Hi all,
I am interested in opening a brew pub, but want to start with a homerew supply shop. Does anyone have experiences doing this in the past? Does the idea sound logical to everyone out there?
Thank you for your input!
Read this thread, spend extra time on the note from Gary Glass that was pasted in.
You could even contact Gary Glass and see if there are updates.
Edit - the link is needed.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=6594.0
There was a place in town that “was a beer bar” that sold wine and beer making supplies. It was a homebrew shop for sure, but he sold craft beer on draft not his own.
I think you could combine the two. After consuming a couple of your excellent beers the customers might just pick up the starter equipment and give it a whirl too.
This sounds like pretty much what Wild Wolf Brewing in Virginia did. First time I was there, they were a homebrew shop and they added their own growler fills. Now they’ve moved up to being a full brew pub.
Drydock in Denver did the same thing. http://www.drydockbrewing.com/
NoCal Brewing Solutions is in the process of building out their brewery.
Ballast Point is another example of homebrew shop to a brewery.
Black Dragon in Woodland CA is also doing that. they havn’t got the tap room up yet but the store is going strong.
You guys make sound so easy.
I already have a brewery.
May be I should jump on easy ride 
Now serious. It can be nice fit.
I’ve seen it going that way too, usually when brewers get tired of homebrewers asking them for ingredients
Retail is both easy and hard. We have a tackle store in a vacation area. Our customers tend to come in waves. The store is either swamped or dead. I’m here more than 12 hours a day, almost every day. So it’s a huge time suck, but I do have time throughout the day to hang out on the AHA forums.
Some of our customers require a lot of education, much like those in a homebrew store would. This can be either really fun, or really frustrating, depending on who you’re trying to teach. Dealing with people all day can be exhausting too, but in a different way than mucking out mash tuns or carrying sacks of grain around.
My local brewery also has a homebrew store. I think it is working out quite nicely for them. Get regular patrons interested in homebrewing…they offer classes. I have seen quite a few people wander around the shop with a beer in their hand checking out the goods.
That’s how Larry Bell started out. Now he brews hundreds of thousands of barrels a year.
Good luck. It seems like a good plan, so long as you are in a location that will be busy. Location, Location, Location! I wish you well.