Brewpub Research

Buy this.

http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/tom-...ations-manual/paperback/product-20402206.html

 

Gods speed to you sir, good luck.

 

I don't have helpful info, but you have my support. Good wishes to you.

 

While there are plenty of brewery employees and a handful of owners that use BA, you'll get much more info over at the pro brewer forums.

 

I'd suggest that you do a search of the forum for this topic, as there have been some extensive threads on just this sort of thing in the past year. Lots of good advice already exists, just go looking.
Good luck.

Edit: yes, for the specific topics you listed at the end of your post, you're going to want to look around on probrewer

 

if you make good enough beer that people will deliberately go out of their way for it, you'll be ok. if you're making mediocre beer, you might have some problems. i have no experience on which to base this assumption, i just know the world needs more good beer.

 

If you have a local brewpub see if you can help out with brewing. You will learn a lot
about brewing bigger batches and pickup pros and cons of a brewpub.

 

2nd on Probrewer.com There is a lot of information being bantered about because of the 'growth' in the Craft segment. Depending on who you are listening to. After the Craft Brewers Conference in DC last month the industry is starting to whisper of a bubble bursting. Of course not everyones but poorly executed, under funded, under paid staff/mgt/ownership, aka nano breweries are going to start closing at the rate they are opening. So the wave we're riding now isn't going to last forever. Something like this played out in the 90's.

I know the OP is talking brewpub, if your'e going into a market that will accept your concept you should do good. My only recommendation is to not undersize your equipment. 7bbl brewhouse is the smallest system you should consider. If you're successful a 7bbl system will seem like a noose as you won't be able to keep up with the demand(even for over the bar sales). Sadly, when faced with such a situation corners are cut and quality suffers. Customers notice... Don't shoot yourself in the foot DO NOT SKIMP on your brewing equipment. If it seems to expensive then you should probably not pursue this venture. Even the best run brewpubs will feel like you're 'bleeding money'...

Check out www.Breswersassociation.org the industry revolves around this organization.

Good Luck, one bit of advice...before you start this take a trip to Belgium and Germany...do a fair bit of drinking and enjoy yourself. Take lot's of mental notes too. Once you get teathered to your brewery you'll thank me for that bit of advice...

 

Who will do the brewing? If you want to do a 7bbl pub, 1 million could get you there.

 

You have a partner with money and a restaurant guy, what do you bring to the table? Im Not trying to be a jerk, this is a serious question that you need to consider. Based on the questions you are asking you may need to spend a few years learning the industry before you are ready to open a brewpub.

Plan to spend 150-200k for a brewing system and another 20-40k to get it installed. You used to be able to get good, cheap used equipment, but those days are largely gone. Plan to spend at least 250k on the restaurant side, up to several million. To put that in perspective, a couple hundred grand will build you a basic pizza place, and several million would be for a multi hundred seat, full service restaurant with a high end kitchen.

The big issue is to make sure you make GOOD BEER. there is always room for another brewery making high quality, consistent, interesting beer. What we don't need is another brewery putting out half assed, undercarbonated pale ale that has no hop aroma and tastes infected half the time. A few years ago you could open a pub or micro and make lackluster beer, but get by leaning on your local status to make up for it, especially in under served areas like the South. These days that does not cut it, and if there is a bubble, those breweries are going to be the ones going down in flames even while other new breweries that know how to brew thrive.

You will need a good, experienced brewer, someone you can call a professional with a straight face. Too often startups think they can learn the business as they go by trial and error and hire an insufficiently experienced home brewer as "brewmaster", who ends up being in way over his head. Now, this isn't to say a homebwer can't make the transition to pro (i can name several who have done so very successfully) but you need a seasoned pro or a genuinely outstanding home brewer. Joe the brewer who brews 5 times a year and gets lots of compliments from family and friends isn't going to cut it, but the best brewer in the local homebrew club probably can.

Bottom line: you need a lot of money (no matter how much you think you need it will somehow be more) and if you aren't prepared to make world class beer from the start, don't start a brewery.

 

Ingredient cost... For malt there are two big players these days who would work with you. Brewerssupplygroup and Country Malt Group. These guys do hops too. Hops... Hop Union, SS Steiner, are the best. There are other smaller hops companies that either they are the growers too.

