If you could design your perfect brewery...

It would be a nano located in my backyard next to the grill. We would brew two seasonals; an imperial stout from September to June and an a sweet wheat ale for July and August. Throw in a BA version of the IS that would be ready for Thanksgiving and the following holidays and I might never leave home. I suppose we would also make a solid IPA to have year round.

 

Stouts, Sours and various Belgians. German traditionals but not a single damned IPA.

 

A year round low gravity IPA and an imperial stout (moderate strength). A strong focus on Belgian style ales, especially saisons. Periodic releases of various sour beers. Annual release of a BA barleywine and BA imperial stout. Lots of variations of said beers. Lots of rotating small batch beers in the tasting room.
A lot of beers would be draft only, but a session saison, the IPA, and imperial stout would be available in pint cans. A few Belgian style ales and sours would be in 750 mL corked and caged bottles. The barrel aged beers would be in capped 750 mL bottles.
The tasting room would be just a bar with some appetizers on one side, and a full service restaurant on another.
Hopefully, it would distribute to most of the US.

 

Nothing but session beers (or at least my definition of session beers). Everything we'd brew would be 5.5% or less.

Different styles of lagers would be the only type of beer that we offered year round.

We would do ales only as seasonals (spring would be an English Pale Ale, Summer would be an IPA, fall would be a brown, winter would be a porter).

Everything would come in six packs and mini kegs.

And, we'd fail in 6 months.....

 

You'd last five months longer than my smoked beer-only brewery!

 

Offer some solid styles and bring the general public into craft beer. For the geeks, being known for a few styles in particular and totally CAPITALIZING on them with limited releases and dappling with some barrel aged stuff. Food would be a very good thing too with a limited number of appetizers and sandwiches, then build the menu as the business grows. I guess my point is doing a few things extremely well, build the base, then branch out accordingly. I'd rather go somewhere with a limited menu with stellar stuff as opposed to an overgrown menu to appeal to the masses and then doing everything half @ssed.

Sounds like someone is looking to be an entrepreneur?

 

My perfect brewery already exists: it's in Waterbury, VT, a perfect distance from me, as it keeps me from enjoying their beer too frequently. They only brew one beer, perfectly, and the beer is perfect. In every way.

 

It would be session IPA's, malty pales to hook people on the style, and get them wanting my flagship IPA and DIPA's.

It would be a hop bomb fest. You'd sit on bales of whole leaf hops. I would garnish the glasses with hop leaves.

Actually, as a homebrewer.. I would seriously have a pretty solid, and unchanging line up of a pale, and an IPA. I'd have a pretty solid, and pretty frequent Imperial IPA as well. From there, a simple Robust Porter, a silly light summer Wheat without all the spice shit people like these days, and a Saison for all the warmer months.

Once colder, I'd keep the Porter and the IPA's, and would have Wee Heavys, and a big ass RIS, as well as nice easy drinking Brown for the people who want to drink beer but don't "love it".

Food would be next to nil. Pretzels, cheese.. BYO even. I'd offer free grills and patio tables.. Drink my beers, bring your friends, your food and grill out while enjoying fresh draft beer.

 

A real ale brewpub. Traditional British styles served on cask only.

 

I would merge Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist. Then put them in my back yard.

 

Nanobar. Something with no larger than a 3, maybe 5 bbl system and a small batch system to play around on with like 6 fermenting tanks with a bar that has 4 or 6 tapper and 2 handpulls. With a 50 / 50 split of light and dark on both. Always. There's good beer in every style, so that's the focus is making good examples of each and also playing with them and hopefully remembering how to replicate it and scale it up.
Location is somewhere with the possibility of it being a set back so there's a nice front lot/yard to sit out on or something with space for a back deck and a rooftop for a garden that gets chucked in the small batch system. Probably the last thing that would be on the stereo would be metal. It's a space to hang out and waste time. Not a space to hang out and get wasted. Growlers? Absolutely. Distribution? Keep it out as a maybe. But not until it's the right thing to do, and the need makes it necessary, but keep a cap for it to be regional only.
Food. Not unless it becomes a sustainable prospect. So, probably not. so it'd probably be about cozying up with some food truck people or tamale people to shuck their grub.

 

It would look a lot like Sierra Nevada, with a Russian River wing.

 

A brewpub of about 5bbl capacity and a seperate large capacity production brewhouse. 8-10 core beers available year-round in 12oz 6pak cans and draft (reaching from a light, clean lager on one end, to a big stout on the other), with a series of seasonals, limiteds, and specials at a rate of 52 per year.

 

So basically what I said.

 

It would be situated at the bottom of a mountain with pure running fresh water at no cost over a geothermal vent so power and heat are free, It would be near the PNW so transporting hops and barley would be a minimal cost. It would have a railroad siding and a dock on a navigable waterway to the Pacific Ocean. Main line beers would include a pilsner, pale ale and saison. Rotating would be the extreme styles with a lot of barrel aging and experimentals brewed by famous brewers from DFH, Russian River, Sierra Nevada and others which I would be able to pay extravagantly due to my enormous profits and the fact that I only employ young bikini models and the guest housing would make Hefner's digs look like a slum. The Taproom would have a five star restaurant and hotel and all the beer would be complimentary.

 

Sort of. Except that every beer wouldn't be over-hopped. If you have to let your Barleywine age 2 years before it tastes like a BW, or when your flagship Pale is so hoppy that it easily passes for an IPA, it's time to step away from the bines. Actually though, Anacortes Brewing is almost close to this, albeit on a small scale. They regularly put out 30+ styles a year, plus one-offs. I'd like to see more breweries try more things.

 

I'm making reservations at Mudbug's Mt. St Helens Brewery and Lovenest (tm) now!

 

Small brewery, growlers and rotating bottle availability, keg distribution with in the state.

Focus would be on American styles using an English Ale house yeast strain and Maris Otter in most beers. Year round offerings would include a flagship IPA, Brown, Oatmeal Stout and a sessionable citrusy lager. A rotating Saison for each season, roll out a different stout every month and a half to two months. Small batch experimental brewing would fill out a good portion of the brew schedule. Favorites would return and rotate in and out. Various barrels would be used, sour wood too. This would be done more on a whim, this brewery would be designed for me to have fun.

The kitchen would be limited but focused on quality. Locally sourced ingredients would be used as available. House smoked and cured meats and house made mustards.

The bar would be comfortable and social, no damn tv's. I would make a point to have a shuffle board table.

 

Would look like this. Beers would be Koelsch, Munich Helles, Amber Kellerbier, Rauchbier Maerzen, Dunkles, and a Dunkles Rauch-Kellerbier. All served by gravity from the kegs you see in the picture...and all purely for personal consumption.