Starting a new brewery (outside US)

[brokenspork]

So, after a while as per many homebrewers one decides to make that effort and turn this hobby into a professional money generating endeavor. With a friend we're doing the initial due diligence to see if a microbrew is viable.
We basically want to have a small brewery with a modest tap room and distribute to other local pubs, bars & restaurants. Currently there are no craft breweries where we are located (city/country) so competition is basically just beer importers and the large SAB-type companies.

Initially we are considering either a Braumeister 200L system with 4 or 5 fermenters and a small 20L for testing. Anyone used or can comment on using Speidel systems versus say a SABCO system? Our initial target is very modest at about 2,000 ~ 5,000 bottles a month.

We are also debating whether we should start with bottles or kegs. With bottles its a debate of one-time use, re-usable, cleaning, bottleing, labeling versus the relative ease of kegs (5gl) and maintaining those (including the bar installations which we'd have to do to keep a certain quality control over the beer).

Regulations here are pretty lax so we can make, distribute and sell direct without having to go through the famous three tier system present in the US.

Any comments are appreciated as we are trying to figure things out for the first time and dont have anyone locally we can really go to regarding brewery set-up and specific advice.

For reference we are in Central America and the craft beer scene is just starting to develop.

Cheers,

 

[Jaybird]

I dont really have much advise accept Good Luck in the venture. Its a fun plan and a boat load of hard work for sure. The one thing I think about as I build our 3 BBL system at the store is HOW MUCH BEER WE HAVE TO FLIPPEN SELL to make profit. If your able to sell ONLY through the taps at the pub your going to be WAY better off (if you can move the beer) because there is so little profit on a keg of beer, whereas over the bar the profit margin is about x10 over selling a keg.

Its a costly adventure and not one to be taken lightly but if you do your homework and have a good plan then you can make a go of it for sure..

Check out probrewer.com for the big stuff and keep in mind you are going to probably want to get some advise from a PRO brewer to help you make KILLER beers and keep your stuff clean, organized and a proper flow of the brewery. Going from home brewer to PRO brewer is a HUGE step. There are several people here on HBT that have made the jump and are doing GREAT.

Good Luck!!

Cheers
Jay

 

[brokenspork]

Opted for a slightly different approach since the last post.
Going with a smaller nanobrew approach to gradually grow out to microbrew size. Added plans for a taproom in the front with the most basic of homebrew supply store (hops, grains, yeast).
To cover expenses our costs seem to point to having 10 kegs in rotation in a couple of local bars and 4 kegs on tap in the room for a total of 18 kegs in use.
Going around to a few of the interested bars to see how we can split the cost of kegerators so they set up (there is no draft beer here at all).

For those that manage it, does line cleaning and such fall on us or on the bar?