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  • Visions for a Brewpub Wanted

    You may say I'm a dreamer ...

    I have been asked more than a few times what my vision for a brewpub is. I am interested in hearing from others the same.

    Here is one of my recent responses to the query:


    ...

    You asked me in your last letter about my vision for a brewpub. This letter is a response to that question.

    The vision of a brewpub must be site and customer specific.

    Because of the high level of investment required, it is very important that one make enough money to justify the operation in terms of profit. Because of this, one must not be overly romantic in approach. One must remember that primarily one is engaged in the business of making beer, not simply making beer. (Not that a person should not be able to have a lot of fun along the way ...) Thus, one must remember that the customer is always right. Said another way: give the customer what they want. If you don't give the customer what they want, then you have nothing to sell and you have invested a very significant sum of money unwisely. Consequently, it would have been better to have kept your interest in craft beer as merely a hobby ...

    To be successful in the microbrewing industry, one must understand the driving forces behind the renewed interests in craft products that began sometime in the 1960s with the wine industry and has continued at a steamroller's pace in many industries since then, especially those involving food products (beer, cookies, ice cream, cheese, organic produce, free roaming chicken/beef, bread, etc.)

    After the industrial revolution and increasingly in the 20th century, factory-made products took on a sameness, a generic, lifeless, soulless quality. They performed their basic functions effectively and efficiently, but left one feeling dissatisfied and hollow. When it came to food, this was especially apparent. Up until the industrial age, food had always had a sacred element to it. Mass produced factory foods lacked this quality. With ever increasing corporate consolidation in these industries, food became increasingly banal and disappointing.

    With the inward looking upheaval of the social revolution of the 1960s in North America, this began to change. People began examining their relationships to everything else: to themselves, to others, to the environment, to work, to government, to mega-corporations, to food, to industrialism, etc. Finding dissatisfaction in many of these areas, many people began to seek change ...

    In the area of food, people began to seek out foods with a soul; that is, foods that were distinctive, unique, special, produced on a smaller, human scale ... foods that were produced often by hand, by a skilled craftsmen (a craftsman that became nearly extinct with the industrial revolution and the advent of the assembly line factory), in small batches and not by some massive impersonal machine run amok like some sort of Frankenstein's monster destroying the quality of our lives.

    In the area of relationships to others, people began to seek out a renewed sense of community; something that had become increasingly hard to find in the vast impersonal cities of the twentieth century.

    In came the brewpubs in the 1980s. Brewpubs satisfy many of these responses to industrialism. The foods and brews are unique and distinctive and of a quality that is seemingly not possible from a factory. They are made by proud craftsmen on a small scale, in a setting that showcases their work and equipment. They are made by people that you can see and talk to, happy satisfied people that take part in the community and interact with the consumer; craftsmen that don't even like or use the word 'consumer' because it is too impersonal and doesn't reflect the true relationship that the brewer has with those that drink his beers -- to him they are his friends first and foremost, not someone who is meant to be exploited simply for the ends of obscene profits.

    Furthermore, in a brewpub, the sense of community extends beyond that of the relationships with the craftsmen who make the food and the beer. The sense of community in a brewpub extends to all of the patrons and creates a network of friendships that is rare in today's cities and is cherished for the rest of their lives by those who are lucky enough to experience it.

    ...

    My vision of a brewpub, you ask? One that satisfies the above stated needs for quality, distinctive, foods with variety and a soul; A place that celebrates life with craftsmanship on a small, personal, accessible scale; A place where one can go and always know that one will encounter friends and leave satisfied; A place that one considers to be an extension of one's living room, where people are the most important and where the sense that business is being conducted is deeply and unobtrusively in the background; and, lastly, a place that reflects the local character of the community in which it is involved.

    It is this last item that prompts me to say that the vision of a brewpub must be customer and site specific. There is no one formula for a brewpub. (That would be against the spirit of the microbrewing industry.) It is a reflection of the people (the owners, brewers, employees and patrons involved). It should reflect the history and geography and character of the community. And simply not in terms of decor and ambience, people and attitudes, music and entertainments, but in terms of the foods and beers being offered.

    In a coastal community, for instance, there might be an emphasis on seafoods. In a community with a large Italian contingent, there might also be an emphasis on Italian foods ... In a community where there is a history of gold mining, the ambience and brands and labels might reflect some nostalgia for the good ol' days; miners panning for gold, the Old West, rugged individualism, etc. ... In a community with a unique music scene like bluegrass, there should be regular events featuring bluegrass music and related themes ... Or one might want to celebrate the craftsmanship of brewers and decorate the pub with the tools of the trade of brewing from yesteryear: old paddles, shovels, tanks, kegs, bottles, labels, machinery, pictures from long forgotten local breweries, etc.

    ...

    As for the beers, there should be a large variety of them. A few should be flagship products, appealing to the largest group of patrons and satisfying their tastes in a wide range from light to dark. But the rest should be specialty brews, not always available, rotating out and in, with new ones always being introduced ... The beers should also reflect any local brewing or agricultural history, if possible. And in all cases, the beers should be a reflection of what the brewing trades were like before large multi-national corporate industrialism turned beer into bland, flavorless, mass-produced, mass-marketed products, dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator (that approaching carbonated water with some grain alcohol in it) and formulated by marketers and accountants and not by proud skilled brewmaster-craftsmen. These beers should reflect worldwide pre-industrial beer quality from countries like England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, the United States, Czechoslovakia, etc.

    The food should do the same ... with a few items regularly available, but with most changing on a regular basis ... with an eye especially toward food and beer pairings and especially appetizers/snacks. Good wines and coffees and teas and juices should also be available with a de-emphasis on mass-produced sodas ... There should also be good, fresh water available. This makes the food offerings at the pub unique and thus always with a new appeal to the community ... An absolute must in the restaurant industry, where more often than not, in order to survive, it is necessary for a restaurant to be regularly reinventing itself so that its patrons and employees don't get bored ...

    And not yet mentioned, the staff and its relationship to management and the owners should be nurtured to reflect what it is the patrons are looking for: a sense of community and spirit and a celebration of individuality and the uniqueness of the human being.

    ...

    I am sorry that I can't give you any specific answers to your question, but I hope this gives you an idea as to what my vision for a brewpub is ...

    I look forward to hearing from you again soon.


    Sincerely, John Rebelo
    June 4, 2005

  • #2
    Restaurant First

    Great insight for any potential brewpub startup. To me the thing most people overlook is the restaurant side of the operation. As a brewer one tends to rightly concentrate on the beer, that is what brewers do. However I have seen more brewpubs get drug under by the food side. It is rare that the brewery can not pull it's weight. A brewpub is a reataurant first. Restaurants are the easiest business to get into and the hardest to make a success.
    Best of luck to ya'll,
    Jeremy

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