I have been looking for info / ideas for brewing on premises and how well local markets support the concept.
Appreciate thoughts or experiences from the group.
Thanks,
Ron
no expert, but the LHBS here use these places as their bread and butter. i believe they do it from extract but not sure. i also know a lot of people do wine brew on premises. i know a lot more people who make their own wine than beer, and a fair number do it on premise.
There used to be a homebrew shop that did BOP and brewed on a small pilot system here in Denver. They were in a high cost area with a high density of mostly younger people who might want to brew but also might not have space in their apartment or condo to brew. Made a ton of sense right up to the dip in homebrewing popularity when they couldn’t afford rent and closed.
Thanks. My LHBS doesn’t brew on premises here in northern VA. Closest place is about 50 miles away, which in traffic here will take 1.5-2 hours.
I was thinking about one in Old Town Alexandria to attract the pedestrian crowd there.
I was also looking at Huntsville AL - no current homebrew store in the area but a pretty robust brewpub / taproom set.
FWIW I live in Huntsville and I am one of the founders of Yellowhammer Brewing. For whatever reason homebrew shops aren’t able to stay in business here in spite of the craft brew scene and at least 2 homebrew clubs. That said, if you are seriously interested PM me and we can talk ideas.
Having back end knowledge of commercial brewing ingredient and production costs, I believe the only way to do this profitably is to offer a few base styles and give some customization options on the post fermentation processes/ingredients. To brew individual small batches with complete customization is very expensive and time consuming. The only way I think you would profit off of it is by doing so in a contract brewing capacity and batch sizes of 10 bbl or more for B2B sales and white labeling.
That said, another way to be profitable is not off the brewing process itself, but creating an experience where the customers ultimately hang out and drink your house beers in a tasting room setting while their batch is being brewed. So long as they pay $6-7 per pint, that would be profitable enough to offset the brewing expense of their own batch and cover your overhead and labor. However, strictly custom brew on premise profitability is hard to achieve and the market for it has dwindled in recent years.
My vision of making the place work is kind of the way you describe, it becomes a destination and experience they pay for, making the beer is a premium. They drinking while they brew either house beer or local craft beer to tie the theme back together.