opening a brewery pub

[frank k]

i am interested in opening a brewery but don't know how to get started. i am sure it would do very well in my area. i am open for any suggestions. thanks

[tarmadilo]

well...

Successful brewpubs are successful pubs that happen to brew their own beer. Things like location, capital (you absolutely have to have enough money!), kitchen, layout and design of the public part of the pub are all as important if not more important as putting in a good brewery and making good beer.

In other words, the brewing part is the icing on the cake, you need to bake a good cake first! The brewery can definitely make a successful pub even more profitable (you can brew great beer for half [or less] than it would cost you to buy it from a distributor), but a pub with few customers is doomed, brewery or no brewery.

I speak from unpleasant experience, having brewed for a couple of failed brewpubs! I also speak from the point of view of a customer of some wonderful brewpubs, whose food, atmosphere and general excellence made them a delight (and very profitable).

Good luck,

Tim

[lijah]

brewpub

hello , there is a lot of work & money involved.
I would suggest if you indeed start on this progect
I would hire a very good & exspensive brewer
not a homebrewer , but a craft brewer w/exp. in building breweries, this in the end could save a lot of money


good luck , cheers

[jrdamas]

Frank,
In addition to Tim and Lijah's good advice you might be able to find some usefull tips in the American brewers guild text "How to Open a Brewpub or microbrewery", Innovative Brewing Technologies "Brewpub Manuals", assocaiation of brewers "Brewery Planner" and the Vol. 19 No.1 Jan/Feb 2002 issue of "The New Brewer". All of these are available through the respective company website. Not sure how informative these texts will be for you but they might be worth a look.

Cheers,
J. Boy

[Chip Tate]

brew cafe

I'm looking at the idea of brew cafe sort of place in a town of about 200,000 greater area. The total square ft would be in the 4000-5000 range with significant amount of sales through bread that will be made on site (20% of sales as non-served goods). I've done some calculations and am working with a figure of $100,000 starting capital (about half for start up expenses, half for working capitial) with an additional $50k budgeted for the later addition of a 5-7bbl brewing system.

Do these seem like reasonable figures?

Thanks,

CT

[jrdamas]

Seems like your going to need more than 150k. If you have and can get everything that you will need for 150less-great! However most of the plans that I have looked at required much more than 150k.
J. Boy

[GlacierBrewing]

After being involved with several micros and brewpubs and one of my own, the best piece of advice I can give regarding financing is: OVERFINANCE! If you think you have enough capital, DOUBLE IT! The incidentials in the first year will swamp you. The big ticket items; equipment, facility, materials, etcetera, are easy to plan for. What about REAL utility costs, fees, payroll, payroll TAXES, shipping, promotional mercandise, advertising, and the thousands of small, and some not so small, items from the hardware store, kitchen stores, office store, and on and on and on.
OVERFINANCE IT!

[tarmadilo]

I can't agree more with Glacier and jrdamas! I'd double or even triple that amount of starting capital. I've been involved in a few startups, and that sounds like significantly less money than you'll probably need. It may be possible to purchase a brewing system for $50K, but site preparation and installation is EXPENSIVE.

A friend of mine with an MBA once told me of the "double-triple rule", which goes something like: Put together your plan, figure out how much everything will cost, and how long it'll take to make it profitable. Then double the cost and triple the time.

Best of luck!

Tim

[Chip Tate]

financing

Thanks so much for these comments! Really helpful. Any other advice like this is welcome.

CT

[Valleybrew]

This has always been a pet peeve of mine, I used to be a total diehard about not having commercial beers in our brewpub. I have been brewing for 9 years here and was an owner for 2 years. Our curent philosophy is to offer the big 6: bud,budlite,miller,millerlite,coors,coorslite. We charge the same price for the 12 oz commercial beer as we do for our pints. I We still sell a massive amount more of our beer but the occasional commercial die hard isn't left out. They may bitch about paying more per ounce but they still buy it. We also can do head too head tastings of our lighter styles against commercial styles and many times we convert the commercial beer drinker over to our beer. If not... Oh well...to each his own.

[Moonlight]

How can one possibly open a business if one hasn't worked in one before? Learn the ropes on someone else's dime. If you have never worked in a brewpub, my advice is to raise a minimum of $200k, next donate it all to charity and be grateful you didn't lose more than that and find yourself in bankruptcy court hating life.