Question on bbl per seat required in BP.

[BlackSailJ]

I am looking to start a brewpub with around 75 seats in total and looking at a 7 bbl & a 10bbl systems. The plan is to have 6 serving tanks. My question is, per serving tank about how much will it support? I'm not sure how much a seat will require in barrelage per year to keep up with demand. Any information would be helpful. Thanks in advanced.

[gitchegumee]

I worked a 5 bbl brewery once that fed a 90 seat pub. We had 6 fermenters & 6 serving tanks @ 10 bbl. No off sales. Way too few seats. 14 day cycle on each of six beers double brewlength is over 1,000 pints a day. I doubt whether you can make money on anything with less than 100 seats. I'd at least double the seating, but that could depend on the crowd & model.

[burlybeer]

I'm opening a ~120 seat place with a 7 Barrel System, prime city location in a restored 100 year old building. We have 4 fermenters and six serving tanks. I also have a smattering of smaller tanks we'll be using for small batch stuff. We have plenty of room for expansion and I suspect we'll be picking up two 15 bbl FV and SV within a year or two.

Good Luck!

[samhuff]

I think the question you are asking is "how many seats will a single serving tank supply?".

DISCLAIMER: NOT A CURRENT PRO BREWER NOR BUSINESS OWNER

I think what you need to look at is what the % of sales that particular serving tank will be. You would need to have an idea how many beers/seat and what the turnover rate is. But below is some basic math I did (note the disclaimer)

75 seats * 32 ounces/hour * 1.1 spillage factor * 1.025 sampling factor (guessing) = 2706 oz/hr = 170 pints (16oz)/hr * (1 gal/128 oz) = 1.31 gal/hr

if you serve between 11am and say 11pm closing, thats

1.31 gal/hr * 12hr = 16 gal/day * 7 days = 110 gal/wk = 3.58bbl/wk

This is a ballpark estimate. Try to find the spreadsheets from Republic Brewing (search for it on here). There are some very helpful calculations in there on sizing serving tanks and how much to make depending on how many seats you have. 6 serving tanks would be okay if you could sell the beer fast enough. Your sales would be split between the 6 and that means it takes longer to empty said vessels. This also plays into your brewing schedule and your business plan.

[BlackSailJ]

Ok thanks. That info helps a great deal. I find it hard predicting numbers. Cheers!

[BonedaleBeer]

75 seats * 32 ounces/hour * 1.1 spillage factor * 1.025 sampling factor (guessing) = 2706 oz/hr = 170 pints (16oz)/hr * (1 gal/128 oz) = 1.31 gal/hr

if you serve between 11am and say 11pm closing, thats

1.31 gal/hr * 12hr = 16 gal/day * 7 days = 110 gal/wk = 3.58bbl/wk

Wow - Check your math.

It is not realistic to assume 1 whole turn per hour, either. If you did 2 full turns per day with a volume of only 2 pints/seat, you would have 300p/d = 2.4BBL/d * 7 = 17BBL per week. Thats 880BBL / year.

Hope that helps.

[samhuff]

Wow - Check your math.

It is not realistic to assume 1 whole turn per hour, either. If you did 2 full turns per day with a volume of only 2 pints/seat, you would have 300p/d = 2.4BBL/d * 7 = 17BBL per week. Thats 880BBL / year.

Hope that helps.

1. Crap, see my math error. I converted oz/hr to p/d, but then multiplied by 1g/128 oz, which does not work. Good catch!

2. Turnover, not a business owner and I have not had to review these financials before. I am looking into the business and learning, but I was very clear when I said that the turnover rate should be reviewed and should be part of the business plan. I guess what I was assuming was that you would have a near full house based on my 1hr/seat turnover, yours is based on a sparsely filled house where only 150people/day show up while mine would be 1hr/seat*12hr*75seats would be 900 people coming through. Some of the brewpubs here can do that, others can't. But how do you decide what the turnover is going to be? Iwould size on the larger side, without being cost prohibitive, as I would think my brewpub will draw in large crowds. 900 may be overkill, but if you have a bar side, the turnover is going to be larger as beer is mostly all they are consuming.

Are there other thoughts on turnover? I think that should be a large part of your business plan as it will determine your food sales, your beer sales, and you staffing needs. ALl of which you need to know to budget the brewpub and present when asking the bank for money.