Things I learned going from Home to Nanobrewer...

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Two comments:

1. OP is in CA. Lots of people in this thread very enthusiastic, but be certain -very certain- that you understand the state and local regulations before you get serious about this. The fallout from Repeal of Prohibition in 1933 was extensive, but it all stemmed from two words "Local" and "Option." This means whatever you can imagine, and probably lots of things you can't. Be sure you KNOW your situation where YOU are. Life here in IL is far more complicated, if only because the racket in this state that is the distribution of alcoholic beverages makes life far more complicated for the small brewer. Example: local pub owner, renowned for best beer selection in the area, builds and is opening a micro exactly one short block West. To get beer to his original pub, it must be transported (perhaps even sold, I'm not sure) to a distributor, who must then transport (sell?) it back. It would be a two minute walk with a dolly to take kegs from his brewery to his pub....but that's dealing with alcoholic beverages in IL. What's your story?

2) You are talking about being self-employed in a small business. I have never been self-employed (except for a few brief, part-time ventures), but I have known some people who are. If you can envision that brewing beer as a business is -for sure- the one thing in the world you want to do, and are willing to devote most of your waking hours (at least for the first 5-6 years) to activities having to do with making and selling it, then you might consider it, realizing that most small businesses WILL NOT survive that first 5 years. Otherwise, you need to rethink your plan.

Personally, I love to homebrew, but even in a moment of lunacy I wouldn't even daydream about doing it as a business.
 
Hey everyone.

Wineries and breweries can coexist, but beer production and wine production in CA requires two separate licenses. The advantage is that your zoning should not be a problem and waste water and stuff would already be sorted out.

Hey olllllo. I'll have tshirts and hats for sale on my website, when I get time to get that together, but in the meantime, feel free to send me an email.

HotBreakHotel - crikey, man. That's one hell of a inventory.

Ok - the quick and dirty 411 on turning your garage (in California) into a brewery. rico567 makes two really good points and I agree. Know your local regs and know what you're getting into before spending cash or too much effort trying to go down this road. There are good reasons to not do this and good reasons to do it, each person will have a different circumstance and will weigh those reasons against each other differently. Just make sure you consider both. If you go for it, here's the process:


1. Find a structure for your brewery that is not a residence or an attached garage. Detached garages work and so do barns.

2. Contact your local planning department and convince them that your brewery is not a zoning violation. Offer to voluntarily limit your production if they give you a hard time. Beg if you have to. This is the biggest obstacle.

3. Go to the Cal. ABC and apply for a type 23 "Small Beer Manufacturer" license. It allows you to commercially brew up to 80,000 bbl a year. I takes about 45 - 60 days and will cost you about $450 with the first year's fee. After that its about $150 a year. You have to meet with them and they'll give you a sign for your window. Hope no one in your neighborhood sees it and if they see it they don't file an objection.

4. Apply to file a Brewer's notice with the TTB. This is more of a nuisance than an actual pain - its a lot of paper. You will need to post a tax bond of about $1,000. You can either post cash or get a bond issued. They've got a list of places that issue bonds. This takes about 45-60 days.

5. Apply to the Cal excise tax board and to pay.gov to open excise tax accounts. Learn the federal and state reporting systems and how to fill out the brewery operations reports.

6. Learn the COLA system and how to get label approval.

If you sit down and take it seriously you can get the TTB application done in a weekend. The ABC stuff is basically two 15-20 minute interviews at the ABC office and a waiting period. TTB and ABC can and will work with you (and are actually quite helpful) to get your notice and license issued - don't underestimate starting every question with "I've never done this before and I need your help...". The planning department is the biggest obstacle - if you get a planner who doesn't like the idea of having a brewery in your garage you are dead in the water or are going to burn some cash in legal fees to appeal (which wouldn't be worth it).

All the instructions and info are available on line and the instructions are actually pretty good for government docs.
 
Excellent post. Good point about size and fermentation vessels. One local just stepped up from a 1 barrel system to a four and he said it adds about an hour to a batch. The move also included going to 8 barrel fermenters and tripling the number of fermenters. He said fermenters were always the bottleneck.
 
rico567 said:
2) You are talking about being self-employed in a small business. I have never been self-employed (except for a few brief, part-time ventures), but I have known some people who are. If you can envision that brewing beer as a business is -for sure- the one thing in the world you want to do, and are willing to devote most of your waking hours (at least for the first 5-6 years) to activities having to do with making and selling it, then you might consider it, realizing that most small businesses WILL NOT survive that first 5 years. Otherwise, you need to rethink your plan.
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I have had several friends who tried some ventures specifically in beverage products. None of them were alcoholic beverages so that makes it a little different, but at the same time some of them were more complicated from a productization standpoint (i.e. beer doesn't "spoil" so that makes it easier).

