Location, location, location

I should have added: relative to other priorities.

 

as zid indicates, if they are also a production brewery, a taproom or brewpub is likely secondary.

 

A brewery is first and foremost a factory. You try to pick a location tat is good for a factory.

 

There's also the necessity of breweries being able to truck in the ingredients and truck out the product. Easier in an industrial area.

Oh, puuuulease. I hope you're being humorous.

 

Breweries are primarily manufacturers not retail establishments. Brewing is a capital intensive, low margin business. Breweries can't afford (in most instances) to pay retail rents. They also need industrial amenities like loading bays for shipments and deliveries. That is why most are located in industrial areas.

 

Location is important if your business is retail. A brewery is a production facility. You could brew Heady Topper on the moon, it wouldn't make a difference.

Apples vs oranges.

 

Most large breweries are located on railway lines because that is the cheapest way to ship malt. They were also located close to sources of good water and good drinkers. Microbrewers tend to locate industrial parks, old warehouses, and out of the way places due to costs, truck access, and absence of neighbors who might object to hop, malt and other aromas.

 

/end thread

 

Can you name one that offloads rail cars at the brewery (well maybe BMC breweries do)? Just curious, maybe BBC at their old facilities (google maps says that PA=yes, OH=no)?

Sierra Nevada uses trucks to off load and drive the last few miles to the brewery. No tracks go into New Belgium. I have seen trucks off loading at FW. Bells gets truck deliveries.

In a perfect world there would be a siding or a spur right up to the brewery silos. At Mills River a guy in the gift shop said it would be about $4 million to do that, so they didn't.

 

I think to get rail car load deliveries of malt, you may need scale that even SN and NB do not have. Also rail delivery will be economical if they are getting several rail cars at a time. That probably limits it to the large legacy BMC breweries. OTOH just because a truck is pulling up to the dock, does not mean the input did not move by rail - it could have moved as trailer on flatcar (piggyback)

 

Sierra Nevada has a spur about 3 miles from the Chico brewery, several railcars are brought to the spur, there is a facility to pneumatically offload, then the truck is pneumatically offloaded at the brewery. They have savings getting the malt in big quantities and less shipping cost, even after having the spur, a dedicated truck, and a truck driver.

 

Sierra has a rail spur 2 miles from the Chico brewery, truck it those last 2 miles, and still save substantial dollars.

 

Most of the mega brewers. I consult for a malthouse and they ship most of their stuff by rail to AB Inbev, Miller Coors, etc. Shipping to craft brewers requires packaging equipment and trucks.

 

most of the newer breweries in PA end up being in industrial type buildings - it's where rent is cheap.

 

Your "tap room/brewpub/beer garden" would be a retail establishment. There is no reason it needs to be located at the production facility, other than as an anecdotal addition (i.e. Alchemist). The brewery needs to be in a location that is first and foremost, economically advantageous.

p.s. Zoning....

 

Denizens Brewing Co. in Silver Spring, MD went opposite of such a notion. They built their brewery smack dab in the middle of metro/cosmopolitan Silver Spring surrounded by high-rise apts. and condos giving mostly young professionals anywhere from 2-15 min walking distance to enjoy their offerings. Not even capping yet and they are always moderately crowded if not packed...there were two or three restaurants in that same location prior that lasted 1 year max before going out of business.

 

There are quite a few here in MI that have brewpubs and production facilities.
Arbor Brewing's Brewpub in Ann Arbor, the production brewery and taproom in Ypsilanti.
Shorts brewpub in Bellaire, production brewery only in Elk Rapids.
New Holland has a brewpub in Holland, the production brewery is in Holland also.
Paw Paw has the nano in Paw Paw, and a production brewery in the same town.
Arcadia had the brewery and taproom in Battle Creek, and opened a production brewery and taproom in Kalamazoo.
There is the Jolly Pumpkin production facility and taproom in Dexter, various pubs around the state.
Bell's has the cafe and a small brewery downtown in an old warehouse setting, the production facility in Galesburg doesn't serve beer. Bell's was of the size that they could only have one taproom, but that law was changed and now they could have 2.

I am forgetting a few. If a production brewery can have a taproom, it is a good business model, as the beer sold here has a higher margin.

 

Cheap rent just may mean better beer. Sugar Creek Brewing in Charlotte is in the old Olde Mecklenburg facility in South Charlotte, and it's definitely a "tough" area. NoDa in North Charlotte is in a gentrifying area that not long ago was sketchy. The boats are rising. Gibbs 100 down Lewis Street in Greensboro is a very cool spot carved out of next to nothing. Yes, I believe you're on to something!