the session

Session #75: Making beer & making money

The SessionChuck Lenatti at Allbrews hosts The Session #75: The Business of Brewing. He’s looking for comments and observations from those who have first-hand knowledge about the complexities and pitfalls of starting a commercial brewery.

Nineteen years ago this week Daria and I sat down at the bar in Armadillo Brewing on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, and ordered beer. The brewing tanks were right behind the bar, so close that the bartender had to step around the brewer, who was drawing a sample from the mash tun. The brewer proceeded to squeeze an eye dropper of iodine into the sample to see if starches in the grains had converted to sugar (and the wort was ready to boil). Basic homebrewing stuff, but something I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen in a commercial brewery.

But how was the beer? Lousy, but not infected. The guys behind the bar, apparently owners, had a copy of Steve Johnnson’s On Tap: A Field Guide to North American Brewpubs and Craft Breweries in hand and were talking about where they might open their next brewery.

When we checked a year later Armadillo was out of business. Eventually, another owner gave brewing a shot in the same building, opening Katie Bloom’s Irish Pub. That didn’t work, although Katie Bloom’s continued to operate after selling off the brewing equipment. One time when we were in Texas we drove by and the storefront was vacant. Today Pure Ulta Lounge “brings the excitement of Miami’s South Beach” to 419 E. Sixth Street.

The beer was better at the Armadillo than Babe’s: The Brewery in Des Moines, a large downtown restaurant that added a brewery because . . . actually, I’m not quite sure why. Every beer we tried there was buttery, and some of it was sour as well. A pleasant level of diacetyl is one thing. This was something else.

As we admired the duct tape used to repair a tear in the fabric of our booth we listened to a customer at the bar. He was leaving town for an extended trip and talking about how much he’d miss the beer, because he knew he’d find nothing he liked as much while traveling.

The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own BreweryCoincidentally, Babe’s was located at 417 Sixth Avenue. However the lesson here is not to avoid opening a brewery in the 400 block on a Sixth street. It is to know what the hell you are doing and be careful who you listen to. In announcing the topic this month Lenatti wrote, “Making beer is the easy part, building a successful business is hard.” Yes, it’s important to understand that there’s more to the business than brewing beer. But you really need to know how to make great beer, and then to assure it is great clear to the consumer’s glass.

The best advice I can offer somebody thinking about opening a brewery is don’t. But if you must, consider reading The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery (revised edition) before doing anything else. [See disclaimer below.]

The Table of Contents should convince you. The updated version ships in June and both Brewers Publications and Amazon are taking preorders now.

*****

Diclaimer: Brewers Publications published three of my books — For the Love of Hops, Brew Like a Monk, and Brewing With Wheat — so we have something of a relationship.

Session #75 topic announced: The Business of Brewing

The SessionChuck Lenatti at Allbrews has posted the topic for The Session #75: The Business of Brewing. He’s looking for comments and observations from those who have first-hand knowledge about the complexities and pitfalls of starting a commercial brewery.

Like sandlot baseball players or schoolyard basketball junkies, many amateur brewers, including some beer-brewing bloggers, harbor a secret dream: They aspire to some day “go pro.” They compare their beer with commercial brews poured in their local pubs and convince themselves that they’ve got the brewing chops it takes to play in the Bigs. Some of them even make it, fueling the dream that flutters in the hearts of many other home brewers yearning to see their beer bottles on the shelves at City Beer or their kegs poured from the taps at Toronado.

Creating a commercial brewery consists of much more than making great beer, of course. It requires meticulous planning, careful study and a whole different set of skills from brewing beer. And even then, the best plan can still be torpedoed by unexpected obstacles. Making beer is the easy part, building a successful business is hard.

Back in the late 1990s, Daria and I wrote the “Microbreweries You Never Heard Of’ Column for Brew Your Own magazine. Some of the breweries we wrote about — such as Left Hand Brewing, Weyerbacher Brewing and, Saint Arnold Brewing — turned into major successes. Most, at least, are still in business, but there were a few less than brilliant choices. Remember Stone City Brewing in Iowa?

I think it is as important to observe what the survivors did right as the others didn’t do right.

(To participate in The Session, write a post on the topic May 3 and drop Chuck a note.)

The Session #74 roundup posted

The SessionBryan Roth has posted the roundup for The Session #74: Finding the Balance.

Lot of participants this month, interesting reading. I was struck by the amount of thought many of the bloggers gave to where and how beer fits into their lives. That’s just one more thing that’s different than it was in the mid-1970s.

I makes me thankful to have beer worth paying attention to, but reminds me not to pay too much attention.

The Session #74: Pray for me

The SessionThe topic for the 74th gathering of The Session is “Finding Beer Balance.” Visit This Is Why I’m Drunk to see what everybody else is writing. It will be more interesting than the sad story that follows.

A.J. Liebling — a journalist who ate and drank to excess, and who described himself as bald, overweight, and gluttonous — once wrote: “The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down. Each day bring only two opportunities for field work, and they are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol. They are indispensable, like a prizefighter’s hours on the road…. A good appetite gives an eater room to turn around.”

Liebling wrote very well about food. He was not an advocate of balance.

I write about beer. I’m pretty much bald and I can be gluttonous. Food, drink, zydeco, smoked meat, the theater, the theatre, high school basketball (in a previous life), things worth doing seem worth doing to excess.

I’m not sure this is going to end well.

The Session #73 wrapped up

The SessionAdam at Pints and Pubs has posted the roundup for The Session #73: Beer Audit.

There turned out to be a lot more going on than simply auditing, as his wrapup illustrates. He divides the posts into:

– Auditing.
– Hoarding.
– Ageing.
– Drink it now!

He even comes to a conclusion.

It was fascinating and occasionally mouthwatering reading through the responses. I was glad to discover I wasn’t alone in hoarding beer, counting my beer, and then failing to drink it. But I also want a less precious relationship with beer, that some have managed, where beer doesn’t become too special to drink.

But does he manage to open the bottle that’s already been in the cupboard too long?