One of my friends tried doing a coffee drink. I helped him with his business plan and product design. In my research I found the commonly quoted 3-5 years before failure. The main conclusion I found for the higher rate of failure was market saturation, lack of upfront capitol, and lack of a business/growth plan. Apparently 3 years is a critical point because that's usually when your debt catches up with you - so if you are not significantly profitable by that point and you don't have unlimited financial support - then bye-bye. Another major difference is that all the people I know were using copackers. This eliminates the bottling/distribution issues - but that wouldn't work for a small scale brewery (and as it turns out it doesn't work for coffee drinks either). When it comes to packaging and distribution, if you can't do it yourself then you are usually screwed unless you are selling hundreds of thousands of bottles per order.

However, one difference is that all of the people I know that tried to get into the beverage industry were trying to go big time. I think if your goal is to start out small and keep it local that is a big difference and probably gives you a somewhat higher probability of success. I think it is also smarter to keep it as just a brewery and not a brewpub or attached restaurant. The statistics for food service failure are well documented. And its not just the failure rate that is a roadblock, but the reasons for failure are pretty complex - this is less true for a standalone brewery.

Also, if you assume that roughly half of the failures are people who literally had no idea what they were doing, you can essentially double the success rate (assuming you are not one of those people - but if half of the people who try to start beverage products don't know what they are doing, then I guess its 50/50 that you don't know what you are doing...).
 
Gordie - as you know I'm following these words heavily. Nice to see you're form Buffalo, grew up in the Lincoln Park area myself. One of us moved farther away!

There's a lot of love in this thread. It's awesome. It's most assuredly the way I am heading now. Of course NY and CA are different, but I've talked to quite a few people already and it seems highly obtainable.
 
Gordie
Your post was very timely. We are just starting to apply for the license and are building up a 1 bbl system. Its more for fun than making money. but may lead to something who knows. My question is what are you using for Fermentors. I have seen your DIY 75 gallon post but i was looking for something cheaper to start with. Do you use 55 gallon plastic barrels? and if so do you use the open top ones?
 
I suppose for some of us the zoning issue would kill the dream. I have a great little shack behind my house, but I am smack in a residential area and in Lake Oswego you can barely get a permit to cut a tree down.
 
oswegan said:
I suppose for some of us the zoning issue would kill the dream. I have a great little shack behind my house, but I am smack in a residential area and in Lake Oswego you can barely get a permit to cut a tree down.
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You might be surprised...check with the city. I'm in Milwaukie and checked with them. They have no issue at all...and actually loved the idea. Then again, LO is just a little bit more snooty than Milwaukie! :tank:
 
Gordie-

Great read man! I'm another guy from B-lo that would love to do something similar. Won a few contests, have been doing it for a few years now, great compliments from some restaurant owners in the area and just needed some info to get the ball rolling.

This may have been the thread to do it for me!

Congrats, and if you ever stop back in Buffalo, drop me a line. We'll have a few (or more). ;)
 
Wow, reading this whole thread makes me want to start a nano brewery. The wife is always telling me that this is a hobby that I really seem to like, and it would be great if I could do more with it.

At the moment, I have to figure out the whole AG thing and get that down, but this is one of those things that would be an awesome Dream!

Go Gordie!

Cheers

Lucas
 
Hey BakerStreetBeers - I may be making it easy on you. I'm meeting with the guys at TAPS on Kentucky Street (in Petaluma) later this week and chatting with them about what I'm about. Stay tuned...

Boar Beer - I'm actually using Sanke kegs as dirt cheap stainless fermentors. I have to split the batch between two of them and whatnot and its a pain, but I haven't gotten around to getting a decent 1 bbl fermentor that I can temp control with confidence. Mostly because it would be about $2k and I want to run the program without any further cap ex for a few months. The beer is lovely, its just a little more work, so I'm not really in any hurry.
 
Great read, Gordie. My roommate and I had been having vague discussions about having a small brewery; we're over in Sacramento, so not too far away.

Thanks for posting all this info!
 
Gordie said:
Hey BakerStreetBeers - I may be making it easy on you. I'm meeting with the guys at TAPS on Kentucky Street (in Petaluma) later this week and chatting with them about what I'm about. Stay tuned...
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Well I would have to walk almost 90 yards to get down to TAPS, but if you get a beer in there let us know, I'll make that long treacherous journey :mug:
 
Holy smokes!! How did I miss this thread.
You inspire many here my friend! Keep up the good work!
If you are ever in the Redding CA area look me up, 530 243 BEER. I would love to buy you a beer and chat!
Jay
 
I've been doing some research for licensing here in Az. My initial thoughts centered around a 1 bbl system, starting small, part time, and increasing the capacity and time commitment as the demand grew. The problem is that the smallest license here requires a minimum annual production of 5,000 gallons. That would require brewing 3-4 days a week, all year long with a 1 bbl set-up. A 3 or 7 bbl brewery would be more manageble, but producing and selling 100 gallons of beer every week seems like a lot for someone just starting out. The good news is that Az does allow self distribution. I still haven't found out what happens if you aquire the license and then fail to meet the minumum production limit, so I'm going to keep researching and looking for a way to make it work. Thanks for all the great tips and advice so far.
 
