The guys who got me into homebrewing are going Pro!

[talleymonster]

I was back home last weekend and my mom handed me a newspaper she had saved from a few days earlier. If you've ever brewed my profile, this is what I have written under my Brewing Bio:

I got interested in brewing when I was younger. A couple guys from my moms church brewed a few batches. They would have a brew day and watch Monty Python movies all day. They would let me come and hang out with them. I joined this forum in December of 2005. I just lurked for quite a while. I could never afford to get started before. I bought my starter kit in June 2007, and have been hunting Cragislist and making upgrades and brewing ever since!

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Well, the guys who I used to hang out with when they brewed are opening a brewery in my home town of Kingman, Arizona.

[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Sipe, Mueller want to be Kingman's brews brothers[/FONT]

[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Terry Organ[/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Miner Staff Writer[/FONT]

[FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Royal Sipe shows some of the equipment he and his brother-in-law, Roger Mueller, use in micro brewing beer, along with wort (light ale) fermenting in a carboy. TERRY ORGAN/Miner[/FONT] [FONT=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]What started in a kitchen as an attempt at diversifying their beer selection and saving some money has turned into a full-on commercial enterprise.

Royal Sipe and his brother-in-law, Roger Mueller, were having dinner and beers one night when an idea came to them: "We said, 'we should brew our own,'" Sipe recalled. "It's a lot cheaper and we could make whatever we want, not just buy what's available."

That was 10 years ago.

They looked through issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines and found advertisements for catalogues containing names, addresses and other information on home brewery supply houses. They bought a starter kit for less than $40 that included malt extract, hops pellets, a fermenter bucket, an airlock and dry yeast. Then they went to work in Mueller's kitchen.

Sipe says they went from simple extract to full-grain brewing and have perfected three core recipes.

"We've also brewed at least a dozen other recipes with varying degrees of success. They include barley wine, pale ale, stout, amber beer and altbier (German style). We're more focused on primary ales than lagers because lagers require more temperature control."

The brothers-in-law are finishing a business plan and soon will begin looking for investors. Sipe said they must arrange about $250,000 in financing for a building, equipment and year's worth of supplies in order to get their microbrewery into commercial production.

They have a Web site at www.bottledllama.com and have begun a pod cast and blog for home brewing.

They may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected], or Sipe may be reached at 279-1812.

Sipe is a diesel mechanic at Colorado River Ford.

He said Mueller works as a purchasing agent for Goodyear Aviation at Kingman Airport.
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Is that cool or what?

 

[MikeRLynch]

It's every homebrewers dream. There are a couple local brewpubs around here that I would love to apprentice at, but I'm pretty sure I'm not worthy to clean their mash tuns However, in the drunken stupors that I and my brew partner have found ourselves in, and from the encouragement of our friends, (also in drunken stupors from our brews) our best decision has been to wait. Perfect our brews, make the same quality every time with no variation, submit them to competitions to get recognition, then start thinking about commercial enterprise.

Believe me, my retirement plan involves hauling 50 lb bags of grain into mills and sticking my head into steaming kettles All in good time though, plan ahead.

mike

 

[david_42]

I know a number of homebrewers who could make it as pros, but love the hobby too much. But, having just launched a new product myself, I say, Hats off to fellow entrepreneurs!