Hi Y'all

I’ve been thinking about this blog and when we started we were focused on the business plan and financing and brewing great tasting beer. We’re at a totally different stage today which has caused me to reflect on the process as a whole for starting a craft brewery. No doubt, in a year, my thoughts will be extremely different again…

For those of you out there thinking about starting a craft brewery, now that we’re almost two years in planning, you need to think of the big picture and move beyond the business plan and financing but never go beyond brewing great tasting beer! The business plan was a huge tool for us and we’ll keep using it… and as far as financing goes, if you have a dream and you do your homework, the financing will fall into place. It did for us.. I hope this doesn’t sound shallow because we really worked our asses off to get where we are so perhaps it wasn’t all that easy. What really happened was people realized a few things, we’re hugely dedicated, we’re taking a big risk and Mark is a great brewer with a vision of perfection.

Here are some additional hurdles for you to consider when planning your brewery…

Finding the right location… local zoning ordinances can be a challenge. We were fortunate that Mark did an extensive amount of homework before we found our pristine location. In New Orleans there are certain areas of the City that actually exclude breweries from existing and in other areas, depending on the zoning, a conditional use permit may be required. If you need a conditional use permit, you have to have a public hearing with the City Council. The current zoning ordinances for the City of New Orleans can be found here: http://www.nola.gov/city-planning/current-comprehensive-zoning-ordinance/.

So, you’ve done your homework on zoning ordinances and now you’re on the hunt for the perfect building. Are you going to rent or buy? For us, we opted to rent based on not wanting to tie up cash in the purchase of a property. Bank financed commercial property requires a 20% down payment. We did find a 5,000 square foot warehouse that we considered but making a substantial down payment with negative cash flow was not for us.

Gross lease of triple net lease – you should do your homework and determine what you can afford. With the triple net lease, you are on the hook for all of the maintenance, insurance and property taxes for the building. A commercial realtor will also have a hefty fees associated with your service and then of course, you’ll need your legal team to review any lease agreement before you sign on the dotted line.

Ok, so like us, you’ve found the perfect spot… what’s next. Well, what’s next is bringing the building up to snuff for opening a craft brewery. That is no simple task… will the concrete support the weight of the tanks, does the building a have a sprinkler system (required), does your space have enough parking spots? Are you planning on a tap room? I certainly hope so and if that is the case, is the property ADA compliant? Where are you going to place your boiler and CO2 tank?? Do you need an RO water filter and what about storage for all of your cooperage? How are trucks going to make deliveries and pick up your product? The list goes on and on… for us, we’ve decided to use an engineering firm to help us with these requirements. In addition, the folks who we bought our brewhouse from have also made some recommendations based on the footprint of our building. All the while, all of these folks answering your questions providing you with an invaluable service are expensive. You need to ensure you have enough cash and have budgeted enough to help you get your building up to code requirements. Oh, and in the meantime, don’t forget you have to continue to work on your beer recipes!

That said, we’re hoping to get our ducks in a row in the next month or two with production prior to December 31st! Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Cheers to that y’all,

Karen

PS - Steve Edwards, come for a visit!

Summer fun!

Bienvenue Hopfools,

It’s been a busy and fun three weeks since we last posted. The big news is that we’re just a hair’s breadth from finalizing all of our financials and ultimately the purchase of our new brewhouse, fermenters, bright tanks, pilot system, walk-in, etc.

The basic elements of our taproom and brewery are starting to come to life on paper and we’re beginning to vet contractors in anticipation of starting construction.

Along the way I also managed to visit Ontario and spend some time with our friends Peter and Andrea Chiodo of the award winning Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Barrie, just outside of Toronto.

It was a great first visit to Barrie and I really enjoyed hanging out in the brewhouse with his brewer, Paul Buttery and the rest of the “monkeys”. This also gave me an invaluable opportunity to bounce around ideas about brewery layout, process workflow, standard operating procedures and equipment selection.

It wasn’t all just work and technical talk mind you. I also managed to take in a Blue Jays game (sorry Boston but your kung fu was just not strong enough) and the Toronto’s Festival of Beers as a VIP guest of The Flying Monkeys. The three-day festival was located close to Lake Ontario and this year over 60 breweries were represented. There was also a number of musical guests and I was lucky enough to be a backstage guest of the Flying Monkeys for k-os, a Canadian born rapper/singer.

