Startup BrewPub Financials Help

[AdamBrew167]

Would any experienced owner of a brewery mind taking a look at my projected financials for a brewpub to check for accuracy of information and provide criticism?

BrewPub Details:

800bbls year one
80 Seat
5bbl system
2X10bbl FV
4x5bbl FV
Carbonating in Unis then packaging into kegs.
*state believes in 3 tier system

If you PM me with your email, I will send you over the excel file.

[PolarisBrewing]

I'm not experienced, I'm in this stage myself, but I think you've got a very aggressive first year number on BBL's produced. I don't have projections on a 5bbl system, but on 3, my first year is 265 produced and 250 sold. If that's 60% of a 5bbl system, then those numbers would be 441 and 416, respectively. It looks good on paper, but unless you have enough fermenters to brew 3 times a week including double batching into the 10's you're gonna be kicking your own ass in the brewhouse and have no time to be an owner (including all financials, taxes, and other managerial tasks).

Just a heads up...good luck to you!

Please feel free to disagree with me! Like I said, I'm not experienced yet. This is my 2 cents...

[AdamBrew167]

Polaris

Yes, my projections are based on 3 brewdays per week with 40bbl capacity. Going off of a 16 day production cycle, which equates to 22.8 cycles per year, a brewery can reach 912 bbls off 40bbls of ferms.

I plan to employ a full time brewer and assistant to do the majority of the brewing, which should leave me with plenty of owner duties within the brewery and pub. I also hope to have enough cash in reserve to purchase additional ferms or hire more labor if needed but if any of the advice/experiences I'v heard are true, I wont.

[AdamBrew167]

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E64A1DE12A535386!3331&authkey=!AGf0svb5VeptlMI&ithint=file%2cxlsx

Above is a link to my spreadsheet. The comments should, well hopefully, answer some questions regarding how I ended up with certain numbers. I would love to hear criticism about my numbers being wildly optimistic or not making sense. I am constantly working the flow of this spreadsheet, so please advise me on suggestions to make it more organized.

Many of the cells are connected, changing one could ruin many others. Be careful if you want to tinker with it.

-Gary, I have not contacted you because I wanted to work on it some more before I sent it out. It is still a work-in-progress but here it is!

[armymedic]

I am in the planning process for a brewpub myself, and I agree with most of the above. Your number seem high. We are planning a 7bbl system with a 3 brew week or 21-28bbls/week. At full capacity that would give us 1050 bbls a year. We went with a conservative estimate of 60% or roughly 650bbls in the first year.

Our sales model is roughly 40% in house 30% retail 30% growler offsales

[AdamBrew167]

I am in the planning process for a brewpub myself, and I agree with most of the above. Your number seem high. We are planning a 7bbl system with a 3 brew week or 21-28bbls/week. At full capacity that would give us 1050 bbls a year. We went with a conservative estimate of 60% or roughly 650bbls in the first year.

Our sales model is roughly 40% in house 30% retail 30% growler offsales

ArmyMedic,

I am going with a more aggressive route of "plan for the best, have enough money for the worst." I believe my production numbers are more practical than you think, even for a start up.

Annual Capacity is heavily dependent on the bottle neck (no pun intended) that fermentation imposes on production. If tanks are full with fermenting beer, then wait you must. Another limiting factor is cash flow to pay for suppliers & labor. As anyone paying bills and payroll knows, if there is no money then........ Also, demand plays a large role in production. If demand is XXX bbls, cash is ample, and production capacty equals (XXXbbls/production cycles) and if we play by ceteris paribus then you'll meet production target. A 2bbl system can produce 1000bbls a year but that is inefficient and a waste of money. You would need about 20x2bbl fermenters or 10x4bbl, while brewing 10 batches per week. It is possible but labor cost would destroy the profit so that is why we don't see it.

I may have digressed a bit. I get side tracked sometimes.

If you look at my numbers thoroughly, you will see that my 800bbl annual production is my brewery at full capacity with 35bbls of FVs. However, my annual forecast for year 1 shows that actual production is about 600 BBLs. There is no production during the first quarter due to construction. Everyone should account for that time. That comes out to 75% of my total capacity which is pretty close to your 60% estimate for year one.

Also, annual production is not as important as sound financial planning at any level of planning. I think any owner will vouch, planning for a brewery that can produce XXX BBLs of beer is not as important as accounting for potential costs. You can easily produce less beer than your forecast but it isn't so easy to obtain more money that is needed without getting into more debt nor sacrificing equity.

Like Gary said, the main concerns are expenses. If my costs are way low or I am forgetting something, that, I need to know.

Thanks for your input. I'll definitely be a customer at your brewpub, where ever it lands! Just make sure you have an imperial stout for me.