Breaking into the Craft Industry

Start homebrewing. Learn the techniques. Enter your beers into competitions. Some, if you win, let you brew with a professional brewer and brewery. Establish contacts and begin networking. Plus, experience comes with that all. (If you want to be a brewer that is).

Otherwise, if you just want to work for a brewery, look for openings in something of your skill set.

 

Breweries need sales people, "pencil pushers" to manage inventory, and various other office positions (depending on the size of the brewery), so figure out which of your skills is applicable to positions like that and start applying. If you're dead set on being an actual brewer you should follow ShanePB's advice to start home brewing, read as much as you can on the process, and possibly consider taking classes at UC Davis or Siebel to give you formal training and some credibility.

 

Are you looking for a career? Do you know what brewers at small craft breweries make in a year? You might be surprised (not in a good way). Unless you own the place, you are basically in the service industry.

 

Volunteer.

 

Be careful pursuing a hobby profession.

Aside from the oversupply of people willing to do those careers, there's the risk of spoiling the hobby for oneself.

The "do what you love and the money will follow" is mostly BS, in my opinion.... especially in today's economy.

 

It's not easy, and I can tell you from some interviews I have done in the past that they don't care if "craft beer is your passion." Every applicant feels the same way or at least ought to proclaim that if they expect to get hired.

What breweries (larger ones at least) want to see is experience at a brewery (circular logic in a way, I know). Next best is to build a solid homebrewing resume - simply being a homebrewer is not much of a plus on its own. If you can, brew and let prospective employers try it to validate your skill. Being a BJCP certified judge or Certified Cicerone will also look great on a resume.

The best non-experiential way to get in though would be formal education. Show you are serious by attending the Siebel Institute or some other program. Work at a craft bar and learn about draft beer.

Bottom line, you need to be willing to dedicate your life to beer before landing a job in order to look serious in many cases and I would always assume that you would need to start in an entry level position and work your way up.

Finally, get to know your local brewers well. This is ultimately what helped me more than anything in reaching my goals.

 

Just a heads up, no self-respecting brewery will hire a salesperson without, at a minimum CPG sales experience, or preferably wholesaler salesexperience and understanding of the three-tier system.
Magic Hat tried that for awhile in MI at least, and they had 3 state reps in the first year...

 

Like anything in life, sometimes enthusiasm trumps experience. I know a couple of people that have been hired to do sales for breweries, and neither of them had any prior experience. Admittedly, you're probably not going to get a job at a place like New Belgium or Deschutes without a bunch of experience, but there are tiny little breweries opening up every day in this country, and eventually they all reach a point where the owner realizes he/she can't do everything by themselves.

 

To some extent I agree... looking at job postings at breweries over the last year - the most frequent and available openings are in sales/marketing. For every brewery I was checking on regularly. Someone with sales backgroud could probably break in relatively easily I imgine.

 

Spend some time exploring this site:

http://www.probrewer.com/

All kinds of good information about the beer business, including classified ads, which will help give you a feel for what jobs are out there and where. It might not get your foot in the door but will help you decide if you even want to open that door.

 

I think this greatly depends on the type of job you want to do. Of course with no experience you won't be a brewer but there are many many other jobs involved. If you'd be willing to start fairly low I'm sure you could get in, then let your enthusiam show, stay late to learn other jobs and move up.

 

Go to your local brewery. Tell them you want to be wet,cold,hot,sweaty,smelling nasty stuff, have loud noises screeching in your ear, break your back lifting kegs-ALL DAY. Tell them you will do it for low pay and no recognition. Tell them you want to work with a bunch of like minded jabronis. They will probably hire you onthe spot.

 

Realistic reply, but the guy could grow a beard and live the craft brewer lifestyle.

 

I thought that everyone in the craft beer industry got to travel around the world and taste exotic beers at huge festivals on a weekly basis. At least that is what I see on Twitter and Facebook.

 

A note on volunteering since I see it mentioned all the time in these threads:

-doesn't say much about your skillset if you 'want' to be doing the lowest of the low
-I have heard that many breweries get such requests constantly
-recently was reading about how even volunteers are a financial risk: require some amount of time/training cost, are also likely to require the same safety training/certifications as regular employees, and the brewery is liable if they get hurt or fuck up a product or investment (beer)

But if you have no experience or hard skillset as it is I don't think it can hurt, and I am sure that a few people can chime in on how it did get them started in the industry. I would assume that the smaller the brewery the more apt they would be to allow free or cheap help from some schmo with no experience.

 

Just applied for a staff accountant position at a brewery in Boston, pretty much my ideal job. Being an accountant (I'm a huge loser and actually like accounting) for an amazing company. Doesn't get much better than doing a job you love for a company you love.

 

Oh yeah. Grow a beard,listen to death metal or the grateful dead(depending on the brewery),play world of warcraft, and talk about how the 5 gallons of RIS they made last weekend tastes JUST LIKE Dark Lord. But Better.

 

This should not be an industry you get into for the money, you will not get rich doing so. This is an industry to do what you love because you love it.

As a general statement I agree but I do know at least a couple self respecting breweries who have strongly considered candidates based on there fit in the company over their sales experience. Experience is definitely preferable, you will certainly be in a uphill fight with out it but if you have a know what you are talking about and know the right people there is always a chance.


This is an industry that is just as much about who you know as it is what you know. Get to know as many people as you can in the industry. You may have all the passion, knowledge and determination in the world but unless you know somebody there is a decent chance you will not get your shot.