!

 

[BrewMedic]

We have plenty of pictures on our Facebook page. Just look up Option C Brewery and you will see what our obsession has led to I will also post some pics here tonight as well for your viewing pleasure.

That would be awesome! The only time I really get to lurk is while I'm at work and they have all social media sites, face book, twitter, even YouTube, are blocked.

I feel for you in dealing with City Hall. Last year there was an attempt here to allow beer and wine tastings at a few festivals. The Wine booths were passed and beer of ANY kind was shot down.

They cited that they didn't want a bunch of drunks reeking havoc. The argument posed was, “hell, wine usually has more ETOH than beer”

Basically they said, and get this, wine drinkers are more sophisticated and are less prone to display inappropriate behavior in public.

Gotta love small town politics!

 

[landshark]

What? KC being stubborn with Plans and zoning? Get out of here w/ that logic. More like nobody has any knowledge with the city as soon as you call them.

Good Luck with the Brewery, I don't see why you can't do like 75 st and just run it as a business, but that's KC's City retards for you. May just try a suburb of KC, like Blue Springs or Lees Summit.... Closer to where i live.

If they give you too much hassle, tell them you will just put it in Kansas near the Speedway. Maybe they will get the hint.

Maybe if you consider it a Bar/Restaurant first. That may be the legalities with the location. As FreeState and 75 st are both restaurants/bars, same with Granite City.

Keep us up to date, and let us know any progress, or any "testing" that needs to be done. Lots of home brewers in the area here that would love to see another MicroBrewery.

 

[Brewstress]

Brew Medic you are making me excited about festivals! I thought I saw a beer booth at old time days in lees summit a few years back. That's ok, though cause we will have to make our own events and see what retarded politics come out of the wood work.

The brewpub idea would now need a special permit to allow brewing on the premises as of last year which is the problem that we have run into with the zoning board. Since we are trying to fund this startup with our own cash it just isn't the path that we want to take. That being said, I get more and more excited when I think about our little brewery and running it with my best friend and husband. Well, it is time to check the gravity of the porter.

Adios!