Going Legit :D

I know nothing about Washington State's brewing laws.

This is going to sound negative, but at the risk of bringing you down from your well earned euphoria, you are not remotely ready to go pro after one batch of homebrew. Nobody is. Some (maybe most) of the worst craft beers I have ever tasted were at brewpubs opened by home brewers with limited experience. The market is too crowded for that kind of startup to succeed these days.

I would recommend getting a lot of experience under your belt, entering a lot of competitions (multiple competitions per beer) to get unbiased feedback, looking for the repeated trends in the comments, and improving your beers until you are killing it with every batch. Don't rely on what friends and acquaintances are telling you. Then, look into what it takes (financially and personally) to open and run a brewery. At that point, if you still love brewing and understand how doing it professionally will be different, go for it.

All that said, there a some members of this forum who have gone pro or are preparing to, so you'll probably get lots of good advice.

 

I like your confidence. But the next step might be entering competitions. Winning usually comes later.

Here's the best source of competition dates...
http://www.bjcp.org/apps/comp_schedule/competition_schedule.php

 

Commenting to bookmark this. Want to open a brewpub one day so any advice would be appreciated.

 

What you heard from @Vikeman above is good advice, and it probably will also be mentioned a few times at probrewer.com which is a site that usually gets mentioned during discussions like this. It's never too early to begin thinking about becoming a pro, so reading opinions will lay some foundation for your future planning. I have never looked at the probrewer site to be able to endorse it, I'm merely putting it in front of you as a suggestion that may be of value to you. There have been previous threads on this topic in the past, so do a search to see if you can find them for additional reading.

 

That just means he sat down for the test and passed. :-) Some in the industry are Master level and above, others are Recognized. Be impressed if the brewer was the former and not the later.

Studying for the BJCP exam makes one a better Brewer, as you learn to recognize flavor defects in beers. Once you can recognize defects in your beers you can then correct them. It also ruins the experience at many places, as you pick out things that are not good brewing practice in the beers.

If you really want to go pro, get as much hands on training and brewing science study as you can.

Me? Why ruin a good hobby?

 

The Brewing Network did a series of podcasts a few years ago with Jamil and others describing the process. Worth a listen..

And I agree why ruin a good hobby. All the damn beer snobs and such fuck that.

 

I suggest working for a brewpub or brewery. Get to know the business. Ask the owner about the laws and licenses, business plans, financial considerations and concerns. Simultaneously, keep homebrewing.

 

Jamil said that for years, before going pro and then doing a bunch of podcasts about going pro.

I think the appeal of going pro is that you get to clean out bigger fermenters. You get to climb in the manway! Pro Brewer = glorified janitor with a cult-following.

 

You might try to volunteer initially, and don't expect more than minimum wage at the start of actual employment. If you were good enough to get a job with AB/InBev, it'd be worth considering. They probably have better pay and employee benefits (maybe you can opt out of the free 6-pack per week and pocket and extra $5 per pay period*). Some well-respected craft brewers worked for big beer companies (Mitch Steele, Dan Carey, to name two off the top of my head). If brewing beer is your ambition, you would probably not be wasting your time at a brewery job with big beer. There might be no better place to learn the fundamentals.

*PS: I'm making up. I have no idea. I just recall an Anchor interview where they talked about the free beer benefit, and maybe at AB, that benie would not be as valuable to a lover of craft beer.

 

Did Jennifer and Alastair make you sign a no compete contract?

 

Currently in the process myself to open a brewery/taproom, at the infancy stage though. Have the funds/investors lined up, my costs/profit projections and the equipment and suppliers all quoted and such, but it's all the other stuff that will take months and months to square away. A location, licenses/permits, legal stuff, business plan, etc... Slowly but surely, though.

 

I will admit, not much to pick at this time. Just doing a lot of research into all the legality and other non-fun stuff that goes along with it all as I start to write up my business plan.

 

First post nailed it but I'd also add this. IMO too many craft beers are given a pass because they're craft and not BMC. That isn't going to last forever.

Enter beers and really go over your feedback. Learn how to change process to achieve desired results. Keep track of your improvements. It's one thing to make up a killer porter, send samples to 7 contests and do well or win a few. It's a whole nother ball of wax to make seven batches of the same porter and get consistent returns from contests on them. Repeatability is everything to being a pro-brewer IMO and it separates the players from the fans. People want to come back to the same beer time and again. Your business can't survive inconsistent beer. There's simply too much good stuff out there to get a lot of second chances.

GOOD BEER will help the most along with cash and business sense.

PS - I'd also say that more than likely, in a pro sense, you can't just have one good beer, the portfolio needs to bet good with a couple of stand outs. Not one good one covering for the trash. Brew and do well with styles you do not like.