Anybody pour beer at a brewpub?

West Chester isn't really on the Main Line (Route 30), but whatever. Just know that the Philly suburbs are pretty saturated with a few large regional breweries, a ton of small breweries/brewpubs, and countless more in planning being announced all the time. Currently there are 100+ breweries within a 25 mile radius of that area and the number might be double in the next year.

Hipsters seem to love both vinyl and craft beer so you might be onto something, but you're going to have a ton of competition for people's limited beer drinking dollars.

Hire experienced people. Some of the small breweries around here that were started by homebrewers ended up hiring pros, or went through significant growing pains.

I think your approach depends on your target market - casual beer drinkers or beer geeks? The geeks want a constant supply of "new" beers, even if they are just mild variations of similar IPAs.

 

Sounds like you have the record business down and are did very well with it. I would maybe see if you can touch base with some brewery owners and see if they would be open to providing you some advice. They should be able to answer a lot of the little things and maybe guide your decision as to the best approach. Cheers and good luck with all!

 

I don't spend any time at this site to know how informative it is, but when discussions like this arise, someone always recommends taking a look at the probrewer.com site for help. Take a look at it and see if you might get info from people who are active in the business.

 

Sounds like a great business.

If you had coffee and light breakfast foods in the am I would think that would help as well.

I still spin vinyl and I drink coffee and beer.

I will be too far to drive though.

Keep us posted, I would be into coming by after you open to check it out. I will bring a few record collectors too.


I was at a book store bar in NY State a few years ago. It was pretty cool and they had a coffee bar too. No beer made on premise but a very nice mix of local and national beers at nice prices.

Good luck


Enjoy

 

I think West Chester would be a great location, if you can make things work with the high rent rates. I can’t speak to specific numbers, and it’s been 12 years since I lived there, but I was a couple years out of college as a young architect and we spent 2-3 nights a week at Iron Hill. Many of my fellow barflies were similarly young lawyers, finance guys, etc. - there’s a lot of money in that town. Each of us probably drank 3-4 pints and the entire bar, plus at least a dozen tables, was filled most of the night. That’s at least 1/2 barrel of beer a day (for say 50-75 customers/day on average), so a batch a week on your 3 barrel system could be just about right, assuming 6 days a week. You may need an extra batch every couple weeks for special events or if you’re going to provide anything for off premise consumption (crowlers/growlers, bottles for special releases, etc.) If you turn into a popular bar, you could easily do more than that, but I think your growth/popularity may be somewhat limited there since a good amount of your 30s and up crowd may prefer places with food options.

My wife went to the University, and I know that she and her friends mainly hit the dive bars and drank MBC for as cheap as could be found. I’m sure that’s changed somewhat as the craft market has grown - most of the kids at that school had plenty of spending money - but I would worry that a sizeable part of your vinyl customer base might not have the funds or interest for the beer. As a more established 30-something, I’d definitely be into your concept.

Not that you asked for this kind of opinion, but if I had to criticize your model it’s that while there’s undoubtably a lot, there may not be enough overlap in the vinyl/beer consumers. Many casual beer drinkers and even craft enthusiasts will be turned off by the idea of a place that caters to vinyl enthusiasts (viewed by many as pretentious or unwelcoming to outsiders). Some vinyl customers may be turned off by a bar/taproom atmosphere.

I generally believe successful small breweries are so because they develop (in the most active sense) a loyal, passionate customer base. The product or backstory (I actually think it doesn’t matter which one, but that’s for another discussion) has to be compelling.

From what I’ve seen and understand from closer-than-average ties in the industry (successful and not), an inordinate amount of time is spent explaining and selling your product (compared to brewing time, at least). And to enjoy the (hard) work as an owner, you’ve got to enjoy your product. Much the same as a record store, I imagine. If the beer is just there to provide something extra for your vinyl customers, it will be obvious and you’re unlikely to be taken seriously as a brewery. If your beer is not well above average (average isn’t enough anymore, with so many breweries around these days) your vinyl customers may not even want it or see it a a reason to come back, at which point you’ve put in more work than necessary but really haven’t gained anything.

 

I wrote too much already, but I also want to add that if you’re considering tying your beer to music in any way, be careful. I imagine it will be perceived as a gimmick by many music people. And for beer people’s, well, there’s a brewery in my area called Mikerphone, and while the beer is good and popular on its merits, they try and name the beers with song lyrics and such. This often results in really cringeworthy names when they’re stretching a bit.

 

It sounds like the OP wants to put a beer bar into a record shop and is doing an end-run around local alcohol licensing restrictions. The plan is legally feasible if and only if he brews his own beer. The primary business is a record shop, the secondary a beer bar, and the brewery is just a means to make that secondary portion happen.

If I have that right, then if I were the OP I'd be tempted to go true nano and get as small a system as the government will approve and then rely primarily on guest taps (unless there's some minimum on the percentage of his own product he must sell or something along those lines). Then he doesn't have to waste many resources on the brewing, and there's little pressure for the beer to be good (because his own beer would be a trivial part of his business). Perhaps try to make sure there's a little room in the back for a small expansion in case the house-brewed stuff does take off.

I disagree with the people who are suggesting that the beer must be good; I think they're bringing their own agenda into their advice (obviously most craft beer enthusiasts would prefer that breweries made better beer). There are many profitable brewpubs that make bad beer and many unprofitable ones that make good beer; I've seen little evidence of much of a correlation. In this case, as far as I can tell, the business is going to live or die on record sales, and the beer is just a marketing ploy to attract and please music customers, most of whom probably aren't going to be particularly discerning about the beer and hopefully will just think it's cool that they have a full pint glass in their hand as they flip through records.

Good luck to the OP! I hope this works out for him and that he sells a lot of records as well as some of his own, possibly terrible, possibly great, probably mediocre beer.

(I've never worked at a brewpub or record store, for the record, so the OP should take all of my advice with a grain of salt.)

 

Agree with this, with the caveat that I have no idea how much good beer already is made in or around West Chester. I would suggest if there already is a lot of good beer being made in or around West Chester, either a different location, or a business plan that includes making higher quality beer in styles that are popular and underserved in the area, will be necessary for success.

And I have been involved in opening a 9 barrel brewery that didn't get fully funded and didn't open, so also take my advice above with a grain of salt. Good luck OP!

 

I’d say that the picture painted in your first paragraph.is accurate.

 

Additional thoughts.

Check out phillytapfinder for a general sense of what places and beers are working well in the Greater Philly area.

Give some thought to Yuengling Traditional on a guest tap.

It occurs to me that @herrburgess may have some useful experience that could apply here.

 

The PA laws allow a brewery to serve other PA-produced beer, wine, cider, mead, spirits. But your own beer must be at least 50% of sales.

 

I would have no idea how much you could expect to sell. Do you know how much foot traffic comes through your door? How many of those are buying records once they're in your store? Pulling a number out of my ass, I'd think you might expect to sell a pint to one out of ten people who come through your door. In an ideal case, you get 124 pints out of each keg, you never do, but that's what's in the keg. So, if on a busy Saturday you get 500 people in the door, I think you'd be lucky to sell 50-60 pints.