More Brewing Co. (StB) - (2018)

I’ll count them again next time I’m there, but yea, it’s right around there with the bar.

 

I just talked to a co-worker who goes there a lot and he agrees with your assessment. I've been there once and did not remember the space being that big. Impressive.

 

If you sneak a peak at the firecode sign that its along the bar near the bathroom, I swear it says capacity is 350. I get that's for the whole space but it speaks to the size

 

I met some friends there around Christmas, and we had a nice time, but the limited more beers on tap was a turnoff, and my friends (who had only heard of More in passing) were like "why would we come back? It was a fine place that didn't stand out at all, and they barely served their own beers. We can do to a really cool beer bar and have a better time"

I know they don't need hype, but it's also not the impression you want to give off to people unfamiliar with your brand.

If anything, I think they should 86 the cans for now, and focus on being an awesome Brewpub with a few limited releases, and then worry about packaging once they can satisfy demand at their brewpub - similar to how Revolution started.

 

Yeah but there’s like 2 new beers per month. That’s a lot of days of NOT brewing beer. What are the brewers doing on the 25+ days a month they aren’t brewing beer?

 

There's 54 beers on untapped and they've been open 6 months. That's 9 new beers per month on average.

 

This is pure speculation on my behalf, but I have to imagine that the can & bottle releases make quite a bit of money in a short amount of time and that may be helping to offset some of the initial cash outlay to get the place going....and also help the numbers if, in fact, they are looking at a production facility as well.

 

On one hand, I haven't visited More because of the reports about not having a ton of beer options. On the other hand, if they distro'd to Chicago I'd definitely give their cans a shot. If I'd dumped that kind of money into the brewpub, I'd definitely want more beer on tap there to keep seats full and people coming back since you make money on food as well as beverage. If you have the demand and can't satisfy it, definitely line up some contract brewing and get those cans to market....

 

I'd hate to compare them to Mikerphone because pretty sure they have a bigger system and definitely a smaller space but they have more variety in both on tap and to go. The key being they have more variety though.

 

If you take out the Henna, Serenity Now and Falling colors variants there’s about 35. And another 6 beers at the bottom that were never made or whatever.

The point is there’s really no excuse for having 3 beers on tap after 6 months of being open unless you’re brewing a shitload of beer. Which doesn’t appear to be the case...

 

Or selling a shitload of beer...

 

54 beers on untappd
-4 beers brewed before they were open (for the Ardmore 2016 festival)
-1 variant of Sassy
-1 variant of Bunny Bear
-5 variants of Sourenity
-1 BA Karma which they've never had on tap
-2 Henna coconut and maple which was just a keg or so each for the first henna release
-1 More Luv, a beer listed but has not checkins and may be someone on there being funny
-7 variants of Falling colors
All of a sudden you're at 32 different beers in 6 months.

Ultimately, it's more about what's on tap, and it's hard to argue that their standard 3-6 offerings is what you'd expect at any brewery.

 

Honestly I don’t care what the reason is for having 3-4 beers on draft, I’m not going to make plans to go to a place with the potential for such a limited draft selection when I can go to Noon Whistle, Half-Acre, etc... That needs to be sorted out. I’ve already noticed myself not going there as frequently because of that issue specifically, and I’ve been a big fan of Shaun’s beers.

I mean Corridor has 6 beers on draft at all times and they are tiny and slammed with business all the time, so don’t give me the ‘sell out too fast to have more than 3-4 beers on draft’ argument.

 

It shouldn’t be difficult to have a lager/bock/Pilsner, saison, stout (even at 5%), pale, and IPA on at all times, preferably with a DIPA.

 

I mean, look at Corridor. Much smaller system. Always packed. No limits on crowlers. Always plenty of beer.

 

Maybe this is the new norm, look at Goose Island Brewpub three plus months and one to none of their own drafts..

 

Wow didn’t realize that. So if you go you’re pretty much going to split a vintage bottle with a bud?

 

(This’ll be long, sorry!)
Hey Guys,

Been a while since ive posted. I read through a lot of the posts and want to clear up some things.

In regards to the carb issues on the last can release... honestly, im still investigating and gathering information as to what happened. It was the first time using that mobile canner, im not entirely sure if that was the issue or if we didnt have it in spec. I haven’t noticed “completely flat” beer myself, but maybe i’ve been lucky. I tend to undercarb my beers slightly... bc usually i like what it does for the body, im not saying flat, im just saying on the lower end of the vol. of co2. Either way, i listen, i watch, i read, i’ll do my best to make sure thats not an issue next time, but its hard when i truly don’t have complete control in packaging the beer.. at least not yet.

With that said.. its been super frustrating not having our canning line still. Ive read lots of rumors “bartener said.... (fill in the blank)” truth is, we sent our canning line back before we commisioned it bc the manufacture said there’d be some issues with that specific model that we purchased used. Said hed have it back in 4-6 weeks. Its now been 4 months. We should have it back hopefully in the next 2 weeks (give us time to dial her in and we should be cannin a few weeks after that).

Lack of beer on tap. It sucks. Its not what i want. We are aware. I don’t want to give excuses, but the facts are i’ve averaged 3 brewers a week since we opened, today i brewed batch 72 (3 days ago was our 6 month anniversary). I’m brewing, tanks are filled. The issues occur when we do canning runs and tanks get tied up for longer than expected. We tied up 2 fermenters for an extra week on the last can release bc of shrink wrapped labels. They got delayed moving the entire timeline up a week. Since those fermenters were tied up, i couldnt fill them, had i been able to, we’d have 2 more beers on right now. Its just part of this mobile canning thing. “Then why don’t u stop canning and focus on keeping beer on tap?” well.. the short answer is we are trying to make everyone happy while also trying to grow our business. Its not easy. We have a 140 seat capacity restaurant that goes on waits thursday-saturday... and we are bruning theough beer. I’d like to also add that we have been steadily filling barrels. About 8 batches of the 72 we’ve brewed have been put into bourbon barrels, we currently have over 40 bourbon barrels filled. High gravity beers take time, usually 1-2 weeks longer than normal beers (2 weeks), which tie up fermenter space. Good news is - we’re done filling barrels now for a couple months. As far as counting beers on untappd. Thats just the tip of the iceburg. Ive brewed at least half a dozen batches of dusty, multiple falling colors, multiple chemical connection, loose candies, sourenity now!, anything but sassy, etc. number of beers on untappd means nothing. Trust me, id love to have 6-7 beers on tap at all times.

Expansion. It’s true. We’ve locked in a property in the “further” west suburbs and are now hiring a GC and architect to design and build it out. I don’t want to ruin too much of the surprise, but it’s going to be an awesome hang out spot. We’re doing this to be able to ramp up production to make our beer more available and to build our barrel program for both clean beer and sour beer, which we don’t have the capacity or square footage in Villa Park for.

I think thats it. We’ve been testing out some new recipes and I think i’ve got them dialed in where i want them, so i’m excited to start putting them into place. I thank you all for your support and we truly are trying to make thjngs better for everyone. I’ve said it before, but i do take all criticism to heart and try to improve day after day. Cheers!

 

Ticketed stout releases please.... and thanks for the info

 

Props to Shaun for coming in here and answering all these questions. Good luck with everything.