Hello everyone, just wondering if anyone could help me with a project I have going on. Last year I tried to start a beer company using contract brewing and ended up aborting it because the price was too high. Now I want to open a nano brewery, since Massachusetts shot down the bill to force owners of the farmers brewery license to produce 50% of the crops in the beer. If anyone has any information about running a nano brewery or any helpful information at all, please email me at your earliest connivence. Happy holidays and cheers!
Congrats to you on taking the first step, it is a scary one at that. I should know as I am about 6 weeks from getting my TTB license.
First step: Find a building and then check the zoning requirements with county, city etc etc.. I went this route and found several areas in which my nano could proceed in. I needed something in the "Commercial Retail" zoned areas of my town. The TTB requires a place to be rented for about 3 months during the licensing phase, so get the building cleared before you fill out any applications. This will save a lot of time back & forth. Trust me, I went through 3 building before I found my current location.
2nd Step: Check with your Alcohol & Beverage Control office and find out if you can distribute your beer or do you need a middle man. In California, I can retail my beer out in the tasting room, and sell to bars, restaurants, and stores on my own. I can keep most of the profits "in house" regardless of who buys the beer. Find out how long the ABC licensing process is. Ours was about 3 months, same as the TTB, so I had to get them going at the same time.
3rd: Filed a fictitious business statement so I could open a business bank account, and it was needed for the TTB.
4th: Get ready for the TTB paperwork. My application was 40 pages long by the time I sent it to them. Also the redundancy between the fed and state paperwork was a killer (surely there can be some streamlining somewhere).
5th: Get ready to have cash on hand to purchase equipment. A good source is probrewer.com. But you need to act fast and ask for references on the equipment. I was talking to one guy about a 7 bbl system, but he could not provide any references, as he stated once he sold the equipment he didn't follow up anymore. Red flag! He lost a customer with that statement. I chose a smaller system that pro breweries use as a pilot batch system that has consistency from batch to batch. That was KEY! I know I will have to do double brew days, but I feel better about being consistent.
6th: Spend more on the cold side, fermentation vessels & brite tanks, than you think you will need. Several 7 & 10 bbl brewers in the area have a choke point on fermenters, thus limiting them. I am going twice as big for the house beers (8 bbls) and smaller on the rotating beers (not sure about those sizes yet, but probably 4 bbls).
7th: Best way to make a small fortune in a nano is to start with a large fortune. (just seeing if you read this far)
8th: Good luck!! I'm sure there is more to offer. As i think of things i will post more...
Aaron
Cambria Beer Company (soon to be)