I’m green. Never been up the coast past Lincoln City. But I have had Pelican brews at the OBF in July ;D
Doryman’s Dark is one of my faves. That’s what I’m planning on starting with today!
Congratulations to you and your wife on your anniversary, Denny!!
I would love to open a brewery someday. I have a lot of learning to do first though.
Kansas has the three tier distribution system. This is a huge turnoff. I can’t imagine how much is lost in paying the middleman. I also am unsure if I would want to run a restaurant. I’ve never worked in food, but it doesn’t seem like something I would want to do. If I did have a brewpub I would want it to be small.
Maybe something like this:
http://mosbrewpub.com/
A little more glamorous, but something like that. Small, quaint, personal.
30 years, thats an accomplishment in our times
Congrats to you and the misses
Appetizers
[quote]Calamari – $12.99
The best calamari you’ll ever have! Lightly breaded and fried, served with classic marinara and remoulade. Pairing: Kiwanda Cream Ale
[/quote]
OR
[quote]Crab Cakes– $12.99
Dungeness and Rock Crab combined wth our special seasoning blend. Served with two sauces, the first is a sweet grilled red onion - mango salsa , the second is a warm citrus - habenero vinaigrette. Pairing: Kiwanda Cream Ale
[/quote]
Dinner
[quote]IPA Poached Wild Pacific Salmon – $22.99
Poached in IPA-orange juice, honey & spices. Served over a purple potato-fennel hash, braised red chard, and green peppercorn Beer Blanc. Pairing: Kiwanda Cream Ale
[/quote]
OR
[quote]Pacific Coast Crab Cakes – $19.99
Dungeness & Rock crab meat with onion, celery and Japanese breadcrumbs. Served with a sweet grilled red onion - mango salsa and a warm citrus - habanero vinaigrette. Crab cakes are served with steamed rice & coleslaw. Very nice paired with MacPelican’s Scottish Ale
[/quote]
Dessert
A scoop of Vanilla in Doryman’s Dark Ale
+1
Wow…30 years!
That’s great.
Congrats.
If the brewery can make 10% on bottled beer, they’re doing very well. (I don’t know anything about KS’ system, but I bet that still applies.)
You lost me on that number. Ten percent of (wholesale or retail) price is all that goes to the brewery? Or ten percent is NET profit? Just not sure exactly what was trying to be said there.
Way to go Denny on the 30 years! . . My wife and I will celebrate 30 in October as well.
Apparently, brewers are better lovers! ;D
Good luck to you.
I am sure you know it but you might be a little under capitalized.
Once I did the math and the amount of beer I would have to make/sell (as a production brewery) was significant.
7barrel is not enough.
General consensus was if you have production brewery you need at least 20 barrel system.
To turn the profit you need to make 3,000 barrels/year.
And what is the most expensive is your tank space and cooperage.
Then you will think twice about converted kegs.
One more thing that gets overlooked is water usage, waste water, and amount of energy you need to make a beer.
I am on your team and holding my fingers crossed for you.
10% profit on the beer. The brewery is generally getting somewhere between a third and half of the cost of the six-pack, of which at most 10% (3-5% of the retail cost) is their profit margin.
A little under capitalized? You gotta be kidding. That’s major under capitalized. 
However, I if you did the math on a 7bbl system and you came up short you did your numbers wrong. Not saying it is enough to get rich on but you can break even much smaller than this. I have friends in the brewing industry who are making a profit on a 7bbl system.
I don’t have a 7bbl system - not even close. But hope to within a year. I do have a system that is capable of running over 2bbl at a time. That’s the crazy part.
Where does the $100 profit per barrel number come from? That make a lot of assumptions around cost of goods sold—and price of goods sold—doesn’t it? I can’t imagine this would be a stagnant number, but much more dynamic based on the individual business conditions.
LOL! You guys crack me up. I guess I should have checked with the forum first before I made business plans. ;D Actually … I’m just making this stuff up. Haven’t been researching it for over 6 months… I’m just making “assumptions”… :
;) Seriously, I have met with the local distributor, have talked to local brewers - have even seen the sales numbers for several local breweries and what they sell their kegs for. I have a pretty solid idea what they make off a bbl of beer and what our resources are going to be. The hundred bucks is a round figure I’m throwing out for you guys - there’s no need to go into it in detail. Let’s just say for the amount of time involved it is not a lot of money. I’m pretty crazy to be doing this - but I’m not totally unprepared.
How about we build a Public Domain business plan? You know like the legal forms you can buy at Staples or Office Max.
There’s engineers, accountants, a couple of brewers, probably one or two guys who talk good and can write stuff gooder than the rest of us. Disagreements can be settled with a poll. Then everyone can open a brewery.
Wow. Just curious. Thought this was a discussion board…
Apologies if I came off too strong. Just sayin’ - I’ve worked my ass off on this thing and … yeah … it’s a little scary. But I do have an idea what I am talking about and I just think it is funny that someone would second guess that I am simply making assumptions. To a certain extend though, everything is an assumption until you jump into it - sure.
I wish you luck, Major! So is the reason for “quitting” your job? Do you have a name for the company yet?
Thanks Roff - my job situation set me up for this. I have a name and will unveil all soon. We are really close.
I agree. Numbers can be run under many scenarios, so to say one profit level applies to all cases, just isn’t so…
[/quote]
Obviously I was just giving a white wash answer. I’m not required, nor do I feel compelled to provide all the details. For the beers we plan to start out with we are expecting about 100 bucks per bbl. No where near enough, unfortunately. You may consider my “100 bucks per bbl” quote for illustration purposes only. Obviously YMMV. I do, however, appreciate all the insight.
I knew you were going for it.