Brewing a brand for another restaurant.

[el_mocoso]

Howdy,

I looked around and couldn't find any talk of this, so here it goes.

I am in a unique position in my brewery. I have extra capacity that I would like to see used. A new restaurant in a nearby town has contacted me about brewing them a special "house" brand of beer. I have seen this done before (Fox and Hound has a beer brewed for their chain by ABInbev).
I was wondering if anybody out there in probrewer-land has any experience with this and if anybody knows of any pluses or minuses I do not for-see and should look out for.

The set up:
I am a brewpub but they are in a town that I rarely directly compete with for sales.
I plan on selling them the whole batch at once, but I can not self distribute. We will have to go through a distributer.
They are new and plan on carrying many of my other beers.
Cooperage is not a problem.

Questions/Concerns.
Do people in my position give them a price break since they are buying the whole batch or charge more for the specialty brand.
Anybody know of any problems with this set up that I am not seeing?

Cheers!

el

[frigatebay]

id give them a discount. how many accounts take a whole batch at a time? also they are carrying other beers of yours. win win for both

[billk]

I've been doing this for a couple years with a place. If you are brewing something unique for them and not just rebranding a current beer, making sure they will buy the full batch would be the only concern and it looks like you already have that taken care of. It has worked out well for us from both a sales and to a lesser extent marketing for our pub.

Cheers,

Bill

[lhall]

We did this at start-up. Get them to market it as one of your beers, but specially made for just their restaurant. That way, you are marketing your own brand at the same time. And heck yeah, charge them full price and have them pay for it all at once. You are offering them a service that not many other restaurants will get! After a couple of these deals, you will have used up your excess capacity and won't be taking on any "special" brews, right?

[el_mocoso]

thanks for the help. The "they will buy the whole batch" vs. "Unique/specialty" problem is the one I am grappling with. I'll figure it out.

Billk and lhall, were you guys able to self distribute? Did you store the whole batch and ship as needed or did a distributer store the product for the restaurant?

Cheers!

el

[billk]

In Pa we are able to self distribute. I have extra space in my cooler and it is not a problem for me to store the batch and fill orders as needed. If you are going through a distributor, I would think you could just sell them the batch and have them store it since it is a guaranteed sale.

Good luck!