SO YOU WANT TO
START A BREWERY?
by Ken Anthony
It’s a warm evening in late summer. The barbecue is heating
up in the back yard. You proudly show your guests the shiny
homebrewing equipment that occupies half of your garage. The
kegerator dispenses frothy pints of your latest creation much to
the delight of your guests. Everyone marvels at the high quality
brew you’ve made and you couldn’t be happier. Someone remarks,
“I could drink this all day!” and you wholeheartedly agree.
This scenario is commonplace at your home and you’re repeatedly
told that your beer is delicious. Your friends and coworkers
routinely tell you that you could sell your beer and you begin
to wonder…”Could I?” You start doing your research and pricing
equipment. Pretty soon you’re keeping an eye on commercial
real estate prices and making a phone call here and there. You
start piecing together a crude business plan to see if your model
is viable. You spend hours on the online forums reading endless
posts and asking questions. Before you know it, you’re planning a
brewery.
What you may not know is that starting and operating a brewery is
an extremely difficult venture to embark upon. Being that alcohol
is involved, there is a host of additional government regulations
that must be adhered to. Brewing equipment is so expensive
that it’s almost criminal. Most city zoning ordinances aren’t very
brewery-friendly, if they even have a provision for them in the first
place. If that weren’t enough, the competition is getting fiercer
with each passing year.
I talk to homebrewers all the time who, like me not long ago, want
to get into the commercial brewing industry. What they all seem to
have in common is a lack of understanding of what it really takes
to open and operate a commercial brewery. I openly admit that I
too needed to figure out a lot of that over time and develop the
understanding. I’m still learning the nuances of this business, and
I don’t think that’ll ever end. In fact, I’ve had to make on-the-fly
adjustments to my plan because of a lack of understanding. There
are certain things you just can’t know until you get there. While
there is too much information to provide in detail here, I’d like to
take the time to share some of my experiences with you so that
you’re better-equipped to decide if you really want to risk it all
and start a brewery.
Let’s start at the beginning. Everything revolves around money
whether you want to believe it or not. The very first thing you’ll
need to determine is where the money will come from. Will it
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