Startup Nano Brewery - Size For Growth or Ideal Location

[Crosley]

I am in the process of starting a small nano brewery in a ski town location. My plans are 3 BBL with small tasting room. I have found what is the absolute perfect location in terms of proximity to downtown. Well there is no proximity, it is directly dead center of the walking area of downtown, good stores restaurants and bars nearby. I have drafted the layout and I get roughly 10 seats at the bar, 12 seats at a community table, and 16 seats at hightop tables. This leaves the brewery with roughly 350SF of brewing space. I plan to do all of my keg cleaning and general duties outside of the actual brewing room and am planning on starting with pre-milled grain to save space. There is a current small hotdog joint in the space next to this one that I would hope to be able to take over in time. The place is slightly chopped up, but I like the layout. Take a look at the attached sketchup model.

Layout 3.pdf

My main concern is will I be regretting this in a year or two. This location has absolutely no room for expansion; no larger equipment, no additional seating, no room to move to serving vessels...... My plan is not to grow into a distribution facility, but to stay as a small local brewpub.

Anyone have any input on this from past experience.
If anyone has any comments on my layout that would be appreciated also.

Thanks,
Andy
Hideaway Park Brewery

[SouthHouseBrew]

Location, location, location

You could save some major space if you went with jacketed FVs and glycol rather than a cooler:

- You'll also build in a bit of expansion capacity this way, because the FVs can be taller and/or closer together, allowing for more FVs or even a brite or two.
- It will increase flexibility, as you can ferment a saison in one tank and a lager in the next, and cold crash individually.
- FVs out in the open are much easier to clean, add dry hops, swap out blowoff buckets, etc.
- Most importantly, it will improve fermentation temp control (read: overall beer quality).

You could open up the space by taking down the brewery walls. Most brewery patrons want to SEE the brewing equipment, and the open floor plan makes the space feel larger. This may not work with your concept (or local fire code).

You could play with layout a bit, trying to fit the brewhouse/cellar/cooler across the entire back wall. This would open up the space and potentially add more room for bar stools and/or long tables. Without knowing more info about the building, I may just be blowing smoke here.

I assume there aren't many spots like these in your town, so I would do all I could to make it work. I can't tell you if you'll have enough capacity - that all depends on your sales projections. Does your lessor also own the hot dog company's space? If so, try to work in first right of refusal. Can you expand to or build on the voids in the bottom left/right corners?

[Crosley]

Kyle, thanks for the quick response. I would love to get to jacketed vessels but right now it is cost prohibitive. My plan for the fermentation was a "fake" L-wall that can be moved out of the way to access the vessels. I can take down any walls except the main wall between the front room and the back room, was just trying to save some initial tenant improvement costs. The hot dog shop is the same owner, it is actually in the space to the left of the front room. So to answer your next question, I cant build on the left space, nor the right space. The right space is a set of open wooden stairs going to a snowboard shop upstairs.

Thanks again.

[Junkyard]

If your really worried about it sign a shorter lease with first opportunity to renew. It sounds like its in a great location, and if it's cheap enough lease for you i would say go for it no matter what.