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Nanobrewery - The Lessons I've Learned

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  • The info from Bainbridge is right on. I'll add a my two cents as a nano. I double batch from a 2bbl brew house into 4bbl FVs. I have 2 FV and 1 BT. You will either need some kegs or more Brites (if you serve from the brites) in order to keep emptying the FVs. You want your fermenters to always be working.
    At my size my cost per keg (1/2bbl) is $75-$80. This includes grain, hops, yeast, water, labor from brew and clean to filling kegs, utilities for the brew (gas, electricity, sewer), cold storage, state and fed beer tax. All my costs per keg remain the same as I scale the size of the brew house except for labor. I could probably manage up to a 5bbl brewhouse and 10bbl FVs without adding more labor (a bit more for cleaning and filling a larger number of kegs).
    Figure out your other costs (rent, liability insurance, loan payments, phone, advertising, other bar and brew labor, sales tax, accountant, book keeping, anything else you can think of that you need and anything you can't do yourself) then start playing with the numbers. At $80 cost - how much do you make per keg selling pints, growlers, wholesale, mix of each? How much do you need to sell to cover your other costs?
    I just opened my tasting room (25 seats) a couple weeks ago. No advertising other than Facebook page, word of mouth and 1 tap at a local restaurant in a beer drinking town of about 10,000 - a Fri or Sat night ~50 pints in a couple of hours without really trying. I need more than this of course, but as a soft opening goes I was happy with the results.
    If you love what you do and aren't afraid to put in the work then you can probably make it fly. Good luck.
    And thank you Russell and the other ProBrewer posters... I wouldn't have made it this far without your wisdom.
    Prost!
    Eric Brandjes
    Cole Street Brewery
    Enumclaw, WA

    Comment


    • Thank you Very Very much...

      I really appreciate your reply. Thank you very much for the time you used to type all this out. Makes me feel better. I have pro forma sheets and have thought of what I will do in worst cases. I am on my 4th book. I am an over planner.

      I believe you are right. I will have to buy at least one 8 bbl ferm if not 2 just in case one beer is way more popular than the others. I will go back and do the math with this change.

      Awsome man. Thanks,

      Comment


      • Secondaries... Home brew only or not.. help me think this through?

        Sorry, I forgot to mention my plan on secondaries since you said those are for home brewers. Yes, I heard about that.

        Actually, I was thinking of buying 4 extra containers to hold the beer after fermentation. This way, I only need a few kegs. Basically the plan is to move the beer to the brights after cold crashing a week. Then when the next batch is ready to go, if the brights are still half full etc, I will move the beer to the 2ndary container to store while I brew another. Therefore, I always have some in the 2ndary containers to be moved to the brights as soon as needed. Using a carb stone after moving to the brights, I can get the beer ready within 8 hours right? And if the beer sits in the fermenters a little longer, that is fine cause I removed the trub and keep them clean and at a good temp.

        I am getting a glycol system to be able to cold crash the ferms and of coursed keep the brights at serving temp.

        Am I just not thinking this one through? Basically I should skip this idea and do kegs instead? (probably off topic here but you brought up a good point about kegs)

        I gotta say, you guys are awesome in helping others on these forums. I have read tons of things on this site.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by SB Brewer View Post
          Am I just not thinking this one through? Basically I should skip this idea and do kegs instead? (probably off topic here but you brought up a good point about kegs)
          For all practical purposes, what you're describing is simply more brite tanks. Many brewpubs will serve directly from their brites. The reason for kegs is to draw off when the tank is almost empty and you want to fill the entire tank with something else.

          IMO, you're best off thinking of all of this in terms of # of fermenters, # of brite tanks, and # of kegs, taking into account whether you'll serve directly from the brites and use the kegs for the dregs, or fill the kegs from the brites as soon as final volumes of CO2 are obtained.
          Kevin Shertz
          Chester River Brewing Company
          Chestertown, MD

          Comment


          • am I crazy? even a single wall Chinese 8 bbl brite runs in excess of $7k, I think. 16 half bbl kegs is only about $1800, right? Seems kegs vs 4 8 bbl brites (for four beers on tap) is therefore around $7200 vs $28k. Let's say this requires a solid keg washer/filler at about $15K, aren't you still ahead using kegs to dispense? One brite for carbonation purposes, from there directly into kegs?

            Oh and those single wall brites require a dedicated walk-in, same as serving from kegs, so that's a wash, isn't it?

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            • You're not crazy, but it is a little more complicated than that.