There were some really great beer offerings and lots of intriguing taste profiles (I actually took notes). It’s really fantastic to see and experience such a vibrant local craft beer community and for me underscored the enormous potential for craft beer in NOLA, Louisiana and the South.

I also ran into Ginger Johnson of Women Enjoying Beer, at the festival. It was good to finally meet her in person and I was able to collect on the beer she “owed” me for helping with some questions she had last year regarding the health benefits of beer.

Overall it was a great week of beer geek fellowship, beer tasting and incredible hospitality, many thanks to Peter, Andrea and the rest of the flying monkeys!

Lastly, Karen and I recently went to dinner at MoPho only to run into the crew from Yalobusha Brewing Company. It was really great talking with Andy O’Bryan, Tony Balzola and Amos Harvey, comparing notes, talking beer and finding out that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train.  Yalobusha's offerings that evening included their Miss-iss-IPA and River Ale. The latter is billed as a pale pilsner owing to the predominant role of pilsner malt in the grain bill and it really worked great with my pho.

Well that’s all for now. Expect more news soon as we move along with making equipment purchases, renovating our space (located at 433 N. Bernodotte) and refining recipes.

Till next time thank you for all of your support, inquiries and patience as we continue our progress.  And of course, please continue to drink craft, drink local and drink responsibly.

Cheers,

Mark

Time Flies When You’re Planning a Craft Brewery

Hi Y’all,

 

Almost a month has past since my last entry.   You may wonder what we’ve been up to… First, we’ve been visiting as many craft breweries as possible and are of course return customers to our favorites. In the past two weeks, we’ve been to King Street, Midnight Sun and Seward Brewing Company. We’ve had some great tips from the owners and have had the pleasure of sharing some really good beer. While not drinking good beer, we’ve been working fulltime day jobs and working the brewery plans at night.

 

Here’s where we are… our business plan is being modified again for submission to the SBA. Our banker put us in touch with a great service through the LSBDC Greater New Orleans and Bayou Region. This non-profit helps small businesses and banks alike get their ducks in a row for paperwork submission to the SBA free of charge. There are some pay for service programs out there that do the same; I recommend starting with your local organization. Of interest, we only found out about this service through our bank, the SBA people failed to mention this to us when we spoke with them.

 

Outside of the business plan and financing, Mark has put together a rather extensive list of permits that we need to obtain and we’re working our way through them one at a time. Our first win was with the Louisiana Department of Revenue approval so now we’re waiting on the TTB and working with the City of New Orleans to get our occupancy approval.

 

Our architect is working on the engineering design for the taproom and brewhouse layout and associated mechanical work. We has originally thought we were going to have to tunnel through the building’s existing slab but we’ve talked with several brewery owners and have decided to build our brewing platform / sump area on top of the existing slab. We believe that this will save us some big dollars without impacting our operations.

 

There are some hurdles ahead but we think we’ve got a pretty good plan in place to work through them or work around them. All in all, we’re making progress but it’s slower than we expected. It will be great when we’ve finally resolved all of our design and engineer work and begin construction.
That’s all for now y’all and cheers to that,
Karen

 

Quick Update

Hi Y’all,

We met with our banker yesterday and we should have a good idea on financing in the next couple of weeks. We’re hoping the bank is willing to take the risk with us so we don’t have to go out and seek investors. We’re applying for an SBA loan and we used Score.org’s financial spreadsheet template which has proved invaluable. We highly recommend Score.org for individuals looking to start their own business. We’re also glad to announce that our dear friend and financial wizard Donnavan Swaby has decided to join the Second Line team as CFO.

We’ve received our approval from the Louisiana Department of Revenue which is great news and our t-shirts and pint glasses have arrived. We’re going to do a bit of gorilla marketing with them and hand out some t-shirts at Jazz Fest. If you see one of us at the Fest, be sure to ask us for one!

We are hoping to do a walk through next week with our engineer and the Fire Marshall. Once that is complete, we’ll be able to submit our drawings to the TTB and start the process on construction design. The building needs a bit of work but we love the location.

We’ve been waffling on buying a 20 barrel system vs. a 15 barrel system. The guys at JV Northwest have been extremely helpful and they recommend the 20 barrel system. I personally think we should go with their recommendation.

Our business plan continues to be modified. When we started it was around 200 pages and we’ve gotten some great feedback from multiple people on what is important for financing verses our strategy. We’ve been constantly refining the plan and it’s really been a great tool for what we need to do to be successful.

