Currently we are working on local self-distribution. Our next step would be to do some larger regional distribution and get outside the town and the county.
The biggest risk to any small business and particularly to a small brewery is to believe your local press and grow too quickly. It's easy to become excited at the prospect of launching into distribution contracts with distributors who will take a significant chunk of your revenue to cart your beer off to God knows where only to return half of it because somebody somewhere has never heard of you before.
Now, if the distributor didn't take care of your kegs in transit, or if the end-client didn't take care of your kegs you may have beer that got over-heated or over-cooled. Thus you have bad beer coming back to your brewery for one reason or another. Suddenly you have beer returning that you have to dump. You don't get paid for that. The distributor doesn't pay you JACK for beer they don't sell. See, they don't have any skin in the game. (They don't really tell you that up front...) So if anything goes wrong for any reason, you just eat it.
The other issue is on the OTHER end of the spectrum. Let's say your beer is VERY well received. Suddenly your little 10 barrel system that has already been taxed to the hilt just to keep YOUR little taproom full is now being asked to send kegs all over the 3rd biggest state in the union. Sleep much?
There is a GREAT deal to be said for taking it slow and controlling your growth. I have one partner who is balls to the wall to grow like mad. He's the taproom guy and he sees people enjoying the beer. He gets that people LIKE the product. He doesn't spend 12 to 16 hour days in the brewhaus making and transferring beer around tanks trying to keep up with the demand up there. He just gets to complain to me when one of our "favorite beers" (Have I mentioned they're ALL FAVORITES,) go off tap because we can't keep up with current demand. In a very good way this is positive because it creates a natural supply and demand scenario where our products are constantly sought after. People know that a given product is highly in demand and you'd better get it while it's hot so to speak. On the other hand, it can create some irritation. When you come in and ask for a "Crazy Beautiful" it only takes a few times of hearing "That's off tap this week" before you say, "I wonder what they have over at brewery X?"
So... We need to manage our growth. We need to grow, but in a way that We can control and maintain and that makes sense for us so we don't implode.
Breweries are hard man...