              For example, most two-head semi auto keg washers can handle about 10-12 kegs an hour, and manual ones usually 8-10. So to clean 8bbls worth of kegs takes about an hour and a half, two hours maybe. But of course you're likely doing sixtels as well, which take just as long to clean for 1/3 the volume. So it takes us, including setup, heating caustic, washing and scrubbing the outside of the kegs, restacking them, etc., about 5-6 hours a week to wash a week's worth of dirty kegs, longer in the summer. At a certain production level you have to hire a kegwasher monkey to do it, because it starts to take a lot of your valuable time. Or you could spend an hour or so per brite every couple weeks.

              The second consideration is space. Kegs take up more space. Full ones. Empty ones. Clean ones waiting to be filled. The keg washer takes up space. Has to be setup somewhere near co2, water, drain, 220v electricity, and don't forget air. You'll need a good sized aircompressor too. Which is loud, and has to go somewhere. Or you can jury-rig up some kind of valve setup using your kettle, HLT etc which people do because it's cheap, but that's even more work and you're not brewing or doing anything else while you're doing it.

              So really, it's a balance of $ vs. Time. Like most things.

              EDIT: Oh, and the the time spent filling them. Racked beer yesterday for several hours. Then filtered a different beer into the brite, which took about an hour and a half including setup and cleaning up the filter after. Moving 10bbls of unfiltered beer takes us about 5 minutes to set up, 10 minute sani loop, 10 minute transfer, 5-10 minutes cleanup. On a smaller scale though, it takes less time to fill kegs obviously, but not really any less to transfer, so again: balance based on your size.
              Last edited by Bainbridge; 03-06-2014, 10:39 AM.
              Russell Everett
              Co-Founder / Head Brewer
              Bainbridge Island Brewing
              Bainbridge Island, WA

              Comment


              • Great points...

                Both of you have good points. Thanks for these, cause I am learning or confirming every day. Awesome!

                Originally posted by Bainbridge View Post
                You're not crazy, but it is a little more complicated than that.

                For example, most two-head semi auto keg washers can handle about 10-12 kegs an hour, and manual ones usually 8-10. So to clean 8bbls worth of kegs takes about an hour and a half, two hours maybe. But of course you're likely doing sixtels as well, which take just as long to clean for 1/3 the volume. So it takes us, including setup, heating caustic, washing and scrubbing the outside of the kegs, restacking them, etc., about 5-6 hours a week to wash a week's worth of dirty kegs, longer in the summer. At a certain production level you have to hire a kegwasher monkey to do it, because it starts to take a lot of your valuable time. Or you could spend an hour or so per brite every couple weeks.

                The second consideration is space. Kegs take up more space. Full ones. Empty ones. Clean ones waiting to be filled. The keg washer takes up space. Has to be setup somewhere near co2, water, drain, 220v electricity, and don't forget air. You'll need a good sized aircompressor too. Which is loud, and has to go somewhere. Or you can jury-rig up some kind of valve setup using your kettle, HLT etc which people do because it's cheap, but that's even more work and you're not brewing or doing anything else while you're doing it.

                So really, it's a balance of $ vs. Time. Like most things.

                Comment


                • 1.5 bbl nano

                  I just wanted to mention that I have a 1.5 bbl nano, and pretty much everything here is true about the amount of work, etc. I constantly make decisions on which beer not to serve, and we have 8 tap handles now. I'm usually out of three. 80% is on site sales.

                  We have 6 1.5 bbl fermenters, and 3 4.5 bbl fermenters. I'm only using one of the larger ones currently. I wish I had bigger ones, and a system twice the size. 10 times the size would be better.

                  We don't have a bright tank. We typically brew five or six times a week. I work about oh, 72 ish hours a week, six to seven days. We have 45 corny kegs, and 24 sankeys.

                  Life as a nano brewer is not what I planned to be honest. I still love it, but its a significantly larger endeavor than what I planned.

                  I have a 3.5bbl system sitting int he brewery, working on how to shoehorn that sucker in there. I cant WAIT until its running, phew!

                  Comment


                  • Has anyone ever considered growing from a nano into a brewpub? The mrs. has a passion for hospitality and I have a burning love for brewing. We would love to be able to run our own brewpub one day but obviously we understand the risks and financial requirements to jump straight in. Just curious if anyone has started a nano with the plans to eventually grow their annual production and find a means to expand and add on a small restaurant.

                    Now I know that these businesses are very different beasts, and we know that running a brewpub is basically running a restaurant with your own taps. We figured with my background in the brewing and marketing (my previous life) and her's in restaurant management, we thought we might have a small fighting chance with a brewpub but we need a starting point.

                    To anyone with a successful nano currently running: how long were you operating before you had needed to start expanding beyond your start up equipment? What was your starting annual production and what did you move up to? Brewhouse size?