Cheers for now and happy Jazz Fest.

Karen

"Cheers to that" Senator Lisa Murkowski

Hi Hop Lovers,



Here is some food for thought that I borrowed from Alaska's Senator Lisa Murkowski on the craft beer industry in Alaska:



"Happy National Beer Day! Here are some fun beer facts:
Alaska’s 24 breweries produce 323 different beers.
Alaska ranks 4th among the states in terms of breweries per capita and 17th nationally in terms of beer production.
Our beer industry employs over 1,000 Alaskans and generates $150 million.
From Healy to Homer, from Fox to Skagway, Alaska’s brewing companies are a key component of our economies, communities and culture. They’re also a point of local pride. Cheers to that!"



Now, who do I call first?  David Vitter or Mary Landrieu?



Cheers y'all and happy Tuesday.
Karen

Where Y'at?

Hi Y’all, sorry for the delay in posting.  We’ve been busy.   Mark has been working with an engineering firm on the property build out as well as with the brewhouse supplier – JV Northwest.  We haven’t ordered the brewhouse yet but are hoping to this week.  Our original plan was to order a 15 barrel system BUT…  we’ll as you all may know, size matters so we are not thinking about a 20 barrel brewhouse.

Last weekend, Mark and I had the chance to get meet the owners of King Street Brewing Company.  Proprietors Shane and Dana gave us a private tour and were extremely generous with their knowledge on what they did well and what they wished they had done differently.  They brew great beer so if you get the chance you should check out their beer – Mark and I both like their IPA and their Pilsner.  They currently sell their products in draft and in cans and they have grown so much they are moving from a manual canning system to an automated canning line.

While Mark is busy working on the brewing and building, I’ve been working on our website design.  If all goes well, we should have our website launched in a few weeks.  I had no idea designing a website was…  let’s say… challenging.  I guess I was under the impression whoever designed it would manage it, write the copy, etc.  I was wrong!  I've also updated our business plan.  We received some good feedback from our fool network that our plan was too long so we've shortened it.  Our friend and finance expert Donnavan Swaby told us that we were giving away our strategic plan in our business plan but also said it was great that we did so much research; that's news well received.  We went from approximately 190 pages down to around 80.  It's an evergreen document so perhaps it will expand again one day.

Suzanne has been working the permitting with the City of New Orleans.  And, thus far, she has found the people at the permitting office to be quite easy to work with.  What a pleasant surprise.  In addition, she’s working on our marketing materials, as in pint glasses and t-shirts and stickers and such.  We're hoping to have our marketing materials together in time for Jazz Fest!

We’ve also been following the craft beer scene and want to congratulate the Cajun Fire team for their win of the Big Idea business pitch.  We wish them great success and perhaps one day we’ll do a collaboration together.

Cheers for now y’all.

Karen

And We're Waiting

We submitted our loan application for an SBA loan.  We’re hoping the loan comes back with a big ole APPROVED written across it.  While we’re waiting on the bank’s thumbs up or thumbs down you may wonder what we’re up to…  so here it is.  We’ve visited our friends at the City of New Orleans to try and figure out that process.  Apparently, the building will almost have to be ready for occupancy prior to receiving an Occupational License which means the business owner has to take a lot of financial risk before being approved to do business in the City that Care Forgot.  And, New Orleans does have a progressive One Stop Shop for permitting and everyone was extremely friendly (what a nice surprise) but the process on the City’s website isn’t accurate (shocking, right?).



So we’ve had our architect draw the building’s footprint.  It’s 12,000 square feet of multiple possibilities.  So how do you design a brewery layout with thinking about future expansion and without spending a ton of money on plumbing upgrades?  We’re working with our team trying to figure this out.  The great news is that the Lafitte Corridor Rails to Trails construction is set to begin in 2014.  Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could open in conjunction with the opening of the bike path (assuming the bike path does actually happen in 2014).  We really like the look of Great Raft’s brewery in Shreveport which means a road trip is in the near future.



We’re also updating our business plan.  Our finance genius has advised that we’re giving away too much of our long term strategy and that potential investors may yawn at its length.  That said, every hour we put into the plan was worth it and we love that we really dove down into the details.



Outside of the business plan updates, the actual footprint of the building and working with the TTB, we’re also ordering some swag to give away at Jazz Fest.  If you’re interested in a t-shirt and you are one of the first 15 people to email within the next thirty days with your address and let me know you read this blog and I’ll mail you a t-shirt in a few weeks.

