Brewery in Planning - New to the forum

[SMcCarthy]

Hi All,

I just wanted to give a quick introduction to the forum. I have been a long time observer and have finally decided to join the conversation.

I'm located in Ontario Canada. I am currently in the process of planning a new brewery, mostly a distribution brewery with a tap room. I'm well on my way with my business plan and working on some financial plans. The brewery will be fully funded by myself.

I currently don't have a mentor in the industry so if anyone is willing to spare some of their time to chat your expertise and experience would be greatly appreciated. I'm also looking for anyone who might have some great base financials to work with as it relates specifically to operating costs.

I've read lot's of books and websites. The research never ends as I'm sure most of you know so I would be interest to hear about some must read books or websites to frequent.

I look forward to finally contributing to this site.

Cheers!
-Shane.

[John Rozema]

Information

we have spent most of the last year setting up our brewery, it took us about twice as long as expected. There are 3 of us we are all homebrewers with varying degrees of experience one of us has some craft brewery experience on a larger scale. there are a number of things you need to think about and by no means are these all of them. You are dealing with 3 levels of Government in Ontario to start a brewery. The federal government as in the the tax department ( CRA) for your excise tax, the second is the Ontario government for your MFG license and being able to brew, the local government for a building with proper zoning and they will have to sign off on the taproom and bottle sales and building permits. We did have a meeting with the building department and planning department so we knew the zoning we needed and that our taproom could be no more than 10% of our building or we would need and architect ( 20 times the cost) . We are now getting close and maybe open in 4-6 weeks if the rest of the paperwork for the licenses is done. It is a learning experience and we have struggled through and are almost there. If I did not have great partners it would have been difficult as there is so much time contacting and recontacting people for explanations of what they want and will except some of the people were very helpful others not so much.

John Rozema jrozema1@gmail.com
www.beardfreebrewing.com we are located in Peterbough Ontario

[idylldon]

We opened our brewpub last year after a four-year build out. I was the project manager until it came time to start brewing. I learned a LOT more than I ever thought I needed to about things I never knew I needed to learn! There were some real challenges during that phase, but now that we are open I'm starting to forget all the hardships and have been really enjoying brewing and serving my beer to the public. We've been wonderfully received. I currently have 18 beers on tap and two more that I don't have taps for. We're adding four more taps by the end of this month.

Anyway, shoot me a PM and I'll send you my phone number in case you have any questions I might be able to help with. While I'm in the US, there are probably areas that are pretty consistent no matter where you're brewing.

Cheers,
--
Don
Idyllwild Brewpub