Gordie said:
Contact your local planning department and convince them that your brewery is not a zoning violation. Offer to voluntarily limit your production if they give you a hard time. Beg if you have to. This is the biggest obstacle.
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I agree that the Planning/Zoning Department is probably your biggest obstacle, but how did you convince your Planning Department that it isn't a zoning violation? I'm a Planning Director and there's no way I can approve a residential brewery in my city. Also, did you need a health department permit? The Health Department Director told me that he'd never issue a permit for a residential facility.
 
Well, I have the fortune to live in a town that's small enough to be folksy but big enough to have its own planning dept, so I didn't need to go to the county. Also, I'm in something of a wine epicenter and the place is lousy with winemakers (professional and amateur) and nearly every other garage has a barrel or two in it. Basically, I wrote them a letter agreeing to limit my annual production to about 25bbl, waive a right to open a tap room or brewpub and to not have delivery trucks, etc. showing up at odd hours and that I'd like to do it in my garage so I could spend more time with my daughter, who was about 7 months old at the time. And no, I didn't need a health department certificate. My brewery is in a detached garage, so technically it isn't residential...

Then I told them that these were not the droids they were looking for and everything was smooth from that point forward.

In all seriousness, I got lucky enough to get a planner that was interested in sitting down with me and talking about it and to be in an area that is open minded about these kinds of things because of the proliferation of wine making. That's about it.
 
Sonoma is probably the only place in CA that you would be able to do this. I don't think you'd be able to do it in Temecula.

I was just curious what the "loopholes" were in case any one wanted to open up a nanobrewery in my fair city. I would want to help that person out, but our codes are actually pretty tight in that regard.

Glad you were able to make it happen and thanks for all the informative posts.
 
mrtrav said:
Yeah, I tried to to what Gordie did a bit further south in Fremont with no luck. Has to be in an industrial zoning area, no ifs/ands/buts.
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Same out here on the other side of the country. I asked several people in several different ways, including pleading :)

-Joe
 
I'll come lookin for your beer this summer when we make our pilgramage to Infineon for the AMA Superbike Race. Great read!
 
boredatwork said:
I think it is also smarter to keep it as just a brewery and not a brewpub or attached restaurant. The statistics for food service failure are well documented.
Click to expand...


In Brewing up a Business Sam said that the failure rate for brewpubs is a lot lot less than restaurants becuase the beer brings in so much extra money on top of the food. It's higher profit margin etc. I paraphrased, probably poorly but it makes sense to me. A restuarant can support itself financally and so can a bar. As long as you do one aspect right you wont have to shut down.

The thing I like most about this nanobrewery idea is that it is something you can work on part time for a long time until you really get close to opening and/or selling. Since it can be "close to home" you dont have to be leasing a place for 6 monthes while building and brewing up your pipeline. You dont have to sign a lease that locks you in, and you dont have to go as big since expenses are a little lower than a brewpub or microbrewery.
 
nostalgia said:
That's what I'm told. The lady from the state said in no uncertain terms that I cannot do any commercial brewing on non-commercial property.

-Joe
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i dont understand this... i live in the same town as valenzano winery (shamong, NJ) and they are on a residential property. i know wine laws are different but what gives.
 
Any chance you can describe how you figured out and why you didn't need a health department certificate? From my research in the LA area it seems that the county regulates food production. I looked at the regs, and there is all sorts of crazy stuff like required drainage, plumbing, sewage, sink, ventilation, etc. that would be costly or impossible to do in a garage. Plus if you do try to add these things, you have to submit all sorts of plans to the health department. It could be that LA just sucks. Or perhaps I'm missing something key.
 
Gordie said:
Hey BakerStreetBeers - I may be making it easy on you. I'm meeting with the guys at TAPS on Kentucky Street (in Petaluma) later this week and chatting with them about what I'm about. Stay tuned...
Click to expand...

SteveG said:
Well I would have to walk almost 90 yards to get down to TAPS, but if you get a beer in there let us know, I'll make that long treacherous journey :mug:
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It's been a while, but anything come of your TAPS meeting. I will bring it up the next time I talk with the fellas down there.

SteveG, just saw this comment and had to laugh . . . or I should say I can finally laugh. About 10 days after your post I took a walk down to TAPS on a Friday night, was invited to sample a lot of different beer, didn't eat anything, fell down while stumbling home, broke my arm and busted up my chin pretty good.

I blame myself, but I don't take Prospect St home anymore.
 

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