Cheers for now,

Karen

We Signed the Lease

Hi Ya'll,

We signed the lease yesterday for a 12,000 square foot warehouse located in the Mid City neighborhood of New Orleans. We're super excited to have such a great location and a fun space to work with. The property backs up to the Lafitte Corridor which is in the process of being converted to a Rails to Trails. We will welcome the bike riders if the trail ever comes to be...

Now, the hard work starts. We have an enormous amount of work ahead of us including relocating from Anchorage to NOLA, getting all of the permits in place, designing the innards of a 12,000 square foot warehouse, improving the exterior of the space to provide curb appeal, all while brewing the great beer and having fun.

We're starting Chapter 2 today. Join us on the ride and be sure to drink good beer.

Cheers y'all,

Karen

And We Found a Building

We found a space in the Mid City neighborhood of New Orleans.  The spot is perfect for us now the rush is on.  We have a year to raise the capital we’ll need and to get our TTB permit and all of the Louisiana and City of New Orleans permits.  I wonder which agency will be the hardest to work with….   I have a good idea but I’ll hold my opinion for now.

 

What’s next?  Well, Mark and I have been thinking the same thing.  Here’s our list of must dos over the next few weeks:

 

1. Get the US Patent and Trademark Office off of their rears and review the trademark for our namesake, Second Line Brewing.


2. Wrap up our logo.


3. Brew some tasty beer – Mark and Jason are going to have a tasting panel for their delicious home brew.


4. Start the TTB paperwork.


5. Engage with an architect and get our new building up to par to hold our brewhouse and associated equipment.


6. Finish our private placement offering documents and term sheet.


7. Raise capital.


8. Order our brewhouse.


9. Get our name and logo out there.


10. 10. Hire some people.


11. 11. Move to New Orleans.


12. 12. Brew great beer!

 

Thus far, we’ve learned a ton.  We attended the course at the Oregon State on opening a craft brewery and as I type, Mark is headed back to Anchorage from UC Davis where he took a course on brewing science.   He’s met some great people and several that own smaller craft breweries and a few that work for some of the majors (i.e., Sierra Nevada).

 

Our business plan, for the most part is finished for now, although we’ll constantly be updating it as things change.  Writing the plan was worth all of the effort.  It took us about 6 months to get where we are today.  We had our accountant take a look at our pro forma and he gave us some pretty good suggestions on how to approach investors.   Mark handled that language pretty quickly.  We’ll see what our lawyer has to say when we hand the plan over to him.

That’s all for now y’all, but the dream is approaching reality.  The ride is just starting.  We hope you’ll continue to watch as we progress, and of course, we’d like for you to support our brand when we open.

Cheers,
Karen

Hello from St. Pete Beach, Florida

Hi y’all, Mark and I had the chance to visit Green Bench Brewing in St. Petersburg, Florida yesterday.  They are a brand new production brewery.  They opened approximately 3 months ago and have a great brewery, tasting room and outdoor seating / yard area.  When we arrived at the brewery yesterday, they were sponsoring a yoga class.  There were about 100 people out in the yard getting their bodies in shape so they’d be nice and thirsty for a cold brew when they finished their workout.

Green Bench has 18,000 square feet.  Of that their brewery is located in about 4,500 square feet their tasting room is 1,500 square feet and the remainder is nicely organized outside space.  They are brewing on a 15 barrel JV Northwest brewing system.  They have several fermenters including an oak barrel fermenter called an oak foundres– that was a first for me; I’ve seen lots of oak barrels but this is actually an oak barrel fermenter.  Pretty cool.

Their tap room was really well designed and is an open and airy space.  They have a great bar for people who want to either grab their beer to go or get it to go in a cup to sit outside.

I had their Green Bench IPA which was a very hoppy and nice IPA.  While Mark and I were enjoying their tasting room, Khris, the brewer invited everyone in the tasting room for a tour.  Mark and I quickly joined the group of about 20 and were invited into the brewery side of the property.  Khris is really enthusiastic and quite knowledgeable.  He gave a detailed explanation of their name and the brewing process as a whole.  We were all offered a free beer so I chose the Saison de Blanc Vert which is a light farm ale.  It may be the best farm ale I’ve had to date.  It certainly was the freshest.  This is the first brewery I’ve toured where they’ve had the farm ale on tap.



