Advice on getting into the beer industry

I think that people romanticize the career of brewing. Just like the zen of motorcycle maintenance, there is the inherent sense of accomplishment by crafting something with your hands, however I don't think people think through the shitty parts of the job as well.

 

If you can deal with the reality that the bartender who pours for 3 hours makes more than you do in a 10 hour day. You're half way to being at peace with how shit an industry this is.

 

Home brew with me and you may never want to see another pint of beer. Truly manual labor. No pumps. Just Love and 5-7 hrs. of your free time. Mostly lugging around 10 gallons of water/sanitizer/wort 4 or 5 times over into various garden beds/household closets.

Romanticize is a great word. Although when we end up sharing it and people are surprised that we "made that", it makes it worth it ten or eleven fold.

@MostlyNorwegian Solid points there. I personally know some brewers/distributors who make 3-4 times less than a brewery taproom "server". I wish they shared their tips. But honestly that was one tipping point for me. Back room guys may get some free pours and take home beers, but they were getting compensated a lot less than the "front end" bar tenders. It is utterly depressing if you look at it from a strict money perspective

 

It really depends on what kind of brewery you work for or what job you're working with a distributor. If you're working for a neighborhood brewpub or small craft brewery, they might not be able to pay much. If you're a brewer at a mid-size brewery or larger, you'll make decent enough money.

Around here, entry level jobs with a distributor (delivery guy, merchandiser, etc) would pay $15+ an hour on average, I would guess. Sometimes these are full time, benefited positions too. You can make pretty decent money if you make your way into sales, but again, it depends on the company and the exact position. I've heard of distributor sales reps making anywhere from 30-80k a year. 50k is probably about average. That's what it's like around here anyway, I guess your mileage may vary. And yes, either way you'll probably get more free beer than you can drink.

 

Thank you so much, this is amazing advice. Congrats on your hard work paying off!

 

Wow, I had no idea. Appreciate these insights.

 

Ya, buzz kill in full effect!

 

Great feedback, thank you very much. I guess all those brewery tours are but a flash in time and do not truly represent the hard and dirty work required.

 

That explains it! I wondered why the wording was different.

 

I brew half bbls at home, no pump. Wouldn't change it for the world. Gave out some oktoberfest, best compliment was my friend wanted to buy a case. Best feeling ever, but I just gave it to him. Lol.

 

I'm in my 40s as well.
Are you physically ready to handle it? You will be standing nearly the entire day, and walking about 5 - 10 miles over an 8 - 14 hour brew day. You will also need to carry and lift 50# grain sacks in fairly rapid succession while graining in, and also be able to shovel out wet hot grain that is now about twice as heavy while graining out. How efficient are you with your time is also a very big deal as a brewer because if you miss one window of opportunity to get work done by even just five minutes, your end of the day tasks just picked up an additional two hours of work.
Can you tolerate getting a 20 minute steam bath, and then going into a freezer to get hops? There are also the arms length of things you only will need to learn once to not ever do. Most of them are common sense and pay attention things. But... Are you prepared to get humbled and figure out what they all are?
Can you also tune your ears to hear if anything is off in a chorus of noises while music is playing loudly while also laughing at a crude joke? It will probably happen.
Your day as a brewer essentially consists of hurry up and get it done NOW followed by long stretches of waiting for processes to finish, and good chance is you'll also spend most of the day by yourself.

 

Yikes, no I am not ready for that!

 

That was a good run down of brewing on must craft systems.

Big ones are automated, so not as physical.

The supply of people wanting brewing positions exceeds the demand, hence the low pay.

 

This thread is months old, but I thought I'd reopen it...

Just had a 45 minute phone interview for a high-end (craft) beer sales rep job in Ft. Meyers, Florida. One of the first questions he asked me is if I had my Cicerone Cert. I don't! Upon being hired, they'd help me obtain it, but shit, I didn't know that this is something that is used in real life. I thought the CC was just for bragging purposes lol

Any recommendations on how/what to study to get a leg up?

 

Everything you need to study is in the syllabus.

 

Of course I have the 11 page syllabus.

 

THIS.

 

Your question has come up in this forum in the past, so if you do a search on cicerone you'll get a couple of threads with some extra discussion.

 

Then why did you ask what to study?

 

Thanks, bud. Got it. Seeing if anyone had some insight that had taken the exam(s).