Sell Yourself as a Microbrewery

[Crinkle]

-you can't make the wort in your home and sell it - not legal by any means
-when applying for the brewpub license, you have to give a detailed description and layout of the brewery, and what equipment is used.
-you have to keep detailed logs of the grains you use as compaired to the beer sold, so they can determine what to tax you.
-in short this is a decent plan, but must be done at another location, best option is to work with the eatery and set up shop in the same facility. A lot less hoops to jump through, but a harder sell too.
Good luck, if you figure it out, let me know!

 

[payton34]

i think the health department would like to inspect any place that makes an edible or drinkable product that is for sale to the public

 

[dvdanny]

Being under-employed, I've just been toying around with crazy thoughts lately. Here's one.

For Illinois you would need:
Equipment to brew 30 gallon batches
A couple of kegs.
A kegerator
A working vehicle

Go to a restaurant who is already serving alcohol, Bring many homebrews. Get in touch with the owner. They already pay $500 a year for their liquor license. Tell them that if they pay the additional $550 to get a brewpub license, you will bring over and install a working kegerator.

Once a week, or once a month, depending on how often you are needed, you brew at home, then deliver the cooled wort to their premises where you pitch the yeast and stick it in a closet.

You make one, maybe two "house" beers that are unique just to the restaurant. They can sell 6 packs for another revenue stream.

It costs them a mere $500 a year to serve a unique product that nobody else has. You pitch it to them by saying, "I can create a beer that perfectly accompanies the majority of your dishes... your restaurant's style. I can match it to your clientele, to your regional specialties.

You get paid one dollar per pint... the cost of pretty much any other "import" beer. With 31 gallon batches (1 barrel), that's $310 per night of brewing, plus a quick trip to rack the beer and again to keg it, minus the ingredient cost.

Actually a friend of a friend who happened to own and manage a bar and grill tried one of my beers (the hoppy hefe) and said if we (my friends and I) could get two or three batches of beer that was consistently that good she would like to serve it in her restaurant. And she suggested doing what you listed here (In california the laws are different but she said it was doable).

 

[HexKrak]

You're talking about my write up and pictures about Sue's in Michigan aren't you?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f5/smallest-brewpub-202767/

Yep, that's the one I was thinking of.

 

[HexKrak]

Actually a friend of a friend who happened to own and manage a bar and grill tried one of my beers (the hoppy hefe) and said if we (my friends and I) could get two or three batches of beer that was consistently that good she would like to serve it in her restaurant. And she suggested doing what you listed here (In california the laws are different but she said it was doable).

My only 2c would be to have a lawyer confirm. It will be worth every penny in the long run. Other than that, Go for it! I sure dream of the day where I could.

 

[Homercidal]

I think you could produce wort at home, if you do it in a detached building, not your residence. You have to have it inspected and maintain that inspection.

There is a little restaurant in a nearby town who basically hired a guy to homebrew at the restaurant. For a small place the cost to get set up was fairly small. They brew each Monday when the place is closed. I can see this happening more if the fermenters and kegs were located on site and the burners and kettles were brought in on brew day.

The actual brewing could be done in a spare room, if there is one. And you have to consider fermentation temps. Real breweries have pretty precise temp controllers. That setup would have to stay on-site during the entire fermentation process.