Where can you buy some Green Bench brew?  Well for now, it’s only available in St. Petersburg and in Tampa.  I guess that means you’ll need to hit the beach and take a brewery tour while you are here.  In the past year, 5 or so breweries have opened in the area.  Most offer tours.  I’m hoping we make it to 3 Daughters, I hear that their tasting room is in the middle of the brewery.

Cheers for now y’all.  Enjoy the photos.

 

Karen  

Happy New Year from NOLA!

Hi Y’all,
Happy New Year and Cheers from New Orleans.  Mark and I made the trip to NOLA for an end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 visit.  We’ve been busy since our arrival…  We’ve looked at three potential brewery properties, have met with our lawyer and banker and best of all got to meet our brewer Jason Weissberg in person.

 

Before we head back to the almost North Pole, we’re hoping to decide on a property and we have two on our shortlist.  If all goes as planned, we’ll have a lease agreed to in short order and we’ll be forced to order the brewhouse.  We’ve decided on a manufacturer and now just need to ink the paperwork.  We’re waiting to ensure we have a place to install it so we’re not putting the horse before the cart although it’s quite exciting to think about.

 

The business plan is just about wrapped up.  We hope to hand over a draft copy to our banker tomorrow and then get our Private Placement Memorandum completed in a couple of weeks.  Mark and I have done a lot of research on the Securities and Exchange Commission requirements and Blue Sky Laws.  Legalize is complicated to say the least but I think we’re in a great spot.

 

Tomorrow we take Jason by a few of the properties.  It will be interesting to get his take and then hopefully we can reach an agreement with a great landlord and start the brewery build out process.

 

More to come in the next few days!

 

Cheers,

Karen

It Feels Like We're Getting Close!

Hi Y’all, it’s been a while.  We are rapidly pulling the business plan together to present to our banker when we arrive in New Orleans at the end of December.  We’ve also hired a lawyer to help us finalize our Operating Agreement and develop our term sheet for potential investors.  We’re following the Private Placement Offering (PPO) sometimes referred to as the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM).   Unfortunately, we’ll need to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission and we need to ensure we’re in compliance with state Blue Sky Laws.  The legalese is complicated but certainly manageable.



We have found the perfect property and it’s located in Mid City.  We’re working with the property owner to negotiate a deal that will give us some relief on the terms of the lease agreement should we not be able to get our Alcohol and Tobacco, Trade and Tax Bureau (TTB) permit and our non-conforming use permit from the City of New Orleans.   Manufacturing alcohol is capital intensive on the front end.  Basically, you can’t apply for any of your permits until you have a signed lease agreement or you own the property where your brewery will be located.  There is no way around this.



Our current plan is to present our business plan to our banker and lawyer at the end of January.  Have our lawyer finalize our Operating Agreement and develop our investor Term Sheet and then start raising capital.  In conjunction with this, we are hoping to sign the lease agreement on the great piece of property we’ve found.  Once the lease is signed, we’ll file the TTB papers and start the NOLA permitting process.  If the stars align, Mark will head to New Orleans in June to receive our brewery and we’ll have our brewery and tap room up and operating by January 1, 2015.  Happy New Year’s Y’all.



We’re planning on selling a lot of draft and “bombers”.  We’re also looking at a canning line.



Well, I’d better get back to finalizing the business plan.

Cheers Y’all!



Karen

Financing the Brewery

Hi Y’all,

Happy Thanksgiving to you!  We’re in Seattle doing some recon on good craft beer.  We’ve been to several choice restaurants and the numbers of local brews that are available is really impressive.  Perhaps one day, Louisiana and NOLA will have as many offerings.

 

We’re chugging along on the business plan.  We head to New Orleans on December 29^th and we want to meet with our banker at First Bank and Trust to discuss financing.  We found some great help at score.org.   It’s a website dedicated to free small business advice.   One of our larger challenges is figuring out the profitability and company worth.  We have a few gaps – we need quotes for insurance – business interruption, worker’s compensation, inventory, etc.  We hope to get those by the end of next week.  The other challenge is developing the pro forma without a piece of real estate.  And, speaking of real estate – the $500k question is do we lease or buy?  Again, we’re huge fans of buying but that will lock up some cash.

 

As soon as the pro forma is complete, we’ll meet with our legal team in New Orleans; they’re going to help us put together a term sheet so we can go out and raise money through a Private Placement Offering (PPO) or a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM).  They’re the same.  We need to figure out where we want to price the offering.  We’re hoping the legal team can help with this.