                    We had thought about starting out with a 3bbl brewhouse, four 7bbl FVs, two 7bbl BBTs. The brights would only serve for carbonating and we would keg everything, I don't want to invest in a huge walk-in to house a bunch of serving tanks, I would rather get a glycol system in place, but I have entertained the idea of a dedicated temperature room for single-walled FV's and BBT's in a walk in. We plan to have 5 core beers and a 6th rotating tap, for seasonal brews and others of the sort. With 1 of the cores being a lager, I would need a dedicated FV for just that.

                    Originally posted by gointomexico View Post
                    I just wanted to mention that I have a 1.5 bbl nano, and pretty much everything here is true about the amount of work, etc. I constantly make decisions on which beer not to serve, and we have 8 tap handles now. I'm usually out of three. 80% is on site sales.

                    We have 6 1.5 bbl fermenters, and 3 4.5 bbl fermenters. I'm only using one of the larger ones currently. I wish I had bigger ones, and a system twice the size. 10 times the size would be better.

                    We don't have a bright tank. We typically brew five or six times a week. I work about oh, 72 ish hours a week, six to seven days. We have 45 corny kegs, and 24 sankeys.

                    Life as a nano brewer is not what I planned to be honest. I still love it, but its a significantly larger endeavor than what I planned.

                    I have a 3.5bbl system sitting int he brewery, working on how to shoehorn that sucker in there. I cant WAIT until its running, phew!
                    Having no bright tank, how do you go about carbonating your brew? Force carb in the kegs?
                    Jason Schlebach
                    Brewer
                    Pelican Brewing Company
                    Tillamook, Oregon

                    Comment


                    • Since there seems to be a lot of nano brewers on this thread I was hoping I could ask- If I were to use a nanobrewery as a stepping stone to learn the ropes before risking a lot of money, how many people would I need around to help keep things under control? I see a lot of people asking about running a nano on a part-time basis and it sounds like it's not really feasible for one person (if you want to stay sane). So, let's say you have a few people that are willing to operate at a loss (consider it an educational expense) for a while before ramping up. Could 2-3 people successfully run a nano part-time?

                      DasBrauer- in my opinion a nanopub would be a cool idea. I'm sure there are lot of other people out there that would have pros/cons but if you ask me the future of beer is at the local level.

                      As for your carbonating question, I recall a thread about this topic and the guy from Barrier Brewing in NYC shared his method for skipping the brite tank. I don't have a link but if you search around you should be able find it.

                      Comment


                      • We don't have brite tanks either, from fermenter to keg, if you do this there will be sediment in the kegs so if they are moved in between pours the beer will be cloudy for a while. We know never to move them when hooked up and our beer is delicious and crystal clear.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Junkyard View Post
                          We don't have brite tanks either, from fermenter to keg, if you do this there will be sediment in the kegs so if they are moved in between pours the beer will be cloudy for a while. We know never to move them when hooked up and our beer is delicious and crystal clear.
                          Junkyard -Do you have the ability to crash in your fermentor or are your pulling off the racking arm and crashing in your kegs? And how are you going about carbonating your beer?
                          Jason Schlebach
                          Brewer
                          Pelican Brewing Company
                          Tillamook, Oregon

                          Comment


                          • Yes, we can crash cool the fermenters, only to about 45 degrees though. You gotta have temp controlled fermenters unless you make only Belgian beers. We take the spears out of our kegs, clean the kegs with a pressure washer and brush, then rack beer through a 3/4 inch silicon hose into each keg after sanitizing, adding bio fine at te same time. After they are filled we seal them up with the spears. To carbonate we hook them up to co2 turn the pressure up to 50 psi, and gently shake them for 3 minutes, 1.5 minutes for a 1/6 bbl. after that's done stick them in the fridge and let them equalize and you should have well carbed beer.

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                            • I do what junkyard does, except I clean kegs with a sprayball.

                              Comment


                              • Sales Tax Specialist Accountant

                                Hey all,

                                Thanks for the great thread. It is pretty inspiring and helpful to read through all this. I have a slightly more boring question than the day to day operations of the brewery. I am getting a 2bbl Nano off the ground in Brooklyn that is focusing on selling through the tap room with limited distribution to local bars, and I was meeting with my accountant. He suggested that I hire a sales tax specialist (which would be about a $5,000 retainer and he has in his office) which he said we would need for the first year but would use less and less over time as we have a better understanding of what needs to be accounted for in sales tax preperation.

                                So my question is, has anybody gone this route of using a sales tax specialist in getting started, does that retainer sound fair (it is in NYC) or am I getting completely up-sold into something that I don't need?

                                Thanks!
                                Jason

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