Home Brew Supply Store

Broadminded is a major factor, yes, but I meant to mention earlier too that ownership of the homebrew store business and inventory, thus the extra profit to the owner, is the real plus factor. If the OP approached a beer store to become a sub-business within the beer store, that might not fly so well.

 

The rate of growth of the AHA membership has slowed to single digits, but has not decreased. It was double digits growth a couple of years ago.

Sales by LHBS has gone flat, and even slightly negative. Part of that is that more shops have opened, so in an area that dilutes the sales. More doing brew in bag as all grain, or starting with it, so less equipment sales and there is more margin in extract than grain. There is craft beer everywhere, many I know are brewing less. Then there are the guys who were Homebrewing like crazy, to get the recipes refined, but have gone pro recently. And so on.

For the OP - contact the AHA, they have a committee that surveys the shops and supply houses. I think they have some guidelines for shops as far as population base and other things.

 

I'm partial to Adventures in Homebrewing, I like to stop by Sicillianos and Bell's when on the West side.

 

If the owner of the beer store is not parochial and the lease rates are sufficiently high there is a possibility that a deal can be made. The OP could also 'sweeten' the deal by agreeing to also share some some of the profits from the homebrewing sales as part of the overall payment agreement?

The 'trick' from my perspective is finding the proper beer store owner who has an entrepreneurial spirit who can envision making money from something other than commercial beer sales (i.e., the current revenue stream).

Maybe this is a case of "The Art of the Deal"?

Cheers!

 

Darn iPhone autocorrect got the best of me again, I guess.

 

Thanks, I was conflating the first two points in bold. I knew someone with firmer knowledge would step in to clarify.

As to the third point, I definitely have seen an article with this info (e.g., population base required for opening a shop). I want to say it was on the AHA website, and written by Gary Glass, but you know how I am about getting details right.

 

A number of recent posts about the AHA and Homebrew shop market data.

As a 'reminder' in the second post to this thread I stated: "Are you a member of the AHA? If not I would encourage you to join and solicit them for information on the homebrewing market and with that information update your business plan."

I suppose great minds think alike!?!

Cheers!

 

Thank You for 'reminding' everyone about what you stated in the second post to this thread.

 

You are most welcome!