 

Our logo is almost finished, our designer Jennifer Carbuto has been doing a great job.  When the logo is complete we’ll get Secondlinebrewing.com up and running.

 

Cheers for now y’all,

 

Karen

Here's an Interesting Article

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2013/11/lakefront-brewery-bringing-back.html

The Business Plan. Part 2.

Here’s and update on where we are with the business plan.  We submitted it to the Oregon State competition and apparently there are better writers out there; we didn’t win.  Ho hum.  We did receive very positive feedback.  And in the meantime, we’ve been busting a hump day and night working on updating the business plan.
Here are the basics of the plan:

 

1. Executive Summary


2. Company Overview (who, what, where, when, why)


3. Products and Services


4. Beer Market Analysis


5. Our Market Segmentation


6. Demand


7. Demographics, Etc.


8. Industry Analysis


9. Our Business Strategy


10. Our Marketing Strategy (lots of stuff on social networking!)


11. Operations (including HR!)


12. And…  Profitability - we’re still working the end.

 

Our goal is to have our completed business plan to our banker by December 15^th for a face-to-face meeting in early January.

The business plan is a labor of love.  The more we read and learn, the more we want to keep updating the business plan.  The line in the sand will be drawn on December 15^th for the banker.  The line will be erased on December 16^th as we progress.

 

We’ve got a lead on a piece of property.  It may be a financial leap but it’s all that we could ask for and more.  Ten thousand square feet of light industrial warehouse space in a “hot” part of New Orleans.

 

More to come y’all!

 

Karen

What does it take to start a Brewery?

[caption id="attachment_142" align="alignnone" width="225"] http://www.blackberryfarm.com/brewery/landing[/caption]

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

Happy Winter to Everyone!

Hi Y’all,
We’re still in Anchorage churning the business plan.  We had our first snow today which is quite late for Anchorage; in general there is snow on the ground by Halloween.  So have you been wondering what we’ve been up to?  Well, it doesn’t take a whole lot to figure us out – it’s the business plan.

 

Mark continues to pull together the market research and I’ve been doing my best to refine the numbers.  Thus far, we’ve spoken with our banker, two lawyers and have interviewed several marketing people and brewmasters.  We’ve learned a lot.  For starters there are a lot of talented people in the brewing world.  If you build it, they will come.  Second, the legalize is a bitch.  Third, we’re closer than ever.

 

Mark talked to our banker last week and the banker thinks we won’t have an issue getting a loan.  Great news.  Now we need to figure out if we are going to lease or own the property.  For those of you who know me know that I am a firm believer of leveraging in order to own real estate.  What never loses value in New Orleans?  Real estate – even after Hurricane Katrina real estate prices continued to rise.  So now we need to search high and low for that perfect location.

 

Brewhouses – man there are a bunch of options out there.  We’re headed to Seattle for Thanksgiving and that will be our opportunity to check out the brewhouse manufactures.  I’ve printed a map, if all goes well, we’ll try and hit at least one brewery per day…

 

Ok, I guess I’ve rambled on enough.  What do we need help on?  I’ll tell you, figuring out the number of kegs per tap handle account is a challenge.  If any of you probrewers  are out there reading this, I sure could use some help.
Cheers for now,

Karen

Less than 24 Hours to Go on the Business Plan

Hi Y'all,

It's been a busy few weeks... part of the course at Oregon State was a business plan competition. The winner of the competition gets to spend two weeks working as a paid intern at the Ninkasi Brewery. Now this is a true prize for someone who is interested in starting a production brewery.

We have to submit our plan by 11 a.m. tomorrow morning and to tell you the truth, I'm quite impressed with ours. We've run our numbers and it looks as though we'll be profitable at the end of year 2! Now that's something to cheers to... Hopefully our friends, fools and family will think the same and have interest in investing in our dream of running a production craft brewery.

We'll keep you posted on our success of lack there of. Other exciting news is we've filed our LLC paperwork and we're working on a logo with a graphic design firm in NOLA.

When our logo is done, we'll be sure to share - perhaps some of you might want to comment.

Cheers for now and happy Friday,

Karen

Sustainability and Responsibility

 

Greetings all!

