Mercenary Brewery - Logan Square

"We'll be packaging it though. It will probably be 22oz. bombers to start."

I'm just one dude and am well aware my opinion doesn't really mean anything. But the sooner this Bomber trend goes away the happier I'll be.
Good luck and all that but until there are four or six packs I won't bother. Honesty is the best policy.

 

while i don't mind the 22oz trend, i do mind the upper price stuff. if they can price stuff a la lagunitas, that'd be great. very few breweries will i hand out my money towards 9.99+ bombers, @NOTpipeworks being one of the exceptions.

 

Gotta build some street cred before I'll buy the Bombers. Spiteful, Pipeworks have that street cred. At that price point, it's gotta be exceptional.

The bomber format is how these guys create their early capital though. I get that. But you have to smash it right out of the gate for that strategy to work.

Unfortunately this is how a lot of the younger Brewers with very little working capital have to do things. Not many of these young breweries are being started by wealthy retired men with a a couple million to invest.

 

It's not just about "creating" capital via a higher priced beer. It's way, way cheaper to do bombers from a packaging perspective, which is why a lot of startup breweries can only afford to do it that way. I doubt if they had plenty of cash lying around to do 12 oz. bottles or cans, many startups would choose to go bomber-only.

Also, while I see all the time people wishing that tiny nanos would compete with Lagunitas on bomber price, folks need to realize that it's basically impossible. Lagunitas is ginormous and its economies of scale presumably allow it to price Hop Stoopid at a point where the little guys would literally lose money.

 

Yes, or that those reading have tried their beer and/or have familiarity with them but haven't/cannot/don't want to post that they have tried their beer or have familiarity with them.

 

It's about margins and cost of production. We agree. Like I said, not everyone has a bunch of capital to operate with, like lagunitas.

 

we're counting the days....

I got to can yesterday morning with our brother Drew at 18th Street (their first run of cans)! A monumental day and huge leap forward for any brewery when they can start canning or putting beer in six packs.

Our bombers won't go away completely but we'll certainly be able to lower the prices as we get huge benefits of economy of scale from the new facility, and most hoppy stuff will be moving to cans at a much lower price point. We're very fortunate to have all the support that we do that ultimately gets us to the next level as well as ensure our security as a brewery for the long run.

We were supposed to have a shop open to start for growlers and lower abv beers to go.... but for various reasons executing that thus fas has been impossible (if we could have gotten it open at this point we would have... not like we aren't trying like a lot of critics suggests). Just like Begyle eventually got their to go sales going through their shop and put beer in sixers, and Spiteful started canning, every brewery has bigger aspirations than putting beer in bombers... but sometimes that's the only thing that makes sense.

Another thing to remember is canning and bottling lines traditionally cost upwards of $100k... because of the nano-boom there are now several manufacturers making 1 head and 2 head 'professional' canners/bottlers that a start-up can afford early on. And it's still not easy then... we were in business 2 years and we even got turned down by our own bank for a loan to buy our bottler... we are no longer with that bank and we did get the bottler. ;-)

 

Thanks Not Piperworks. Bringing some relavant shit to the forum. We all respect the craft game hustle