Hops will be an issue for a while as the growth in the industry has left very little to be had at any price in a 'spot market' type purchase. Forward contracting is the norm and even that isn't perfect.

Barley, Wheat, Rye...etc are senstive cereal grains that can be greatly affected by weather or lack of it. Every harvest is different, same with hops. A hail storm over a hop field close to harvest is a diaster that has occured here in the US and in Germany...2 years ago...

Brewers sometimes pay prices say around a third of a typical homebrew store...though I admit it haven't priced anything recently. Base malt, crystal, roasted, etc. is all under a $1.00 a pound. It depends on the maltster etc. Hops range from $5-6 on low end up to $25 a pound. You by in 5 KG or 20 KG packages.

 

some of the most popular brewpubs in my area make the worst beer. Crowds love lagers and beers that are perfectly "balanced." While that doesn't sound negative, that can often be what Beeradvocates view as mediocrity. Not pushing the envelope..

You'll have to make choices between used or new kegs, casks, etc. I would suggest looking online for a brewery going out of business (RIP). That's easily the cheapest way to snag your equipment, even some kegs upfront.

You'll have to pay for 5 gallon buckets of sanitizer, thousands of dollars in grain per month, hot liquor tank, brew kettle, enough fermenters to keep you going (at least 4-6), temperature control, a conmmercial water heater, water treatment (RO, Chlorine Filter, Chloramine treatment etc), you may want your own mill.. the list goes on..

and so important at a Brewpub is food. You'll want to closely pair the food with the type of beer you are producing.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU

 

Have you brewed commercially before?

 

well wouldnt balanced, drinkable yet tasty beer be a better beer than something that pushes the envelope but is hard to drink? i think the best beers in the world are the ones that, when finished, make you want another, and i think most BA's agree--see the ratings for beers by breweries that specialize in this (particularly hill farmstead) or the emergence of session ipa's.

 

... give your investor my info, I have some thoughts to run by him/her and his/her bank account as well

 

Two good bits I see (besides the wheelbarrows full o' cash) - one is the water quality. Be prepared to possibly treat and alter the incoming water to suit what you brew. I have the same problem in my industry that uses lots of water every day in different parts of the country - consistency is a HUGE problem. Another good point about scale up was alluded to without being specifically referenced - recipes and processing don't necessarily scale up perfectly by my understanding talking to home brewers who have made the leap. Scale up is always an issue for us. We pilot test blended products all the time and when you release the formulas to our plants to make bigger volume batches, nothing goes according to Hoyle. And we are just mixing ingredients, not anything that actually has processing steps like brewing.

From a consumer perspective, it does seem to me to be about the overall experience. Recently visited a "brewpub" where the beer was mediocre (generously stated) and the experience was also pretty poor as far as service, atmosphere, quality of food. Part of the experience to me is being able to see the brew house, so IMHO it needs to be functional and at the same time a showcase. If it is going to be fugly, don't put big display windows where people can see it's fugly. I don't want to see the things I know perfectly well exist such as cleaning chemicals, hoses/water on the floor, condensation all over the windows/walls, untidily stored ingredients, and such. Much less a poorly kept, generally untidy area that is questionable re: sanitation. I am in the food/beverage industry on the manufacturing side so I am really critical when it comes to that sort of thing (in my own plants and others), but I think people in general can recognize well-kept (even if it is older equipment) versus a dump.

Beer might put butts in seats, but I think the food can't be underestimated, nor can service and atmosphere. At the end of the day you are competing for share of stomach and I actually do know your geographic area reasonably well. There's probably other places people can go (I mean you can cross the entire state in an hour or less, right?) to satisfy wanting good grub, better than decent brew, and having fun - need to do it better and up the ante for the overall experience to make people come back. That's just my thinking as a consumer. I know Mews (for example) isn't a brewpub, but it fails for me personally. Not an epic fail, but certainly not worth the drive now that I don't have family at URI. It's much too noisy (for me), the beer selection while "extensive" is actually kinda mediocre knowing what I know now, and the food is pretty much average at best. They don't offer anything I can't get in a bunch of other places much closer to home.

Good luck! There was a thread on here months (maybe a year) ago about somebody asking the same questions out in the Seattle area, I believe it was. Maybe someone else will remember better (like the thread title or something) since I have CRS syndrome.