Well just received our syllabus for the Craft Brewery Start-up Workshop in Bend, Ore. on September 9^th.   It was refreshing to see that along with many of the typical topics one would assume would be discussed (e.g. finance, operations, logistics) was  sustainability.  Given that there are, at last count, 2,483 microbreweries in the United States, sustainability is a clearly a topic that all current and future microbrewery owners need to address.

Many of the larger microbrewers have already taken steps towards sustainability and beyond.  New Belgium, for example, approaches sustainability from the perspective of core company values, environmental metrics, sourcing and community.  Similarly, Sierra Nevada has had a long commitment to supporting the cause of sustainability and has a very extensive webpage detailing the steps that they are taking to continually improve their processes, energy efficiency/generation and minimize waste.

All along we’ve been considering how we can make our brewery, even in the start-up phase, more consistent with the tenets of sustainability; it will be interesting to hear how others are tackling this problem as start-up microbreweries.

 

Switching from sustainability to responsibility, the New York Times today featured the results of a small study out of Johns Hopkins which found that five beer brands were prevalent among emergency room patients who had consumed beer within the 6 hours prior to their presentation to the emergency room (Budweiser, Steel Reserve, Colt 45, Bud Ice, and Bud Light).  Moreover, nearly 46% of beer consumed by emergency room patients in this study was accounted for by four malt liquors (Steel Reserve – 8.1% ABV, Colt 45 – 6% ABV, Bud Ice – 5.5% ABV and King Cobra – 6% ABV), despite the fact that these four accounted for less than 2 percent of the beer consumed among Americans.

While things like study size, study location, demographics, etc make it difficult to interpret the implications of this study, the authors did suggest these results suggest that there should be better labeling on malt liquor beverages and less marketing. They also recommend a higher tax on beverages with higher alcohol content to discourage people from drinking more potent brands.

With many craft beers in the 6.5 – 7.5% ABV range, changes such as those suggested by the researchers conducting the above study, could have a significant impact on craft beer producers.  Consequently, like sustainability, responsibility and education are major considerations in the development of our business plan.

With the old adage, “all work and no play” in mind, it’s time to start brewing again.  Our recent first tap gathering has depleted our stores of tasty homebrew, with our robust porter being the latest victim.

The last of our experimental IPA batches (with single aromatic hops) is about to come out of the fermentor and will be transferred to a keg for dry hopping later this week.  While we wait for it to mature we are beginning work on a “sessionable” IPA recipe.  Our first attempt will draw from the taste profiles of our single aromatic hop IPA’s to date; can’t wait to get back to brewing.

More to come.

First Tap

Was able to try a few of our new beers out on friends last night and it was a resounding success.  We used a standardized beer tasting questionnaire from Beerology in the hopes of gathering helpful feedback for the next batches.  There was some great comments and all positive reviews.  Next time we’ll do a blind comparison with a “gold standard” of that particular style as the comparator. 

Our two latest beers are an American pale ale and a Cascade IPA.  The latter is part of an IPA series we’re doing featuring a single aromatic hop.  Our thoughts are to appreciate the taste of these aromatic hops solo before putting them together for a more complex flavor profile.  

In the meantime, we are working away on our business plan and have begun to talk to banks about financing.  Last week we were able to obtain the particulars for the Pegas Craft Tap and Novotap growler filling system (http://pegasdistusa.com/pegas-novotap/).  We first became acquainted with this system when we were in Russia a few years ago.  It’s a great system that allows a growler (both glass and plastic) to be filled under an atmosphere of carbon dioxide in about a minute with minimal waste (the Pegas distributor website states growler loss is as high as 30-40%).  The benefits for the consumer is that the beer tastes better longer and with the use of polyethylene two liter bottles it can be transported to the beach, fish camp, or camping without worrying about dealing with a large glass growler.  For the craft brewer  the benefit is that the quality of the beer will be preserved and there is a minimal amount of product loss due to foam over, etc.  

There are still some issues obtaining the brown polyethylene bottles (necessary to prevent UV damage to the beer) in the US but we have some ideas for a work around to this issue that will also tie in with our marketing plan.   

[caption id="attachment_83" align="aligncenter" width="130"] Pegas Craftap[/caption]

In the meantime we continue to brew.  Today we brewed another of our IPA series.  This one features Ahtanum.  Ahtanum has a decidedly floral presence with some spice and a bit of pine thrown in for good measure.  It isn’t nearly as popular as Amarillo, Centennial or Cascade for dry hopping and its aromatic properties but from what we could tell from today’s batch, it’s a tasty little hop. 

More to come.