What does it take to start a Brewery?

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Well, those were our thoughts several months ago.  We’ve been figuring it out one day at a time.  Outside of financing and good beer, it takes a management team and that is what we’ve been focused on for the last few weeks.  Here’s what we’ve come up – Chief Operating Officer (aka The Toots), Chief Executive Officer (aka the Grand Mistress), Brewmaster (aka Parade King) and finally Chief Spiritual Officer (aka Cardinal Beer Goddess).   No doubt there will be others such as Chief Safety Officer (aka Save the Day) and Human Resources Director (aka Hugs-a-Lot).

We’re assembling the team and working out the legalese and that my friends takes time.

On the personal front, I was traveling last week and had the chance to taste some great beer.  I had the Great Divide IPA while I was in Colorado and Tennessee’s Blackberry Farm - Farm Ale.  Both were delicious.  I had hoped to get a tour of Blackberry Farm’s brewhouse but it was all work and no play…  insert sad face here.

Well y’all, its another Friday and TGIF!  Please support your local craft beer company and drink some tasty craft beer.  And of course, leave fat tips for the servers!

Cheers for now,

The Grand Mistress

Making Progress!

Hi Y’all,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  You may wonder what we’ve been doing.  Well, Mark is working hard at getting our logo trademarked.  Apparently there are some hurdles and the trademark people need an education on their own law as well as the difference between a café and production brewery.  Mark promises to write a detailed post on his experience and learnings.

 

In addition, he has been hammering out the marketing section of the business plan.  He has really added some significant data on the competition and brewers located in the central south.  We plan to market our beer in Louisiana and should things go as planned, expand into Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.  The course in Bend did ground us somewhat.  What we realized was you have to have significant production to meet the demand, so perhaps a better strategy for us will be to try and meet the local market demand, and by local market we mean the Baton Rouge – New Orleans - Houma – Covington – Slidell areas.

 

We learned some other key points that will most likely be critical.  For example, most people buy beer at a store for at home consumption so bottling and canning are important.  Tap handles are hard to come by – as in space in bars; we thought the distributor worked with the bars to get the tap handle space.  In reality, we’ll need a sales team that goes out and meets with the bar owners so that the bar owners will request our beer through the distributor.  Basically, the middleman doesn’t have a whole lot to do except deliver the products to the seller and manage the inventory and the empty kegs…  Speaking of kegs, people who buy kegs for home consumption generally keep the keg for 8 – 10 weeks (unless of course it’s for a crawfish boil).  That means will need a bunch of kegs!  We were told 10 kegs for every account – we’ll work the math with our distributor.

 

Unfortunately, my day job has kept me somewhat busy and I haven’t had a whole lot of time to focus on the brewery.  My part of the business plan is finance.  With the help of my niece Amanda, I put together some pretty good financial statements now they have to be truth checked.  So what does that mean?  I need to call the utility companies in New Orleans and start to work on what the operating expense will be to more accurately project a breakeven point.  And, we need to start researching brewing equipment.  We’ve received multiple bid so now we need to compare and determine what this all means; it’s the apples to apples comparison that is a challenge.  One of the more important aspects of brewing is the equipment you use.  Apparently, the equipment will have an effect on the final product taste.  And, as a buyer, you really need to have a handle on the efficiency of the brewery. The more efficient the less it will cost to operate.  I think a lot of startups learn this the hard way.  Basically, people want to skimp on the cost of the brewery but they don’t understand the long-term impact of not spending 2 – 5% more in order to procure a more efficient brewhouse.

 

The one thing I’ve done in regards to the brewery is post an ad for a business partner / brewmaster.  I have received responses from several interested people; all of which are brewers and two of which already live in New Orleans.  That was a pleasant surprise.  We’re hoping to sign with a partner in the next few months.  We need the brewmaster to select the brewery equipment.  We’ve decided to leave that to the professional!

 

More to come in the near future.
Cheers for now craft beer fans,

 

Karen

 

 

The Love of the Centrifuge

Centrifuge is where it’s at! Who needs a bright tank when you have a centrifuge? Mark and I went to Midnight Sun’s tap room yesterday and we were lucky enough to get a quick tour of their brewery. They have discovered the centrifuge. It’s an expensive piece of kit but well worth the money.

