Any brewpubs bottling beer for on premise sales?

[MikeRoy]

We started doing small bottling runs about a year ago for in house sales out of our store. I'm curious how other brewpubs view these sales. Its obviously more profitable(less time consuming/lower overhead) to sell beer directly from the tap, but its nice to give customers an option to a growler,especially since the shelf life on our bottles far exceeds our growlers. We have no interest in becoming a "packaging" brewery, we like our business the way it is.

How do you price your bottle product in comparison to pints/growlers?

Any particular philosophy when it comes to how much/how often/what brands you showcase in bottles?

We're finishing our honeymoon phase of this project and I'd like to have a more concrete plan on how to approach bottles sales in the future.

I'd love to hear feedback from brewpubs who've been there and are doing this.

Thanks in advance.

[MikeRoy]

125 views and no leads....Anyone?

[SRB]

We are getting ready to this fall. 32oz flip top bombers and 22oz, that we also plan to sell at at 2 to 6 retailers. I was waiting until we got going, to post. I am hoping for some insight as well.

[Ray Hodge]

Mike, We are a rather unique lager and ale packaging brewpub. Due to our licensing we are not allowed distribution rights, so everything we produce is sold on premise, some of which is for off premise consumption. We fill growlers and package in 22oz bottles, and keg all our beer for draft, no serving tanks. We bottle every beer we can, with the exception of fruit beers and nitrogenated beers.
We currently have 7 beers in 22's of 9 total. We package 22's prior to kegging and don't find that its too much extra in labor. We opened in Feb and are probably about 600 Bbls/yr. Alaska prices: Pints $4.75, Growler fills $9.75, 22's $3.75ea or $3.25 ea by the case. The philosophy is that we can be competitively priced in 22's and this will build our volume to capacity (1000bbls), which is the real cornerstone of profitability.
Ray

[MikeRoy]

Good luck SRB.


Ray,
Thanks for the response. At such a discounted rate for 22ozers you don't fear the potential loss of "across the bar" sales and with that food sales?

The issue that many brewpubs that I've talked to face is customers opting to stop in and picking up bottles to go instead of buying a retail pint. Along with the $.12/oz increase at the tap ($476/bbl) to go sales lose the potential of food sales.

Is your location more of a factor in this decision?

[Ray Hodge]

I would guess that our location and market is somewhat unique. We only have 65 seats in the pub, and a very small kitchen, and our customers are very craft beer smart. We do a huge volume of growlers to customers that do not choose to eat in at that time, and having the 22's just gives us another advantage to fill that part of the market for packaged to-go beer with a better shelf life. In this part of Alaska there are a great many customers that may only come to town once or twice a month, and we wanted to be price competitive with other packaged beer, even compete with 6/12oz pricing. Our thought is to brew our 10 Bbl plant at capacity and that is the best return on overhead and the only way we will get there is to develop a large to go market. In the plan we would much rather sell directly to consumer, even if its to-go, than give our beer to a wholesaler at reduced price. We have 25 breweries up here and only 650,000 people and the distribution chain is flooded with local and stateside brews. Its nice to be different sometimes, or in my case always.

[bmxfrank]

Have you had a chance to talk to Aaron at Watch City or any of the other MA brewers we used to deal with?

[MikeRoy]

Excellent response Ray, understanding your market better now I totally understand your mindset. Keep brewing and hope you hit your goals soon.

Cheers.



Uncle Frank, That's a good idea, Aaron's been doing some bottling in Waltham for years now, I'll drop him a line.

[Bill Madden]

RE: Bottling in a brewpub

Mike,

Probably need to start a new thread on this, how are brewpub brewers bottling their product? We have a Melvico for GABF but on a scale for bottling a 15 bbl batch I would not want to do this.

How are you guys bottling on that scale?

Cheers,

Bill Madden
Mad Fox Brewing Company
Falls Church, Virginia

[Ray Hodge]

We bottle on a 94 model Maheen, 4 head 22 oz filler that we bought used and had to put quite a bit of time in it to get it back to functional condition. It works very well for us now.

[MikeRoy]

Bill,
A Melvico? If only they were still being made today, they are a great little workhouse for small packaging runs. We have a German made single head counter pressure filler, not that far off from the Melvico design, but it has a safety shield to protect my pores from getting glass in them.

We're not bottling whole batches...we are not changing our business concept, but a year ago we started bottling liters bottles ( 1/2 bbl-55ish bottles per brand-mainly our higher abv/more exotic seasonal/specialty brands) and selling them out of our General Store.