More to come…

Karen

Creating a Business Plan

I’m glad to be home from The Netherlands.  Heineken is definitely king in The Netherlands and served everywhere in The Hague.  While I was there, I noticed the second most available beer was Palm which is brewed in Belgium and is a pale ale.  Hmmm….  Perhaps the Dutch can use an introduction to an North American style IPA.

We are plugging along on our business plan.  The beverage industry is quite larger than I thought and beer is a huge player in the market.  Louisiana ranks 11^th in beer consumption but 47^th in breweries per capita.  I think it’s time for a change.

 

While I was gone, we received a quote for our brewery from Allied Beverage Tanks, Inc.  While Mark and his nephew are brewing a batch of IPA, I’m in the office trying to understand the ins and outs of this very detailed quote.

 

More to come.

Cheer for now,

Karen

 

Education is the Key to Success!

Mark and I have signed up to take a course at Oregon State University; the course is focused on brewery startups.  The class is being held in Bend (another huge benefit of taking the class)!

The person who arrives with the best business plan wins a two week paid internship at the Ninkasi  Brewing Company.  That’s all I need to hear, competition.  We’ve been plugging away on our business plan.  Thus far, we’ve completed the Executive Summary,  written a ton of information on the US beer market and now we’re working the financials.

 

There are some brewery friendly states out there and turns out, Louisiana is not so friendly.  I need to call the two Senators and complain.  While I’m ok with the three tier distribution, I want to be able to sell my kegs, growlers, cans and bottles retail out of our very own tap room.  I hear a rumor that change was in the works; however, I haven’t seen this in writing.  I was in Houston a few weeks ago and there are craft breweries popping up all over in the state.  One thing I love about Texas is how pro-business the state is…

 

I’m heading to The Netherlands tomorrow.  I think a tour of Heineken is in order…  Perhaps their beer is a bit more tasty and fresher when consumed on their property.

 

More to come,

Karen

A Visit to Florida

We’re on vacation in Florida and took this opportunity to drink some beer that isn’t distributed in Alaska.  Today, I had Shipyard’s XXXX IPA.  The beer’s drink before date was before today…  I still thought it was tasty because, well it was.  I have fond memories of visiting Shipyard’s brewery in Maine when I was in graduate school in the early 1990s.  Shipyard was an early pioneer into the craft brewing scene.  Cheers to them.
Yesterday we paid a visit to Cigar City Brewing in Ybor City (Tampa).  We had had the Jai Alia IPA in cans before our visit to the brewery and the IPA was impressive… hoppy and fresh.  When we arrived at the brewery for our tour (you can book online) we had to wait about 15 minutes so I asked for a Jai Alia in a pint.  Mark decided to try the Tocobaga Red Ale.  Was he sorry he didn’t get the IPA for his first draw.  The Jai Alia right out of their keg was super fresh and even better out of their keg.

 

We took a tour of their startup brewery.  It’s a 15 barrel two vessel system…  all but one of the fermentors were empty.  In the one that was “cooking” they were making a horchata beer.  It’s a bit sweet for my liking but certainly inventive and tasty.

 

After the tour, we sat in their tap room and had a couple of more beers.  I struck up a conversation with an employee who was sitting next to me.  Our paths crossed over his broken IPhone glass.  I suggested he bypass the “genius bar” and fix the phone himself.  He told me about his past and coming to work at Cigar City.  His passion, like mine, is drinking good beer and he told me he found his “people” in so many words.

 

Mark joined the conversation and we were lucky enough to be shown the rest of the brewery.  If I remember correctly, Cigar City’s actual product brewery is a 30 barrel brewery that they have quickly outgrown so they are installing some additional (120 barrel ***I think) fermentors.  In fact, there demand has been so great that they only distribute in the state of Florida, Denmark and Sweden.  God bless the Scandinavians.  I like people who like good beerJ.

 

We learned a lot yesterday during the tour.  Again, the message was loud and clear.  If you start off small, you’ll soon be out of space and good, tasty, fresh beer.  Second, sanitation is key.  Third, bottling beer is a pain in the arse.

Cheers y’all and pick up some Cigar City when you have a chance.  They produce great beer and their staff is totally committed and very well informed.

 

Karen